Brian laughed now. “Fine, Auntie Sue! That describes her exactly,—tells me her life's history and gives me a detailed account of her family,—ancestors and all.”
“It describes her with more accuracy than you think,” retorted Auntie Sue, smiling in return at his teasing manner.
“I reckon as how she's got more of er name than that, ain't she?” said Judy, who was a silent, but intensely interested, listener. “I've allus took notice that folks with funny names'll stand a right smart of watchin'.”
Brian and Auntie Sue laughed together at this, but the old lady said, with a show of spirit: “Judy! You know nothing about it! You never even saw Betty Jo! You shouldn't say such things, child.”
“Might as well say 'em as ter think 'em, I reckon,” Judy returned, her beady-black eyes stealthily watching Brian.
“What is your Betty Jo's real name, Auntie Sue?” asked Brian, curiously.
Again Auntie Sue seemed to hesitate; then—“Her name is Miss Betty Jo Williams,” and as she spoke the old teacher looked straight at Brian.
“A perfectly good name,” Brian returned; “but I never heard of her before.”
Judy's black eyes, with their stealthy, oblique look, were now watchfully fixed on Auntie Sue.
“She is the orphan-niece of one of my old pupils,” Auntie Sue continued. “I have known her since she was a baby. When she finished her education in the seminary, and had travelled abroad for a few months, she decided all at once that she wanted a course in a business college, which was just what any one knowing her would expect her to do.”