One loose bell sleeve hung over the carved arm
of the rocker, and the fingers of her long white hand, so fragile that it
was like a flower, played silently upon the polished wood.
As the girl entered she looked up quickly. "You haven't been wandering off
by yourself again?" she asked reproachfully.
"Oh, it is quite safe, mamma," replied Betty, impatiently. "I didn't meet a
soul except free Levi."
"Your father wouldn't like it, my dear," returned Mrs. Ambler, in the tone
in which she might have said, "it is forbidden in the Scriptures," and she
added after a moment, "but where is Petunia? You might, at least, take
Petunia with you."
"Petunia is such a chatterbox," said Betty, tossing her wraps upon a chair,
"and if she sees a cricket in the road she shrieks, 'Gawd er live, Miss
Betty,' and jumps on the other side of me. No, I can't stand Petunia."
She sat down upon an ottoman at her mother's feet, and rested her chin in
her clasped hands.
"But did you never go walking in your life, mamma?" she questioned.
Mrs. Ambler looked a little startled. "Never alone, my dear," she replied
with dignity. "Why, I shouldn't have thought of such a thing. There was a
path to a little arbour in the glen at my old home, I remember,--I think it
was at least a quarter of a mile away,--and I sometimes strolled there with
your father; but there were a good many briers about, so I usually
preferred to stay on the lawn.
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