Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/14

 his wedding day he made Betsy a present, which remained her dearest possession as long as she lived. It was a large glass pin, containing a lock of her father's hair, and bordered with a row of small seed-pearls. On the golden back was inscribed, in old English letters.

She wore it on Sundays, and when the minister came to tea, and at the christenings and weddings of her nieces and nephews. The rest of the time it reposed in a small satin-lined box, together with a carnelian ring which her mother thought she was too old to wear, and a stray onyx sleeve-button which had belonged to her father.

She felt sorry to have Ben go, and she told him so, in an unsteady voice that went to the kind fellow's heart; but then she supposed it was "natural enough," and she submitted, quite uncomplainingly, to the life alone with her sharp-eyed mother, which was to reach on and on into the future.

Happily, Betsy did not think much about the future. She was a placid soul, not realizing very clearly how much brighter other lives were than hers. She loved her canary-bird and the great "Malty" cat, Topsy by name, which attained to a fabulous age, living in undisputed possession of the one really comfortable chair in the sitting