"She's an awfully smart little thing, that Betty," her New York aunts
and cousins often remarked. "She seems to see what people mean, it
doesn't matter what they say. She likes people you would not expect her
to like, and then again she sometimes doesn't care the least for people
who are thought awfully attractive."

As has been already intimated, the child was crude enough and not
particularly well bred, but her small brain had always been at work, and
each day of her life recorded for her valuable impressions. The page of
her young mind had ceased to be a blank much earlier than is usual.

The comparing of these impressions with such as she received when her
life in the French school was new afforded her active mental exercise.

She began with natural, secret indignation and rebellion. There was no
other American pupil in the establishment besides herself. But for the
fact that the name of Vanderpoel represented wealth so enormous as
to amount to a sort of rank in itself, Bettina would not have been
received. The proprietress of the institution had gravely disquieting
doubts of the propriety of America. Her pupils were not accustomed
to freedom of opinions and customs. An American child might either
consciously or unconsciously introduce them. As this must be guarded
against, Betty's first few months at the school were not agreeable to
her. She was supervised and expurgated, as it were. Special Sisters
were told off to converse and walk with her, and she soon perceived
that conversations were not only French lessons in disguise, but were
lectures on ethics, morals, and good manners, imperfectly concealed
by the mask and domino of amiable entertainment. She translated into
English after the following manner the facts her swift young perceptions