hat Betty had almost too much life.

"Too much life! Not a bit of it," said Serena, who was the grandniece's
chief upholder and champion. "We did need waking up, 't was a fact, Miss
Leicester; now, wa'n't it? It seemed just like old times, that night of
the tea-party. Trouble is, we've all got to bein' too master
comfortable, and thought we couldn't step one foot out o' the beaten
rut. 'T is the misfortune o' livin' in a little place."

And Serena marched back to the kitchen, carrying the empty glass from
which Miss Mary Leicester had taken some milk, as if it were the banner
of liberty.

She put it down on the clean kitchen-table. "Too much life!" the good
woman repeated scornfully. "I'd like to see a gal that had too much life
for me. I was that kind myself, and right up an' doin'. All these
Tideshead gals behave as slow as the everlastin' month o' March. Fussin'
about their clothes, and fussin' about '_you_ do this' and '_I_ can't do
that,' an' lettin' folks that know something ride right by 'em. See this
little Betty, now, sweet as white laylocks, I do declare. There she goes
'long o' Miss Barbary, out into the ros'berry bushes."

"Aunt Barbara," Betty was saying a few minutes later, as one knelt each
side of the row of white raspberries,--"Aunt Barbara, do you like best
being grown up or being about as old as I am?"

"Being grown up, I'm sure, dear," replied the aunt, after serious
reflection.

"I'm so glad. I don't believe people ever have such hard times with
themselves afterward as they do growing up."

"What is the matter now, Betty?"

"Mary Beck, Aunt Barbara. I thought that I liked her ever and ever so
much, but I have days when I want to shake her. It's my fault, because I
wake up and think about her and feel cross before I even look at her,
and then I can't get on all day. Then some days I can hardly wait to get
over to see her, and we have such a good time. But you can't change her
mind about anything."

"I thought that you wouldn't be so unreasonable all summer," said Aunt
Barbara, picking very fast. "You see that you expect Mary Beck to be
perfect, and the poor child isn't. You made up a Mary Beck in your own
mind, who was perfect at all points and just the kind of a girl you
would like best to spend all your time with. Be thankful for all you do
like in her; that's the best way."

"I just fell in love with a girl in the Isle of Wight, last summer,"
said Betty sorrowfully. "We wished to be to