“Why, certainly I will; but not yet, of course. I couldn’t till she is really my aunt, you know.”
“Oh, that will be soon enough,” agreed Elizabeth. “I think it was lovely of you to think of that, Betsy. What are you going to give her for a wedding present?”
“I don’t know exactly, but something very, very nice, of course.”
“Are you and Hal going to give something together, or are you going to give something by yourself?”
“By myself. Hal is going to get it. Aunt Em is going to give them all their flat silver, and probably Hal and I will give silver, too. Mrs. Lynde is going to give them something for the house,—a picture, I think Bess said they were thinking of. Bess is going to give a lamp or a clock, she hasn’t decided which.”
Elizabeth sighed again. It seemed hard that she could not do as much when she was quite sure that she loved Miss Jewett better than any of these others did. “I don’t know what I shall give,—only some little thing,” she confessed. “The family will give something nice, I suppose, and Kathie is making some pretty things by hand, things to wear, I mean. Mother hasn’t told me whether I can give a separate something or not, but I do so want to. I wish I could hang her walls with wonderful tapestries, and scatter articles of value all through her rooms. I should like to drape her windows with silken hangings and strew soft rugs for her dainty feet, and I fain would crowd her galleries with lovely pictures to gladden her eyes.”
Betsy laughed. “She hasn’t any galleries, and she wouldn’t like them crowded, anyway.”
“Oh Betsy, you are so very lateral,” said Elizabeth. “You have so much unimagination. I was just picturing to myself a lordly domicil for a favored dame. I wish,—I wish,—I wish I could think of something perfectly beautiful and dandy that I could give her, but alas, Betsy, I am impecunrious.”
“You know perfectly well, Elizabeth, that she will not care, and that she will value whatever you give her much more than the gifts of some others I could mention.”
“Well, I hope so,” returned Elizabeth, somewhat consoled. “I am going to ask Dick the next time he comes home and perhaps he can help me out with an original idea; he often does.”