“At any rate, the Tubbses, who moved from Silverton last fall, and who are living in such style on the Bowery, wouldn’t be ashamed, and I can stop with them at first, till I see how the land lies. They have invited me to come, both Miss Tubbs and ’Tilda, and they are nice folks, who belong to the Orthodox Church. Tom is in town now, and if I see him I shall talk with him about it, even if I never go.”
Most devoutly did Mrs. Lennox and Aunt Hannah hope that Tom would return to New York without honoring the farm-house with a call; but, unfortunately for them, he came that very afternoon, and instead of throwing obstacles in Aunt Betsy’s way, urged her warmly to make the proposed visit.
“Mother would be so glad to see an old neighbor,” the honest youth said, “for she did not know many folks in the city. ’Till had made some flashy acquaintances, of whom he did not think much, and they kept a few boarders, but nobody had called, and mother was lonesome. He wished Miss Barlow would come; she would have no difficulty in finding them,” and on a bit of paper he marked out the route of the Fourth Avenue cars, which passed their door, and which Aunt Betsy would take after arriving at the New Haven depot. “If he knew when she was coming, he would meet her,” he said, but Aunt Betsy could not tell; she was not quite certain whether she should go at all, she was so violently opposed.
Still she did not give it up entirely, and when, a few days after Tom’s return to New York, there came a pressing invitation from the daughter Matilda, or Mattie, as she signed herself, the fever again ran high, and this time with but little hope of its abating.
“We shall be delighted, both mother and me,” Mattie wrote. “I will show you all the lions of the city, and when you get tired of us you can go up to Mrs. Cameron’s. I know exactly where they live, and have seen her at the opera in full dress, looking like a queen.”
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 abusin’ it.” Still, as Helen did not attend the theatre, and did attend the opera, there must be a difference between 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.
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’s 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 towards 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 cap-box, 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 auditor 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 had 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 cap-box to hold while she adjusted her other bundles. This done, and herself comfortably settled, she was just remaking that she liked being close to the door, in case of a fire, when the conductor appeared, extending his hand officially towards 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.”