“Well, we’ll see. Run, now, and wash your hands and face, and Treesa will give you some supper in your room.” Somehow Aunt Kate shrank from leaving her alone with Uncle Ben this first night.
Betsy hesitated. “This room is handsomer than our parlor,—but it’s kinder big and lonesome here.”
“It won’t seem so when you get used to it. We’re going to love you and then you will love us and we’ll all be happy as larks. Now good-night, little girl. You had better go right to bed after your tea. Treesa will show you where to put your things, and to-morrow will be a new day, Betsy dear, and then we’ll have time to get acquainted.”
Betsy walked to the door as if the interview was closed.
“Won’t you come and kiss me good-night?”
The child came slowly, as if unaccustomed to the rite, shrank a little from the arm that stole about her, pecked the lips coldly; then, at the soft caress of the white hand, she dropped a tiny corner of her reserve.
“Ma kissed me just afore she died.”
Then Betsy froze again, and walked out of the room.
Things passed in a whirl that evening. Whatever Betsy thought of the dainty room, all in white, old rose and soft, warm gray, she did not disclose to Treesa. She ate her meal from delicate china, with real silver, and at last climbed into bed between the snowy sheets, and straightened out the folds of her coarse, drilling nightgown for sleep.
“It’s awful grand and beautiful here,” she whispered to herself; “but I’ll be lonesome. I wisht Ma was here, an’ I—I wisht I was back in the Holler!”