Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/16

 and then suddenly sitting plump down on the floor with her skirts rising in billows about her. Aunt Emmeline could do it, and Aunt Martha, and 'most any body, but Aunt Betsy said it made her head giddy. Aunt Betsy was "no good."

Sometimes, when Betsy found how startling and troublesome these small specimens of humanity were, she was almost reconciled to being an old maid. She knew that her mother was a good deal mortified at having a child who had never "had an offer," and she felt hot and uncomfortable as often as she thought of a certain temptation which had assailed her many years ago. It was when the neighborhood was stirred and shocked by the sudden death of young Alfred Williams, an amiable though impecunious member of Green Street society, who had been left over, as it were, from among her sister Jane's admirers. Betsy was at that time about twenty-one years old, and Alfred had continued coming in pretty regularly to tea of an evening after the disappearance of Jane from the family circle. The goodness of the fare may have been an attraction, or perhaps he really liked Betsy, though he gave no sign. However that may have been, his visits had not passed unnoted by the neighbors, and the morning he died Mrs. Baxter came in to discuss the news.

"He was a very well favored young man, I am sure," said she, "and a great loss to our circle. Dr. Baxter says he has heard that his employers