Betty Leicester's Christmas Read online

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  BETTY LEICESTER'S CHRISTMAS

  BY SARAH ORNE JEWETT

  BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1899

  COPYRIGHT, 1894 AND 1899, BY SARAH ORNE JEWETT

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  To M. E. G.

  IN SOLEMN MAJESTY]

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  PAGE

  IN SOLEMN MAJESTY (page 62) _Frontispiece_

  "I WAS SO GLAD TO COME" 20

  A TALL BOY HAD JOINED THEM 42

  BETTY, EDITH, AND WARFORD 50

  BETTY LEICESTER'S CHRISTMAS

  I

  There was once a story-book girl named Betty Leicester, who lived in asmall square book bound in scarlet and white. I, who know her betterthan any one else does, and who know my way about Tideshead, thestory-book town, as well as she did, and who have not only made many avisit to her Aunt Barbara and Aunt Mary in their charming oldcountry-house, but have even seen the house in London where she spentthe winter: I, who confess to loving Betty a good deal, wish to write alittle more about her in this Christmas story. The truth is, that eversince I wrote the first story I have been seeing girls who reminded meof Betty Leicester of Tideshead. Either they were about the same age orthe same height, or they skipped gayly by me in a little gown like hers,or I saw a pleased look or a puzzled look in their eyes which seemed tobring Betty, my own story-book girl, right before me.

  * * * * *

  Now, if anybody has read the book, this preface will be much moreinteresting than if anybody has not. Yet, if I say to all newacquaintances that Betty was just in the middle of her sixteenth year,and quite in the middle of girlhood; that she hated some things as muchas she could, and liked other things with all her heart, and did notfeel pleased when older people kept saying _don't!_ perhaps these newacquaintances will take the risk of being friends. Certain things hadbecome easy just as Betty was leaving Tideshead in New England, whereshe had been spending the summer with her old aunts, so that, having gotused to all the Tideshead liberties and restrictions, she thought shewas leaving the easiest place in the world; but when she got back toLondon with her father, somehow or other life was very difficult indeed.

  She used to wish for London and for her cronies, the Duncans, when shewas first in Tideshead; but when she was in England again she foundthat, being a little nearer to the awful responsibilities of a grownperson, she was not only a new Betty, but London--great, busy, roaring,delightful London--was a new London altogether. To say that she feltlonely, and cried one night because she wished to go back to Tidesheadand be a village person again, and was homesick for her four-posted bedwith the mandarins parading on the curtains, is only to tell the honesttruth.

  In Tideshead that summer Betty Leicester learned two things which shecould not understand quite well enough to believe at first, but whichalways seem more and more sensible to one as time goes on. The first isthat you must be careful what you wish for, because if you wish hardenough you are pretty sure to get it; and the second is, that no twopersons can be placed anywhere where one will not be host and the otherguest. One will be in a position to give and to help and to show; theother must be the one who depends and receives.

  Now, this subject may not seem any clearer to you at first than it didto Betty; but life suddenly became a great deal more interesting, andshe felt herself a great deal more important to the rest of the worldwhen she got a little light from these rules. For everybody knows thattwo of the hardest things in the world are to know what to do and how tobehave; to know what one's own duty is in the world and how to get onwith other people. What to be and how to behave--these are the questionsthat every girl has to face; and if somebody answers, "Be good and bepolite," it is such a general kind of answer that one throws it away andfeels uncomfortable.

  I do not remember that I happened to say anywhere in the story thatthere was a pretty fashion in Tideshead, as summer went on, of callingour friend "Sister Betty." Whether it came from her lamenting that shehad no sister, and being kindly adopted by certain friends, or whetherthere was something in her friendly, affectionate way of treatingpeople, one cannot tell.