Aunty Rose looked down at her with unchanging countenance, but Carolyn May looked fearlessly up into the woman’s face. No amount of grimness there could trouble the child now. For she knew something else about Aunty Rose. The housekeeper loved her!
“Yes, you didn’t have your little babies long enough to learn how to cuddle and snug ’em up. That’s it. You ought to learn, Aunty Rose.”
“What for?” asked Aunty Rose Kennedy rather sharply.
“Why! so you could take me up into your lap and hug and kiss me—just as my mamma used to do.”
“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, I guess, Car’lyn May,” said Aunty Rose. “Seems to me too much hugging spoils children.”
“Oh, no, indeed!” cried the little girl confidently. “Never! My papa used to snug me up lots. Do you know what he used to call me?”
“No.”
“It was just for fun, you know. Just a pet name. Snuggy. He ’most always called me that. ’Cause I liked to be snuggled up.”
The next morning early Carolyn May, with Prince, went over into the churchyard and found the three little stones in a row. She knew they must be the right ones, for there was a bigger stone, with the inscription, “Frank Kennedy, beloved spouse of Rose Kennedy,” upon it. “Spouse” puzzled the little girl at first, but she felt timid about asking Aunty Rose about it.