Lady Betty Across the Water | Page 3

them down again especially on your account, and I want you to be particularly nice to them."
"It's easy enough to be nice to Sally Woodburn, but----"
I caught a look from Vic and broke off my sentence, hurrying to change it into another. "As they're sailing for the States so soon, I shan't have time to spread myself much."
"Don't be slangy, Betty; it doesn't suit you," said Mother. "You pick up too many things from Stanforth."
"Trust him not to drop anything worth having," interpolated Vic, which was pert; but Mother never reproves her.
"Perhaps Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox and Miss Woodburn won't come," I said, for the sake of getting on safer ground.
"Not come? Of course they will come. It is short notice, but if they have other engagements they will break them," returned Mother; and though it would be as impossible for her to be vulgar or snobbish, as it would for a tall white arum lily to be either of those things, still I couldn't help feeling that her unconscious thought was: "The invitation to a couple of unknown, touring Americans, from the Duchess of Stanforth, is equivalent to my receiving a Royal Command."
She was probably right,--anyhow, so far as Mrs. Ess Kay is concerned: as for Sally Woodburn, I don't think she has a drop of snobbish blood in her veins. She's Southern--not South American, as I was stupid enough to think at first; but from some Southern State or other; Kentucky, I believe it is. She's short and plump, and olive and smooth as ivory satin, with soft, lazy brown eyes, a voice like rich cream, a smile which says: "Please like me"; and pretty, crinkly dark hair that is beginning to glitter with silver network here and there, though she isn't exactly old, even for a woman--perhaps about thirty.
I knew that Miss Woodburn rather fancied me, and I was quite pleased to take her up to her room, when she and her elder cousin arrived, about an hour before dinner. I stopped for a few minutes, and then left her with her maid, while I went to help Vic, and get myself ready. We've only one maid between the three of us, nowadays; which means (unless there's some reason why Vic should be made particularly smart), that Mother gets more than a third of Thompson's services. That's as it should be, of course, and we don't grudge it; but Vic's rather helpless, and I always have to hurry, to see her through.
This evening, though, I found Thompson in Vic's room, next to mine; and just as I scientifically dislocated my arms to unhook my frock, which does up behind, Mother came in. "Betty," she said, quite playfully for her, "I have a very pleasant surprise for you. You would never be able to guess, so I will tell you. I have consented to let you go and visit Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox and Miss Woodburn in America. Aren't you delighted?"
I felt as if the wall of the house were tumbling down, and I would presently be crumpled up underneath.
"My goodness gracious, Mother!" I managed to stammer, forgetting how I've always stood in awe of her, since I could toddle. "How--how perfectly extraordinary! Why am I going? And is it all decided, whether I like or not?"
"Of course you will like. To travel with pleasant companions and see a great, new country under such charming auspices, is an immense privilege, a very unusual privilege for a young girl," Mother replied promptly. "As for the 'why,' you are going because you have been cordially invited; because I think the experience will be for your advantage, present and future; because also it will be good for a growing girl like you to have the bracing effect of a sea voyage."
"Mother, I haven't a thing the matter with me, and I haven't grown the eighth of an inch this whole last year; you can see by my frocks," I protested, more on principle than because it would be any use to protest, or because I was sure that I wanted Mother to change her mind. Naturally the protest had no effect, but Mother's mood mercifully remained placid, and she didn't give me a single freezing look.
"Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox is a woman of good family and position in her own country," she went calmly on. "I have satisfied myself on those points beyond doubt, or I should not dream of allowing you to be her guest. She has a cottage at Newport, and will take you there, as summer, it seems, is not the Season in New York. You may stay with her through July and August,--even for September, if you are amusing yourself. Later, Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox will send you home with friends of hers, who can be trusted to take good care of you. She knows