“You funny child!” said Cousin Margaret, letting her dainty work fall to the table. “Do you mean to say you really scrub?”
“Scrub!” echoed Betsey, lifting her pail again. “Say, come on up with me and see!”
Cousin Margaret was very young and very pretty, and she really didn’t have the slightest idea how one cleaned a doll-house. So with a little wink at Mother, she followed Betsey up the stairs.
When she saw Betsey’s collection of house-cleaning materials, she sank weakly into a big chair and stared. There was a stiff brush, and a soft brush, and a cake of sapolio; a whole basketful of soft cloths, and a chamois skin.
“What’s the chamois skin for?” she asked.
“To clean the mirrors,” said Betsey.
“Well, I do declare!” was all Cousin Margaret could say. But pretty soon she leaned forward and began to watch Betsey with a little secret admiration. Mrs. Delight was already dressed in one of her fresh morning dresses, white apron and ruffled sweeping cap, and she and Dinah were supposed to be moving all the furniture into the drawing-room. Mr. Delight sat stiffly on the window-seat and watched.
“You see, Cousin Margaret,” explained Betsey, “Mrs. Delight’s twin sister and her husband are coming to visit. (Those are Anne’s old dolls she lets me take.) And Mr. Delight is going to the post-office to mail the invitation. I’ll tell you,—I’ll put him in the car with Dumpling and make Mrs. Delight and Dinah wave to him, and then you can attend to him while I clean house. Water’s getting cold!”
“How stylish and proper he do look,—a-driving dat kerridge!” suddenly observed Betsey in Dinah’s pleasant voice.
“Why, Betsey, how you scared me! I thought you really were another person!” exclaimed Cousin Margaret, looking up from the post-office. But when she once looked up from the post-office she couldn’t look back again, for there was Betsey on her knees, going at the little house with the largest scrubbing-brush as if the dirt were inches thick.