She and Uncle Henry said very little as they drove to the village, and even less as they stood waiting together on the platform.  Betsy slipped her hand into his and he held it tight as the train whistled in the distance and came slowly and laboriously puffing up to the station.

Just one person got off at the little station, and that was Aunt Frances, looking ever so dressed up and citified, with a fluffy ostrich-feather boa and kid gloves and a white veil over her face and a big blue one floating from her gay-flowered velvet hat.  How pretty she was!  And how young—­under the veil which hid so kindly all the little lines in her sweet, thin face.  And how excited and fluttery!  Betsy had forgotten how fluttery Aunt Frances was!  She clasped Betsy to her, and then started back crying—­she must see to her suitcase—­and then she clasped Betsy to her again and shook hands with Uncle Henry, whose grim old face looked about as cordial and welcoming as the sourest kind of sour pickle, and she fluttered back and said she must have left her umbrella on the train.  “Oh, Conductor!  Conductor!  My umbrella—­right in my seat—­ a blue one with a crooked-over—­oh, here it is in my hand!  What am I thinking of!”

The conductor evidently thought he’d better get the train away as soon as possible, for he now shouted, “All aboard!” to nobody at all, and sprang back on the steps.  The train went off, groaning over the steep grade, and screaming out its usual echoing warning about the next road crossing.

Uncle Henry took Aunt Frances’s suitcase and plodded back to the surrey.  He got into the front seat and Aunt Frances and Betsy in the back; and they started off.

And now I want you to listen to every single word that was said on the back seat, for it was a very, very important conversation, when Betsy’s fate hung on the curl of an eyelash and the flicker of a voice, as fates often do.

Aunt Frances hugged Betsy again and again and exclaimed about her having grown so big and tall and fat—­she didn’t say brown too, although you could see that she was thinking that, as she looked through her veil at Betsy’s tanned face and down at the contrast between her own pretty, white fingers and Betsy’s leather-colored, muscular little hands.  She exclaimed and exclaimed and kept on exclaiming!  Betsy wondered if she really always had been as fluttery as this.  And then, all of a sudden it came out, the great news, the reason for the extra flutteriness.

Aunt Frances was going to be married!

Yes!  Think of it!  Betsy fell back open-mouthed with astonishment.

“Did Betsy think her Aunt Frances a silly old thing?”

“Oh, Aunt Frances, no!” cried Betsy fervently.  “You look just as young, and pretty!  Lots younger than I remembered you!”

Aunt Frances flushed with pleasure and went on, “You’ll love your old
Aunt Frances just as much, won’t you, when she’s Mrs. Plimpton!”