055 utterfly

Aas 7 (Wess

Jack Tyler, then but four years old, fast-
ened the nickname upon her. Her mother took her abroad the year after she left
school — she would not have been graduated had she staid there sixteen, instead
of four years— and Mrs. Tyler, the Frys’ next-door neighbor, gave a lawn party
the week succeeding the return of her traveled friends. Miss Betty, at nine-
teen, was blue-eyed and plump, with peach-blow cheeks, in which dimples came
and went whenever she opened her rosy lips, and a profusion of auburn hair
that made an aureole about a tossing little head. Her Parisian costume was as
gay as good taste would permit, and Jack fairly blinked when she fluttered
down upon him in passing, darted half a dozen swift kisses upon his face and
curls, and called him the “ darlingest darling her eyes had ever lighted upon.”

“This is Miss Betty Fry, my son,’ explained his stately mother. “Speak
to her, as a gentleman should.”

Jack arched a chubby hand over his eyes, more in dazzlement than bashful-
‘ness, and piped up dutifully :

“ How do you do, Miss Butterfly ?”

The name took, inevitably, and stuck fast to her as long as she lived.

At school she had skimmed text-books as her tiny feet skimmed the ground,
complaining, merrily, that all she was taught went in at one ear and straight
out at the other. In music, languages and drawing, her acquirements were of
the same sketchy order, with no “ staying power.” She had but one talent —
that of being happy through and through, always and everywhere. She soaked