Family Pride; Or, Purified by SufferingHolmes, Mary Jane
General
Family Pride; Or, Purified by Suffering
Holmes, Mary Jane
American fiction; Dime novels
Once she thought to tell who the lawyer was, and perhaps enhance her own
merits in the eyes of her auditors by announcing herself as aunt to Mrs.
Wilford Cameron, of whom she had no doubt he had heard--nay, more, whom
he possibly knew, inasmuch as his home was in New York, though he spent
much of his time at West Point, where he had been educated. But certain
disagreeable remembrances of Aunt Hannah's parting injunction, "not to
tell everybody in the cars that she was Katy's aunt," kept her silent on
that point, and so Lieutenant Bob Reynolds failed to be enlightened with
regard to the relationship existing between the fastidious Wilford
Cameron of Madison Square, and the quaint old lady whose very first act
on entering the car amused him vastly. At a glance he saw that she was
unused to traveling, and as the car was crowded, he had kindly offered
his seat near the door, taking the side one under the window, and so
close to her that she gave him her capbox to hold while she adjusted her
other bundles. This done and herself comfortably settled, she was just
remarking that she liked being close to the door in case of a fire, when
the conductor appeared, extending his hand officially toward her as the
first one convenient. For an instant Aunt Betsy scanned him closely,
thinking she surely had never seen him before, but as he seemed to claim
acquaintance she could not find it in her kind heart to ignore him
altogether, and so she grasped the offered hand, which she tried to
shake, saying apologetically:
"Pretty well, thank you, but you've got the better of me, as I don't
justly recall your name."
Instantly the eyes of the young man under the window met those of the
conductor with a look which changed the frown gathering in the face of
the latter into a comical smile as he withdrew his hand and shouted:
"Ticket, madam, your ticket!"
"For the land's sake, have I got to give that up so quick, when it's at
the bottom of my satchel," Aunt Betsy replied, somewhat crestfallen at
her mistake, and fumbling in her pocket for the key, which was finally
produced, and one by one the paper parcels of fennel, caraway, and
catnip, dried plums, peaches and yeast cakes, were taken out, until at
the very bottom, as she had said, the ticket was found, the conductor
waiting patiently, and advising her, by way of avoiding future trouble,
to pin the card to her shawl, where it could be seen.
"A right nice man," was Aunt Betsy's mental comment, but for a long time
there was a red spot on her cheeks as she felt that she had made herself
ridiculous, and hoped the girls would never hear of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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