“It isn’t that I haven’t the right, I suppose,” replied Betsy gravely; “it is because I deceived you and aunt Emily and allowed you to think I was generous when I wasn’t. I wanted the ribbon to make the thread and needle case much more than I did anything to make a scent bag.”
“Well, but don’t you remember that you said it would be no fair if I gave two presents and you only one, unless yours should be much handsomer. Of course we have to say that this is much handsomer, so if you like it best why not let me make a scent bag out of the blue flowery piece, a handkerchief case out of something else, and you take this?”
“Would you really truly just as lief?” said Betsy, still finding her ardent desire for the ribbon unquenched.
“Of course I would. I couldn’t possibly bring myself to gobble up the two very prettiest pieces in the whole lot, and if I have one and you the other that will make it just right, don’t you see?”
“Oh, Elizabeth, you are a dear, yet still I don’t feel quite right about it.”
“You are supersensitive,” said Elizabeth, pleased at being able to air a word which she had heard her sister use that morning.
Betsy was a little awed by it, as she always was by any addition to Elizabeth’s vocabulary. Elizabeth always used new, important-sounding words with such glibness and in such an assured manner, though many times she did not get them just right. “Aunt Emily likes the idea of the scent bag,” said Betsy, a little uncertain yet.
“Then, I’ll tell you what,” said Elizabeth, ready with an answering argument. “I promised you some of my dried stuff in exchange for silk pieces, didn’t I?”
Betsy was obliged to acknowledge this was true.
“Well, then, I wouldn’t be keeping my part of the bargain unless I did it, so you take some and make a scent bag for your aunt Em. I have another idea; if you don’t like to use the pieces she is acquainted with you can get Kathie to change with you; she has some real pretty ones, so Miss Emily will have something quite a novelty to her.”