"I haven't made up my mind," she answered tartly. She was not fond of Amos either.
Then the would-be purchaser found he could have a place two doors below. He did not like it as well, but it would answer.
"It seems as if I was bound to have a rum shop and a sailor's boarding-house under my nose. There'll be a crowd of men hanging round and fiddling and carousing half the night. I don't see what's getting into Boston! Places that were good enough twenty year ago are only fit for tramps, and decent people have to get out of the way, whether they will or no."
Betty came home the last of March. She looked taller—perhaps it was because she wore her dresses so long and her hair so high. She had a pretty new frock—a rich warm brown ground, with little flowers in green and yellow and a kind of dull red sprinkled all over it. It had come from New York, and was called delaine. She had discarded her homespun woolen. And, oh, how stylishly pretty she was, quite like the young ladies at Madam Royall's!
She held Doris to her heart and almost smothered her, kissing her fondly.
"You have grown lovely by the minute!" she cried. "I was so afraid someone would cut your hair. 'Lecty said at first that I had only one idea, and that was Doris Adams, I talked about you so much. And she's wild to see you. She's quite grand and full of fun, altogether different from Mary. Mary holds onto every penny until I should think she'd pinch it thin. And I've had the most magnificent time, though Hartford is nothing compared to Boston. It is like a country place where you know everybody that is at all worth knowing. I have such lots of things to tell you."
It came rather hard to take up the old routine of work, and get up early in the morning. She was dismayed by the news that Aunt Priscilla was coming and Doris going.
"Though I don't know," she declared after reflecting a day or two on the subject. "I'll have such a good excuse to go to Uncle Win's, and we can have delightful talks. But Aunt Priscilla is certainly a dispensation of Providence equal to St. Paul's thorn in the flesh."
"I've made her some visits this winter, and she has been real nice," said Doris. "I shouldn't mind her at all now. And I told Uncle Win that I would like to be two little girls, so one could stay here. I love Uncle Win very much. I love your father too."
"Is there anybody in the whole wide world you do not love?"