Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/261

 "Mother'd say I was uneasy as a fish," she suddenly said to herself, and sat resolutely down. Her eyes lingered regretfully upon the pansies in the tumbler, and the words, "Mother'd ought to have them! Mother'd ought to have them!" dwelt like a refrain upon her lips. Suddenly an inspiration came to her that made her heart beat quicker. Why should not her mother have them? She looked out of the window. The sun was still bright upon the glittering snow, though the short winter's day was drawing to a close. T ain't so very far," she said to herself. "There'll be plenty o' time to git back before supper, and Harriet 'pears to be asleep. I do want to do somethin' for mother to-night, and she'd ought to have them flowers."

With trembling haste she went up stairs to her room, creeping stealthily past the door of the "best chamber." Harriet was sound asleep, as Betsy might have known if she could have heard the heavy breathing within the room. She put on her warmest cloak, which happened to be a black one, and her new black bonnet and gloves, and hurried softly down the stairs. In her haste she had forgotten the "Sontag," which she always wore in very cold weather, and it had not seemed quite decorous to wind her big white "cloud" around the mourning bonnet.

The air struck cold upon her as she closed the front door behind her, and she hid the pansies in the folds of her cloak to keep them warm. "It