“Maybe; but I am so glad to have her with me again.”
She came down a little later, cloaked and tippeted, her curls peeping from under her beaver hat. Betty looked at her mischievously. “You are decked out fairly well, Letty. I’ll warrant more than one head will be turned over a shoulder to look after you this morning.”
“I care not whether any turn,” sighed Lettice.
“Ah-h, that accounts for your pensiveness; your poor little heart has slipped its leash, and you are pining for—Did I hear Aunt Martha say she had a letter from Rhoda? Lettice, you are not mourning for Robert Clinton?”
“How many times must I tell you, no, no, no!” replied Lettice, pettishly. “I don’t care a whit for him, as you know well; yet, all this morning’s news has brought back the past very vividly, and makes me remember that my home is gone; and my two brothers—one lies on the shores of the great lakes, and one in our own forsaken graveyard. To think that, after all, poor Tom should be denied a resting-place beside his own kith and kin.”
“What matters that to him? He has won himself a lasting name for courage and faithfulness, and that is a comfort. Now do put by these sad thoughts and let us talk of the wedding. Oh, by the way, I heard a piece of news; William says Becky Lowe is to marry Stephen Dean. He has won his lady-love after all these years of devotion. There is nothing like perseverance, you see. Poor Birket!”
“Why, poor Birket?”
“Because he didn’t persevere; he was too easily set back.”
“Now, Betty, I never had a single thought of Birket. He is a nice lad, but too young for my liking.”
“I know that, my dear grandmother, and I do not forget that your true love is a sailor lad.”