Understood Betsy

medium-sized city in a medium-sized State in the middle of this country; and that's all you need to know about the place, for it's not

. They kept a "girl" whose name was Grace and who had asthma dreadfully and wasn't very much of a "girl" at all, being nearer fifty than forty. Aunt Harriet

aged, Aunt Frances (for Elizabeth Ann called her "Aunt," although she was really, of course, a first-cousin-once-removed) was small and thin and if the light wasn't

t that she was a very depressing person) on account of her asthma; and when Elizabeth Ann's father and mother both died when she was a baby, although there were many other cou

child, and they were sure, from the way Elizabeth Ann looked at six months, that she was going to be a sensitive, impressionable child. It is possible also that they were a little

any times. They were related only by marriage to her, and she had her own opinion of them as a stiffnecked, cold-hearted, undemonstrative, and hard set of New Englanders. "I boarded near them one summer when you were a baby, Frances, and I shall never forget the way they were treating some children

s' ears always are, and long before she was nine she knew all about the opinion Aunt Harriet had of the Putneys. She did not know,

he baby came there to live, Aunt Frances stopped reading novels and magazines, and re-read one book after another which told her how to bring up children. And she joined a Mothers' Club which met once a week. And she took a correspondence course in mothercraf

ost children is that they are not understood, and she was determined that she would thoroughly understand Elizabeth Ann down to the bottom of her little mind. Aunt Frances (down in the bottom of her own mind) thought that her mother had n

ead all this story. She was very small for her age, with a rather pale face and big dark eyes which had in them a frightened,

e aunt's eyes were always on the alert to avoid anything which might frighten Elizabeth Ann. If a big dog trotted by, Aunt Frances always said, hastily: "There, there, dear! That's a nice doggie, I'm sure. I don't believe he ever bites little girls. ... mercy! Elizabeth Ann, don't go near him! ... Here, darling, just get on the other side of Aunt Frances if he scares you so" (by th

little girl woke up screaming with a bad dream, it was always dear Aunt Frances who came to her bedside, a warm wrapper over her nightgown so that she need not hurry back to her own room, a candle lighting up her tir

under her eyes. So she listened patiently while the little girl told her all about the fearful dreams she had, the great dogs with huge red mouths that ran after her, the Indians who scalped her, her schoolhouse on fire so that she had to jump from a third-story window and was all broken to bits-once in a while Elizabeth Ann got so interested in all this that she went on and made up mor

ffin with white roses over her. Oh, that made Aunt Frances cry, and so did Elizabeth Ann. It was very touching. Then, after a long, long time of talk and tears and sobs and hugs, the little gir

ldren under that one roof. You can imagine, perhaps, the noise there was on the playground just before school! Elizabeth Ann shrank from it with all her soul, and clung more tightly than ever to Aunt Frances's hand as she was led along through the crowded, shrieking masses of children. Oh, how glad she was that she had Aunt Frances there to take care of her, though as a

every little thing, and remembered to inquire about the continuation of every episode, and sympathized with all her heart over the failure in mental arithmetic, and triumphed over Elizabeth Ann's beating the Schmidt girl in spelling, and was indignant over the teacher's having pets. Sometimes in telling over some very dreadful failure

, and painting lessons, and sewing lessons, and even a little French, although Aunt Frances was not very sure about her own pronunciation. She wanted to give the little girl every possible advantage, you se

looking at Aunt Frances, wh

And she understands me!" said Elizabeth Ann,

adies said that before long she would be as big as her auntie, and a troublesome young lady. Aunt Frances said: "I have had her from the time she was a little baby and there has scarcely been an hour she has been

how to get her out enough. I think I'll have to get the doctor to come and see her and perhaps give her a tonic." To Elizabeth Ann she added, hastily: "Now don't go getting notions in your head, darling. Aunt Frances doesn't think there's anything very much the matter with you. You'll be all right again soon if you just take the doctor's medicine nicely. Aunt Frances

eather, his sharp eyes, and the air of bored impatience which he always wore in that house. Elizabeth Ann was terribly afraid to see him, for she felt in her bones he would say she had galloping consumption

, he pushed her away with a little jerk and said: "There's nothing in the world the matter with that child. She's as sound as a nut! What she needs is ..."-he looked for a moment at Aunt Frances's thin, anxious face, with the eyebrows drawn together in a knot of conscientiousness, and then he looked at Aunt Harrie

him as he tried to go, and she said all sorts of fluttery things to him, like "But, Doctor, she h

stood up bef

... more sleep ... Shell be all right ..." but his voice did not sound as though he thought what he was saying amounted to much. Nor did Elizabeth

it at all a bad-sounding cough in comparison with Grace's hollow whoop; Aunt Harriet had been coughing like that ever since the cold weather set in, for three or four

ook interested. "What's that? What's that?" he said, going over quickly to Aunt Harriet. He snatched out of his little bag a shiny thing with two rubber tubes attached, and he put the ends of the tubes in his ears and the shiny

ough his little tubes. Then he turned around and looked at Aunt Frances as though h

ich swept her away from the life which had always gone on, revolving

d to obey the doctor's verdict, which was that Aunt Harriet was very, very sick and must go away at once to a warm climate, and Aunt Frances must go, too, but not Elizabeth Ann, for Aunt Fra

tore, who had been wanting her for years to go and keep house for him. She said she had stayed on just out of conscientiousness because she

m till Aunt Frances could take her back. For the time being, just now, while everything was so distracted and confused, she was to go to stay with th

er her mother-she had switched to Aunt Harriet, you see, all the conscientiousness she had lavished on Elizabeth Ann-nothing much could be extracted from her about Elizabet

ent ..." and went away, thinking that she didn't see why she should have all the disagreeable things to do. When she had her husband's tyranni

any too enthusiastic about taking her in; and she was already feeling terribly forlorn about the sudden, unexpected change in Aunt Frances, who had been so wrapped

ut the day when the two aunts went away on the train, for there is nothing much but tears to tell about

Molly's husband's mother, and, of course, no relation at all to Elizabeth Ann, and so was less enthusiastic than anybody else. All that Elizabeth Ann ever saw of this old lady, who now turned the current of her life again, was her head, sticking out of a second-story wind

ve all got to be quarantined. There's no earthly sense bringing that child in

olly, "I can't leave the child

awfully unwanted, which is, if you think of it, not a very cheerful feeling for

end her to the Putney cousins. All nonsense about her not going there in the first place. They invited her the minute they heard of Harriet's being so bad. They're the natural ones to take her in. A

lly back, "can I get her to the Putneys'? You can'

James, going to New York on business in a few days anyhow. He can just go now, and take her alon

ly obeyed. As to who the Bridget was who had the scarlet fever, I know no more than you. I take it, from the name, she was the cook

h afraid of his mother as Elizabeth Ann was. But he was going to New York, and it is conceivable that he thought once or twice on the trip that there were good times in New York as well as business