So she talked to the young man of his mother, and he showed her the daguerrotype of the girl he loved; and at last she confided to him her anxieties for Betty's manners and the Governor's health, and her timid wonder that the Bible “countenanced” slavery. She was rare and elegant like a piece of fine point lace; her hands had known no harder work than the delicate hemstitching, and her mind had never wandered over the nearer hills.
As time went on, Betty was given over to the care of her governess, and she was allowed to run wild no more in the meadows. Virginia, a pretty prim little girl, already carried her prayer book in her hands when she drove to church, and wore Swiss muslin frocks in the evenings; but Betty when she was made to hem tablecloths on sunny mornings, would weep until her needle rusted.
On cloudy days she would sometimes have her ambitions to be ladylike, and once, when she had gone to a party in town and seen Virginia dancing while she sat against the wall, she had come home to throw herself upon the floor.
“It's not that I care for boys, mamma,” she wailed, “for I despise them; but they oughtn't to have let me sit against the wall. And none of them asked me to dance—not even Dan.”
“Why, you are nothing but a child, Betty,” said Mrs. Ambler, in dismay. “What on earth does it matter to you whether the boys notice you or not?”
“It doesn't,” sobbed Betty; “but you wouldn't like to sit against the wall, mamma.”
“You can make them suffer for it six years hence, daughter,” suggested the Governor, revengefully.
“But suppose they don't have anything to do with me then,” cried Betty, and wept afresh.
In the end, it was Uncle Bill who brought her to her feet, and, in doing so, he proved himself to be the philosopher that he was.
“I tell you what, Betty,” he exclaimed, “if you get up and stop crying, I'll give you fifty cents. I reckon fifty cents will make up for any boy, eh?”