“The child ‘eats’ everything I say to her, as if she were greedy for it, and what’s more, she digests it.”
“She’s just at the impressionable age,” said Dr. Johns. “Look at her out on the lawn there with the dog. When she thinks no one is looking at her she gambols almost as gracefully as he does.”
“I’m so glad she came to us. Everything seems different. I feel as if I had a rare, strange plant to tend, and when she grows out of that hard little bud of shyness, she’ll be the rose of my heart’s desire. It was a great inspiration, getting her into pretty clothes at the very start. I really think she is trying to live up to them.”
“I think it more likely that she is trying to live up to her Aunt Kate,” Uncle Ben chivalrously said, and as he started for the office, there was on his face the smile that Aunt Kate loved to see—the smile that made all the Hospital patients love him.
Betsy came in with her book as soon as she saw him go.
“I’m getting a lot of manners, Aunt Kate. My book’s ’most full.”
“I am so glad, dear, and you are getting them by heart, too. I haven’t heard you say ‘ain’t’ for a week. By the way, how about those finger-nails? Let me see.”
But instead of showing them Betsy snapped her hands behind her.
“Let me look, dear. Haven’t you remembered?”
“No—no’m—not much. I try, but they just chew theirselves when I’m not thinking. They aren’t fitten to see.”