32
MY LITTLE SISTER
have kissed my mother's feet. My own could hardly keep from dancing.
"Let me take the little one, then," said this brutal visitor.
The little one burst into large, heart-rending sobs.
Twenty times that afternoon the little one made my mother say: "I will not let anyone take you away—no, never. Very well, you shall not pay visits."
And Betty, suspicious, insistent: "Not never?"
"Not never."
Oh, mother! mother! would you had kept your word!
