Lady Betty Across the Water

								

in Vic.
"I didn't mean to; it slipped out," I defended myself. "Besides, it was
you who nicknamed her that."
"Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox is a very charming person, and a thorough woman
of the world," Mother asserted, in that way she has of saying the word
which you had better leave for the last if you know what is good for
you.
I did leave it for the last so far as answering was concerned, but
inside, where, thank goodness, even her eyes can't see, I was wondering
hard when Mother had formed that flattering opinion. A fortnight ago I
heard her announce that Americans "got upon her nerves," and she hoped
she would not soon be called upon to meet any more. As she had made
this remark directly after bidding Mrs. Ess Kay good-bye, I naturally
supposed that lady to be the immediate cause for it. But now, it
seemed, this was not the case.
"You would be very ungrateful if you disliked her," Mother went on, "as
she took such a tremendous fancy to you."
"Dear me, I didn't know that!" I exclaimed, opening my eyes wide. "I
thought it was Vic she----"
"You are her favourite, as you are with Miss Woodburn, also," said
Mother, who gets the effect of being so tremendously dignified partly,
I believe, from never clipping her words as the rest of us do. "I am
asking 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