“What’s the matter with your hands, Katy?”
Katy’s face lost its satisfied smirk, but she held her hands for a closer inspection.
“Kid gloves, aren’t they scrumptious? Don’t you wish you had some, girls? I’d a lot rather have kid gloves than be in your old cantata.”
Chicken Little started to protest, but Alice anticipated her.
“They make your hands look awfully big, Katy!”
Katy’s face fell. She had lovely tiny hands and was proud of them. She looked anxiously at the gloves then took one off and put the bare hand beside the gloved one, surveying them critically.
“I don’t think so,” she said pluckily after a moment gulping down her disappointment.
Alice couldn’t bear that hurt look in the child’s face even in a good cause and speedily relented.
“Neither do I, Katy, those gloves are fine! I was only teasing. But, Katy, that’s the way you talked to Jane and Gertie about being fairies. ’Twasn’t real kind was it, Katy? You know how it feels yourself now.”
Katy didn’t say anything but she understood and she remembered. She was a shrewd child and a generous one when her sympathies were aroused.