Every morning during the summer a bunch of morning-glories, wet with dew, adorned the breakfast table. Blue and pink and white, they seemed the very spirit of morning freshness and sweetness.
On the morning after Nell Gordon’s arrival, she admired the lovely array of fairy-like trumpets that seemed to smile a welcome from the glass bowl in the centre of the table. A tiny spider had been hidden in the heart of one of the blooms, and was weaving a net of filmy loveliness from flower to flower.
“Oh Miss Gordon,” cried Betty, her dark brown eyes sparkling with delight, “the flowers can talk to each other across them telfone wires, can’t they?”
“Why yes Betty, what do you suppose they will talk about?”
“Oh ’bout the fairies an’ stars an’ lovely things that grownups know nothin’ about.”
“Do you understand them Betty?”
“Oh yes,” said Betty solemnly, “they tell me orl their secrets. They call me their Mornin-Glory Girl.” As she spoke she leaned over to touch with her slender, brown fingers one of the pure, white bells.
“Yes indeed,” laughed Mrs. Wopp, who was just then entering the room with a platter of bacon and eggs, “Betty’s our mornin’-glory girl shore nuff, she’s first up in the mornin’, she’s a glory little urchin an’ she’s our little girl to stay.”
Mrs. Wopp, as was usual at the morning meal, appeared with her greyish-red hair tortured with curl papers. After depositing the appetizing breakfast dish on the table she thrust her head out of a window and called lustily, “Come on Moses the perkelater’s perkin’ an’ the bacon’s sizzlin’ on the plate.”
Moses, once seated, speedily overtook the other members of the family. Betty looked at him gravely and remarked, “Moses says nothin’ buts eats purty steady on.”