Clever Betsy. Clara Louise Burnham

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СКАЧАТЬ Helen. “I’m climbing the mount of Olympus by slow and easy stages.”

      “Now if you mean anything about me,” returned Robert briskly, “speak right out. I can’t cope with clever people. If you’re clever, I’m done for.”

      “Oh!” ejaculated Helen softly. “Lambeth!”

      “Is that any relative to shibboleth?” effervesced Robert. “Because I can say it. See? Better let me in.”

      “Lambeth is a school,” returned Helen, and stole another look at their busy waitress; “a school where I went.”

      Irving Bruce had Betsy on his right hand, but Mrs. Bruce absorbed him; and Betsy sat looking before her, idly waiting for her meal. Her roving glance fell suddenly on Rosalie’s blond head as the girl was leaving the dining-room.

      “Why, that looked like Rosalie Vincent,” she reflected; then thought no more of it until later, when, her eyes again roving to that table, she obtained a full view of the fair-haired waitress as the girl refilled Mr. Derwent’s glass.

      Betsy held her knife and fork poised, while her steady-going heart contracted for a second. “That is Rosalie Vincent!” She held the exclamation well inside, and looked at her neighbors. They had evidently noticed nothing, and Betsy devoutly hoped they would not. It was doubtful whether Mrs. Bruce would recognize her protégée in any case; but instinctively Betsy desired to prevent her from doing so; and contrary to her habit of speaking only when she was spoken to, she began commenting on the scenery; and Mrs. Bruce was impressed with the unusual docility and willingness to be enlightened displayed by her stiff-necked maid, whose thoughts were busy during the whole of her mistress’s patronizing information.

      “And some time, Betsy,” finished Mrs. Bruce, “I will show you some pictures by a great artist named Doré, illustrating the Inferno, and you will be reminded of the Hoodoo Rocks.”

      Betsy listened and replied so respectfully that her mistress remarked on it afterwards to Irving.

      “All this travel is developing that hard, narrow New England mind of Betsy’s,” she said. “You can see it.”

      And all the time Miss Foster was in a mild Inferno of her own, for her heart had always warmed to Rosalie Vincent, who used frequently to make her the confidante of her small hopes and fears, and whose sunny, confiding nature had endeared her to Betsy, and often aroused an unspoken sympathy in the sordid conditions of the girl’s lot.

      Betsy’s one ambition now was to get the Bruces out of the dining-room before Mrs. Bruce should discover where the wings she had bestowed upon Rosalie had fluttered.

      “I won’t try to see the child,” thought Betsy, “but I’ll write to her as soon as we get away from here.” She cast a furtive glance at the young girl. “She looks like one o’ these pretty actresses,” she thought, “rigged up to wait on table on the stage.”

      She saw that Rosalie was keeping an eye on the Bruce party, and nervous in the fear of recognition; and this added to her relief when, Mrs. Bruce’s appetite satisfied, she begged Irving to hurry so that they might view the smoking wonders without.

      CHAPTER VIII

      THE BLONDE HEAVER

      “Isn’t it remarkable,” asked Mrs. Bruce, “that we were just talking about the Inferno?”

      She, with her companions, had come down from the hotel into the hissing, steaming tract of the Norris Basin.

      Deep rumblings were in their ears. Narrow plank-walks formed a footing amid innumerable tiny boiling springs, while the threatening roar of larger ebullitions and the heavy sulphurous odors of the air gave every indication that here indeed was the gateway to that region where our forefathers believed that the unlucky majority paid the uttermost farthing.

      The Nixons had also elected to walk through the Basin, meeting the stage at a point farther on.

      “Say, Brute,” called Robert, “doesn’t this beat New Year’s for the time, the place, and the good resolution?”

      Mrs. Nixon’s nostrils dilated in disgust at the evil smells.

      Irving caught a glimpse of her expression.

      “Mrs. Nixon is making up her mind never again to do anything wrong,” he remarked.

      “I always said my Hades would be noise,” she replied, “but I begin to think it will be odors.”

      “I always said mine would be dirt,” declared Mrs. Bruce, “but I believe I’d prefer that to being boiled. Irving, don’t you let go of me. This is the wickedest place I ever saw. Those little sizzling springs are just hissing to catch my feet.”

      The party stopped to watch the heavy plop-plop of a mud geyser.

      “Now,” said Robert, “while we’re all thinking on our sins and properly humble, is the time to get acquainted. Mrs. Bruce, this is my mother, and my uncle Mr. Derwent, and Miss Maynard; and Mr. Bruce you all know by reputation.”

      Betsy had moved to a remote corner of the geyser.

      “I never know just how to address that member of your party,” said Robert to Irving.

      The latter smiled. “She would tell you she was just Betsy. She’s such a good soul that down East, in the village where she comes from, they call her Clever Betsy; and she’s all that New England means by the adjective, and all that Old England means, too.”

      Meanwhile Rosalie Vincent was making her hasty preparations for another move, and to her came Miss Hickey in a state of high satisfaction.

      “I’m staying, Baby,” she cried, her eyes snapping. “I guess there must be a lot of lay-overs. Anyway they need me, and there’s a Swattie ball to-night. Hurray!” Miss Hickey executed a triumphant two-step and knocked over a chair.

      Rosalie seized her arm. “Can’t I stay too, then?” she asked anxiously.

      “No, you can’t, Blue-eyes. You’re to go.”

      “Oh, you go and let me stay!” begged Rosalie nervously.

      “And lose the ball?” exclaimed Miss Hickey. “Well, believe me, you’ve got nerve!”

      Rosalie looked as if she were going to cry, and Miss Hickey’s good-nature prompted a bit of comfort.

      “Besides, if you’re afraid of the lock-up, this is your chance to side-step those folks. More’n as like as not they’re among the lay-overs.”

      At this consideration Rosalie did brighten, and when the last stage came around, Miss Hickey was present to speed the parting heaver whose apprehensive glance about her saw no familiar figure.

      “Oh, they are staying, Miss Hickey!” she exclaimed, in hushed tones.

      The sophisticated Miss Hickey did not respond, but nodded affably to the driver.

      Rosalie breathed a relieved farewell as she left the big-boned bulwark of her friend and obeyed the agent’s signal to enter the back seat of the stage. The vehicle was empty but for a stout man with a field glass strapped across his shoulders who mounted to the seat beside the driver, and they started.

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