Much as
they might despise her mother, everybody loved and pitied Bessie, whose
life was a kind of scramble, and who early learned to think and act for
herself, and to know there was a difference between her father and her
mother. She learned, too, that large hotels, where prices were high,
meant two rolls and a cup of milk for breakfast, a biscuit or apple for
lunch, and nothing for dinner except what her mother could
surreptitiously convey into her pocket at _table d'hote_. And still,
there was no merrier, happier child playing upon the sands at
Aberystwyth than Bessie McPherson on the summer morning when Miss Betsey
McPherson first saw her and called out:
"Betsey McPherson, is that you?"
Leaving her companions she went to the tall, peculiar looking woman
sitting so straight and stiff upon the bench, and laying her soft white
hands on her knee, looked curiously and fearlessly into her face, with
the remark:
"I am _Bessie_, not _Betsey_. I think that is a horrid name."
And so the conversation commenced between the strange pair, and Bessie
told of the stingy aunt in America for whom she was named, and who had
never sent her a thing, and whom her mamma called "Old Sauerkraut.
Pages:
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275