Why, if
papa and Miss Marston should live until we were eighty and ninety
years old, I do believe, Jack, that they'd still treat us as if we
were infants,--like the story Max told us of the man a hundred and
ten years old, who whipped his eighty-year-old son and set him in a
corner because he'd been 'naughty'! It's too provoking! And as to
being '_nice_' to Nora, I feel it in my bones that she and I will
have a falling out the very first thing; she'll put on such airs
that I'll not be able to stand her!"
But as it turned out, there was something else in store for Betty; that
same evening over came Mr. Erveng and Hilliard with an invitation from
Mrs. Erveng for Betty to go to their country home, near Boston, and
spend a month with them. Mr. Erveng had met papa in the railroad station
that day, and got his consent for Betty to accept the invitation. So all
she had to do was to pack a trunk and be ready to leave with them the
next morning,--they would call for her.
I felt awfully sorry Betty was going: though there are so many of us,
you've no idea what a gap it makes in the family when even one is away;
and, with all her roughness and tormenting ways, Betty is real nice,
too.
Pages:
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222