Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/30

 fer fancy tarts, such as Sister Harriet's new-fangled cook made, to the old-fashioned mince-pies.

"Betsy, you're a fool!" when pronounced by Old Lady Pratt, never failed to penetrate the muffled hearing like a, and Betsy used to wish within herself that her mother would put it a little differently.

Poor Aunt Betsy had been so promptly put down in her life that she had never before had the sensation of committing an out-and-out indiscretion. Now, at least, she had it, and her mother's quick eye instantly detected the unwonted flush.

"Betsy," cried the alert old lady, "come here. Let me feel your pulse! Goodness me, child! You're in a high fever! You've caught a cold! You ain't been settin' by an open window?"

The gray-haired culprit admitted that she had.

"Betsy, you're a fool! You al'ays was full of romantic notions about open windows. You'll jest go right straight to bed, and drink a cup of pennyr'yal tea. Do you hear?"

Betsy heard. Old Lady Pratt's reproofs were always audible, even to her, and her commands were not to be questioned. So Aunt Betsy was packed away to bed, while the exultation died out within her, and the old patient compliance returned in its place. She lay there in a gentle apathy, watching the last ray of sunlight die away on the flowered wall, and waiting resignedly for the unsavory dose.

Presently the door opened, and the straight