Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/19

 Aunt Betsy was never tired of studying these black-and-white representations of her relatives, and she secretly cherished a hope that some one would propose her sitting for hers. Nobody thought of such a thing, however, though one of her sisters gave her a small photograph album bound in purple cloth. This did not fill up very fast, as Grandma always had to have the new photographs, and not many people were prepared to squander two specimens on one family. She had her mother, looking unnaturally meek without her spectacles, and Brother Ben and Sister Harriet, besides the youngest babies in the family, whose mothers really could not refuse the lovely things to any one who asked for them. But this was all.

By and by the new sensation was a little past, and other subjects of interest came up, lacking pictorial illustration—subjects in which Aunt Betsy could not take so intelligent a part.

Now Aunt Betsy had always a little store of money, which her well-to-do brothers and sisters kept her supplied with. Her sister Harriet particularly was "quite a rich woman," as Old Lady Pratt took some pride in stating, and rode in her carriage; and not infrequently she made her sister Betsy a present of a quarter or even half a dollar. Betsy, who was a hospitable soul, used to wait upon their guests to the door, and say, in a tone of mild entreaty, no matter what the length of the visit might have been: