"Oh no, thank you. Fanny wouldn't take long getting me some. If you will give her some money, she won't be more than a few minutes. I'll wrap my feet up in two shawls for the time."
"I see there is to be no time wasted," said Dr. Trenire. "You are a business-like young person, Betty."
"Yes," said Betty, with satisfaction. "You see, I can't do anything until I have them; and if they are going to be bought, they may as well be bought quickly."
"Your logic is admirable; but, dear, why didn't you speak to me about it before? It would have been much better than pretending to obey your aunt all these weeks, and deceiving her."
Betty looked ashamed. To have the word "deceive" used about herself without any glossing of it over made her feel very small and mean.
"We did think of it, father," she said earnestly; "but Kitty said she didn't want to seem to be always complaining about Aunt Pike."
"I see," said Dr. Trenire quietly, and he gazed for a moment gravely into the fire before he left the room.
Betty never knew what passed between her father and her aunt; but she heard no more about the gray stockings, and she wrote off delightedly to Kitty to tell her all about it.
Kitty was out when the letter came. It was the day on which the girls were taken for an afternoon's shopping or sight-seeing.
"I really must get some presents to take home to them all," she had said quite seriously to Pamela in the morning.