Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/34

 "But, Hattie," said her father, "you'd give your Aunt Betsy one! You know she never had her picture taken."

"Then she'll have to, if she wants mine," said the pert little person.

"What did she say?" asked Aunt Betsy, a great resolution already half formed in her mind.

"She says you'd better have your own picture taken before you go askin' other people for theirs," said Grandma, not ill-pleased to hear Betsy snubbed for her unreasonableness in wanting a picture all to herself.

It was now or never, and Betsy knew it.

"Very well," she said, rising, and looking an inch taller. "I'll exchange with you." And she marched out of the room, erect and determined leaving her family speechless with astonishment.

Without giving herself time to think of consequences, she seized her twelve photographs, and hurried back to the sitting-room.

"There!" she said, rather explosively, "you can have your choice, Hattie."

Old Lady Pratt, doubting her senses, seized one of the pictures, looked at it, then looked at Betsy. The likeness was unmistakable; it was "Betsy all over," as she admitted to herself. But she was so divided in her mind between horror at her daughter's duplicity, and admiration of her "smartness," that she let Ben have the first word. He came nobly to the rescue.