The Delaware ledger. (Newark, Del.) 1879-19??, 1885-10-03
Aunt Betsy's Present.


horribly mean of your Aunt Betsy,
Estella. After making such a fa-
vorite of you all your life, and hav-
ing you with her ever since you
were a mere baby, she might have
sent you something worth having
on your twenty-frst birthday, espe-
cially as she knows how poor we
are since your father DEATH" said
my mother sharply.
"You had better take it as a hint
for the future, and not build any
more castles on what Aunt Betsy
is likely to do for you," remarked
my sister Lena.
Walter, my brother, added with a
provoking grimance:
"Here endeth my sister Stella's
great expectations"
"You need not make such un-
pleasant remarks" / answered, pet
tishly. "In sending me the por-
trait of her old sweetheart, poor
auntie has given me her greatest
treasure, and she, no doubt thinks l
shall value it as much as she does"
"Well it may come in useful, af-
ter all, for if, as | expect, you never
get a sweetheart, you can imagine
he was yours, when you are a sour
old maid like Aunt Betsy" said
Lena, who prided herself not a little
on being engaged at eighteen, while
l at twenty-one, had never had an
offer, not even the ghost of a lover.
l had lived with aunt Betsy down
in her quiet country home in the
south of Cornwall until my fathers
death, two years before, when COM
ing up to his funeral, | found my
mother left in such slaughtered
circumstances that l felt it my duty
to stay and earn what money /
could to help her +; thereby, however
1 incurred Aunt Betsy's anger.
Surely" she wrote, ''your broth
er and sister can help your mother
you have no need to leave me lone
ly in my old age, after l have had
all the trouble OF you as child,
etc.
l would willingly have returned
for u close London lodging was moi
at all to my taste after my aunt's
large, airy country house, but my
mother seemed to lean on me, and
so dreaded my leaving her, that ]
had not the heart to 60.
Aunt Betsy neither came MOI
wrote, and l had quite resigned my
self to the idea that 1 was hopeless
ly on her black books when the
above related event took place.
Now / knew that l was forgiven.
In her early youth, Aunt Betsy
then the beautiful Elizabeth Mars
ton, my fathers only sister, hac
been engaged to the son of I
wealthy London banker.
He had been sent broad on bus
mess for his father, Just before the.
were to be married, and througl
the jealous treachery of anothe
man who madly loved her, anC
wished to supplant his rival, tn
engagement had been suddenl.
broken off by him.
He then remained abroad, an,
Aunt Betsy never heard from hin
again. Just before he left Englan,
he had presented her with beauti
full little miniature of himself set il
gold and diamonds, and this sh
had kept with her maiden name
no other lover ever induced her
change it.
AS a girl, ! had often seen an
reverently admired the pretty sou
venir, and / had taken all girl
keen interest in the love-story al
tached to it. Aunt had alway
told me it was to be mine, and no'
1 felt certain, with this treasure il
my possession, that had not quit
lost old place in her favor, though
heard in the same letter in whicl
she solemnly commended the POI
trait to my care, that she had ador
ted an orphan girl in my place Q