Page:Dorothy Canfield - Understood Betsy.djvu/281

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"UNDERSTOOD AUNT FRANCES"
249

and that was Aunt Frances, looking ever so dressed up and citified, with a fluffy ostrich-feather boa and kid gloves and a white veil over her face and a big blue one floating from her gay-flowered velvet hat. How pretty she was! And how young—under the veil which hid so kindly all the little lines in her sweet, thin face. And how excited and fluttery! Betsy had forgotten how fluttery Aunt Frances was! She clasped Betsy to her, and then started back crying—she must see to her suit-case—and then she clasped Betsy to her again and shook hands with Uncle Henry, whose grim old face looked about as cordial and welcoming as the sourest kind of sour pickle, and she fluttered back and said she must have left her umbrella on the train. "Oh, Conductor! Conductor! My umbrella—right in my seat—a blue one with a crooked-over—oh, here it is in my hand! What am I thinking of!"

The conductor evidently thought he'd better get the train away as soon as possible, for he now shouted, "All aboard!" to nobody at all,