ples were under several other trees (a number of cases being
on hand and apt to culminate in August), Miss Bettie Simcoe had remarks
to make, of course. She made them the next day at breakfast.

I wish I could buy a beau for Miss Bettie and make a present of him to
her, but, being a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals, I couldn't very well do it. I never yet have seen a man I
would be that hard on. But it would be the only way she could be made
to see some things, and maybe it might make her feel young again. Jess
says there's nothing so kittenish as a spinster who's caught an
unexpected beau. He is the most rejuvenating thing on earth to a woman
who wants one. All don't want them. There are a great many more
sensible women in this world than people realize, but in certain small
places matrimony is still the chief pursuit in which women can engage
without being thought unwomanly. Miss Bettie doesn't pursue, and men
are good dodgers in this part of the world, but if one of them would
say a few things to her of the sort that Whythe knows how to say so
well, her sniffing and snorting and seeing might grow less.

I don't like her, but I feel sorry for her, for nobody really loves
her, and it must be awful to have nobody to love you best of all on
earth. I couldn't live if nobody loved me. I could not. I might live
without food and live without drink, and do without clothes and do
without air--the right kinds of those things, I mean--but I couldn't
and I wouldn't live without loving. As long as I am on this little
planet I expect to love a lot of people and I hope they will love me in
return. When Miss Bettie makes me so mad I have to go out of the room
to keep from saying things I shouldn't, and Miss Araminta simpers so
when any one mentions Mr. Sparks's name (he's the new widower minister
of the Presbyterian church, with no chance of escape), and Elizabeth
Hamilton Carter makes me ashamed of my sex, and I feel like I have
swallowed concentrated extract of Human Peculiarities, I remember that
not one of them has a father of any sort, much less my sort, or a
precious mother and two dandy sisters and a good many nice relations
and some bully friends--when I remember all that, remember how many I
have to love me, I spit out the peculiarities and try not to mind them,
try to see how funny they are. But sometimes the taste sticks right
long. I don't suppose I spit right. What I can't un