Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/33

 about twelve years old. They were both lightly sprinkled with snow, and after tramping about a good deal on the oil-cloth in the entry, they came smiling in, bringing a gust of cold air with them.

"Well, Mother; well Betsy," Ben began, immediately. "Hattie's got a surprise for you. She's been having her picture taken again, all dressed up in her Red Riding-hood cape. She looks mighty cute; you just see if she don't."

And Hattie, proud and pleased, exhibited the picture to her admiring elders. The slender, hooded form in the photograph was standing behind the little wicket gate which Aunt Betsy knew so well, and Grandma was much taken with it.

"Well, I never!" she cried. "How cute it is, to be sure! Who but Hattie Pratt would have thought of being taken comin' through a gate?"

And impressed with the weight of her own remark, she repeated it in her shrillest tones to Betsy.

"Who indeed?" thought Betsy, longing, but not daring to lay claim to equal brilliancy.

"It was a pretty idea," she said, meekly. "I wish you'd give me one, Hattie, to put in my photograph album.'

Hattie looked up brightly at her deaf old aunt, and said, with decision, "I don't give these away; I only exchange."