“What’s the matter with ’em? I washed ’em.”
“Yes, I see, dear. But did no one ever tell you not to bite your nails?”
“No’m. Why, they’d get awful long if I didn’t, and then I’d break ’em, washin’ dishes.”
“Well, I’ll make them look as nice as I can, and you must promise me not to bite them any more.”
Betsy hesitated.—“I’ll try,” she said at last, “but I can’t promise,—not right off,—’cause I bite ’em when I’m thinkin’ things. I couldn’t promise nothin’ ’at I might forget.”
“That’s right, too. But you must do your best to remember. Little girls must be nice in every way.”
That evening, when Uncle Ben came to dinner, he was greeted by an apparition all in white. Betsy stood by her chair with a shy look at him, to observe the effect of her transformation.
“As I live,—a fairy,—out of a story-book! Or was there a fairy godmother somewhere, and is this Cinderella? Where is the Prince?”
Betsy laughed and seated herself, and Aunt Kate noticed that at the end of the meal she reached down shyly, and wiped her mouth on the corner of her napkin.
A week passed, and Betsy was clothed and almost in her right mind once more, when Aunt Kate came in one morning, with a pretty notebook in her hand.