“Now I see somebody coming back,” declared Mother. “It’s my happy, sunny, good-temp—”
But Betsey began kissing Mother so hard that it was impossible for her to finish.
About a week after this, Mr. Betts sat in his shop making an automobile. He had made the biggest part out of a candy box, had covered it smoothly with black oilcloth, and had fastened a fascinating number on the rear,—the very number that was on Father’s own car. But Mr. Betts was having rather a hard time with the head-lights. He was almost on the verge of getting out of patience with the machine, when luckily the mail came. And there was a little letter from Mary.
“Dear, darling Betsey (it said),
I miss you dreadfully. I play every minute with Mr. and Mrs. Merrill, and I have made a lovely summer house for them right on the bank of the really, truly brook. So they go bathing every day. I wish Edith could make Leslie a visit. Wouldn’t it be great?”
Betsey read the letter through twice. When she came the second time to the sentence, “I wish Edith could make Leslie a visit,” an idea so exciting and pleasant came to her that she laughed and danced a little hornpipe around the room.
“I’ll send her! I’ll put her in a box!” she declared to nobody in particular. “I’ll pack her clothes in a box, and put her in the center so she won’t break, and then I’ll write what every dress is for!” And Betsey dashed down-stairs with the letter to consult with Mother.
Mother liked the exciting idea. She even stopped rolling out pink sugar jumbles to find a large shoe-box for Betsey, and some heavy paper and cord. And then what fun it was selecting costumes to send with Mrs. Delight! For this was really going away, not just Make-Believe, although Make-Believe does very well, when one hasn’t a real friend in the country.
Betsey first packed Mrs. Delight’s satin and chiffon evening dresses, her opera cloak, and her outing clothes; her dainty muslins and her frilly night-dress and her pink kimono. Then she dressed Mrs. Delight herself in her green Norfolk suit, settled her in the soft bed, and packed over her white petticoats by the dozen, a woolen blanket for cold nights, sofa pillows, and hats. Then she wrote a letter to Mary saying that Mrs. Delight could stay a week, and mailed them together.
Now, to tell the truth, Betsey had been thinking all this time of how pleased Mary would be, and she hadn’t yet thought how lonesome she would be, or how extremely lonesome poor little Mr. Delight would be! And when at last Mr. Betts came back to finish his automobile, it began to dawn on him how quiet his shop was. He laid down the little wheel and looked over at poor Mr. Delight lying on the dining-room floor. And then the dignified carpenter changed suddenly into a very disconsolate little girl. Just at this minute, Betsey was very sorry she had sent Mrs. Delight away.