“It seldom pays to try to help people,” she said. “I distinctly remember the girl had talent, and I thought she might get a position in one of the Portland schools if she had a little training and applied herself.”

“Her letters to you certainly sounded as if she was workin’ her best.”

“Did they?” vaguely. “Perhaps they did. Well, very likely she has gone to take a position then.”

“Not in summer time, I guess,” remarked Betsy.

“I don’t seem to remember any brother of Mrs. Pogram’s,” said Mrs. Bruce plaintively.

“Humph! You’ve probably bought ribbons of him lots o’ times. He sells ’em up in[23] Portland, and I’ll bet it’s a strain on him every time he measures off over thirty-five and a half inches for a yard. Brown’s his name. Loomis Brown; and it would seem more fittin’ if ’twas Lucy. Such a hen-betty I never saw in all my days. I wonder if it’s possible he took to shinin’ up to Rosalie.”

[23]

“Oh, he’s a bachelor?”

“Law, yes. He wouldn’t want to pay for a marriage license, but p’raps he took such a shine to Rosalie as she grew older that it spurred him on to the extravagance. No tellin’. If that’s the case, no wonder she took wings.”

“It’s very tiresome,” said Mrs. Bruce, “the way girls will marry after one has done one’s best for them.”

“Yes, Mrs. Bruce. The next time you take a fancy to a village girl, you give her a course in cookin’ instead of English. She can jaw her husband all right without any teachin’; but it takes trainin’ to make good bread.”

Mrs. Bruce sighed leniently. “That is your point of view, naturally,” she said. “You could hardly be expected to have that divining rod which recognizes the artistic. Strange how much better I remember that girl’s gift[24] and her unstudied gestures than I do her face.”

[24]

Betsy paused long enough in her undertakings to pull up the bib of her mistress’s apron, which had slipped, endangering the pretty silk gown. There was a permanent line in Betsy’s forehead, which might have been named “Mrs. Bruce the second”; but she fastened the apron as carefully now as she did all things pertaining to that lady’s welfare, and made no reply to the reflection upon her æsthetic capabilities. Betsy 

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