Over the last part of this letter Aunt Betsy pondered for some time. That as good an orthodox as Miss Tubbs should let her girl go to the opera, passed her. She had wondered at Helen's going, but then she was a 'Piscopal, and them 'Piscopals had queer notions about usin' the world and not abusin' it. Still, as Helen did not attend the theatre and did attend the opera, there must be a difference in the two places, and into the old lady's heart there slowly crept the thought that possibly she might try the opera too, if 'Tilda Tubbs would go, and promise never to tell the folks at Silverton! She should like to see what it was, and also what full dress meant, though she s'posed it was pilin' on all the clothes you had so as to make a show; but if she wore her black silk gown with her best bunnet and shawl, she guessed that would be dress enough for her.
This settled, Aunt Betsy began to devise the best means of getting off with the least opposition. Both Morris and her brother would be absent from town during the next week, and she finally resolved to take that opportunity for starting on her visit to New York, wisely concluding to keep her own counsel until she was quite ready. Accordingly, on the very day Morris and the deacon left Silverton, she announced her intention so quietly and decidedly that further opposition was useless, and Mrs. Lennox did what she could to make her aunt presentable. And Aunt Betsy did look very respectable in her dark delaine, with her hat and shawl, both Morris' gift, and both in very good taste. As for the black silk and the new cap, they were carefully folded away, one in a box and the other in a satchel she carried on her arm, and in one compartment of which were sundry papers of fennel, caraway, and catnip, intended for Katy's baby, and which could be sent to it from New York. There was also a package of dried plums and peaches for Katy herself, and a few cakes of yeast of her own make, better than any they had in the city! Thus equipped she one morning took her seat in the Boston and New York train, which carried her swiftly on toward Springfield.
"If anybody can find their way in New York, it is Betsy," Aunt Hannah said to Mrs. Lennox, as the day wore on and their thoughts went after the lone woman, who with satchel, umbrella and capbox, was felicitating in the luxury of a whole seat, and the near neighborhood of a very nice young man, who listened with well-bred interest while she told of her troubles concerning the sheep pasture, and how she was going to New York to consult a first-rate lawyer.
Once she thought to tell who the lawyer was, and perhaps enhance her own merits in the eyes of her auditors by announcing herself as aunt to Mrs. Wilford Cameron, of whom she had no doubt he had heard—nay, more, whom he possibly knew, inasmuch as his home was in New York, though he spent much of his time at West Point, where he had been educated. But certain disagreeable remembrances of Aunt Hannah's parting injunction, "not to tell everybody in the cars that she was Katy's aunt," kept her silent on that point, and so Lieutenant Bob Reynolds failed to be enlightened with regard to the relationship existing between the fastidious Wilford Cameron of Madison Square, and the quaint old lady whose very first act on entering the car amused him vastly. At a glance he saw that she was unused to traveling, and as the car was crowded, he had kindly offered his seat near the door, taking the side one under the window, and so close to her that she gave him her capbox to hold while she adjusted her other bundles. This done and herself comfortably settled, she was just remarking that she liked being close to the door in case of a fire, when the conductor appeared, extending his hand officially toward her as the first one convenient. For an instant Aunt Betsy scanned him closely, thinking she surely had never seen him before, but as he seemed to claim acquaintance she could not find it in her kind heart to ignore him altogether, and so she grasped the offered hand, which she tried to shake, saying apologetically:
"Pretty well, thank you, but you've got the better of me, as I don't justly recall your name."
Instantly the eyes of the young man under the window met those of the conductor with a look which changed the frown gathering in the face of the latter into a comical smile as he withdrew his hand and shouted:
"Ticket, madam, your ticket!"
"For the land's sake, have I got to give that up so quick, when it's at the bottom of my satchel," Aunt Betsy replied, somewhat crestfallen at her mistake, and fumbling in her pocket for the key, which was finally produced, and one by one the paper parcels of fennel, caraway, and catnip, dried plums, peaches and yeast cakes, were taken out, until at the very bottom, as she had said, the ticket was found, the conductor waiting patiently, and advising her, by way of avoiding future trouble, to pin the card to her shawl, where it could be seen.
"A right nice man," was Aunt Betsy's mental comment, but for a long time there was a red spot on her cheeks as she felt that she had made herself ridiculous, and hoped the girls would never hear of it.
The young man, however, helped to reassure her, and in telling him her troubles she forgot her chagrin, feeling very sorry that he was going on to Albany, and so down the river to West Point. West Point was associated in Aunt Betsy's mind with that handful of noble men who within the walls of Sumter were then the center of so much interest, and at parting with her companion she said to him: