Page:Betty Gordon in Washington.djvu/95

Rh Lottie and Baby were firm friends with Miss Betty.

"I never knew any one as lovely as you are!" The gratitude of the woman was touching. "I was just about crazy. My husband tipped the porter, and he did try to look after me, but he didn't know what to do. Usually there is a maid on this train, they told us, but she was taken sick, and there wasn't time to get any one to fill her place. Now don't let the children bother you. They had their breakfast early, and I can read to them till we get to Willowvale where their grandmother will meet us."

But Betty had not finished. She loved the feel of soft little arms about her neck and there was not much connected with a baby's welfare she did not know about. Many a Pineville baby she had washed and dressed and fed as correctly as a model baby should be.

"Let me take them one at a time and tidy them up?" she suggested. "They'll take to it kindly, because I am new and that will lend to the washing a novelty. If we go in relays, we can't upset the whole car."

So first with Lottie, and then with Baby, who seemed to be without other name, Betty went into the dressing-room and there washed pink and white faces and hands till they shone, and brushed silk locks till they lay straight and shining. Clean