"There, that ought to bring some one to me at last," she announced.
"Three times have I rung that bell and yet no one has answered. Do the
maids in this house actually expect me to build my own fire? I suppose
I could do it if I tried."

She glanced at the pile of kindling inside her wood box and then at the
sweet smelling pine logs standing nearby, but the thought of actually
doing something for herself must have struck her as impossible, for the
next moment she turned with a shiver to stare through the glass of her
closed window, first up toward the sullen May sky and then down into her
own garden.

Outside the gray clouds were slowly pursuing one another against a
darker background and in the garden the lilacs having just opened their
white and purple blossoms were now looking pale and discouraged as
though born too soon into a world that was failing to appreciate them.

In spite of her petulance Betty laughed. She was wearing a blue
dressing gown and her red-brown hair was caught back with a velvet
ribbon of the same shade. Her room was in blue, "Betty's Blue" as her
friends used to call it, the color that is neither light nor dark, but
has soft shadows in it.

Betty herself was between fifteen and sixteen. She had gray eyes, a
short, straight nose and her head, which was oddly square, conveyed an
effect of refinement that was almost disdain. Her mouth was a little
discontented and somehow she gave one the impression that, though she
had most of the things other girls wish for, she was still seeking for
something.