“My dear,” said she one night to Effie, “I feel very unwell; very unwell, indeed; I think it’s more’n likely I shan’t last the night through.  I wish you wouldn’t leave me alone this evening, and then if I’m suddenly taken worse, you know you can call the family.  I should like to see them all before I go.”

Effie promised she would not leave her, and bringing her book, she seated herself by the stove in cousin Betty’s room.  In about a hour she appeared in the parlor, her face purple with the effort to suppress the inclination to laugh, and said, “Oh, do all of you please to come to cousin Betty’s room a few moments.”

“What, is she dying?” they asked.

“Oh, no! but just come; very quietly; there’s a sight for you to see.”

Cousin Betty always tied a large handkerchief about her head when she went to bed, and on the night in question, the two ends of the handkerchief being tied in a knot stood up from her head like two enormous ears.  She was bolstered up by pillows, as she declared she could not breathe in any other position, and at every breath she drew she opened and shut her mouth with a sudden jerk.  Effie had looked up from her reading suddenly, and caught the reflection of cousin Betty’s profile, thrown by the light, greatly magnified upon the wall, and stuffing her handkerchief in her mouth to prevent a sudden explosion of laughter, by which cousin Betty might be awakened, she ran to call the family.  No pen-sketch but an actual profile would give the slightest idea of the extraordinary and most ludicrous appearance of the image thus thrown upon the wall; with the enormous ears standing up, and the mouth and chin snapping together like the claws of a lobster.  One by one they rushed from the room, till at length a smothered cacchination from one of the little ones awoke cousin Betty, who exclaimed: 

“Who is sobbing there?  My dear friends do not distress yourselves, I find myself considerably more comfortable.”

This “clapped the climax,” and the room was unavoidably deserted for a few minutes; but at length Effie found courage to return, and, by placing the light in another position, was enabled to keep watch for the remainder of the evening.

There were some very amusing stories told in the family of cousin Betty’s adventures, one of which I will relate here.  She was at one time making one of her long visits at Mr. Wharton’s, when, getting out of yarn, and not being willing to remain long idle, she began to worry about some way to get over to the village.  The horses were all out at work upon the farm, except Old Prancer, a superannuated old horse, who was never used except for Mrs. Wharton or the girls to drive; for, whatever claims “Prancer” may once have had to his name, it had been a misnomer for some years past, and no one suspected him of having a spark of spirit.