Title: Miss Lulu Bett Author: Zona Gale Release Date: December 10, 2003 [eBook #10429] Language:

English Character set encoding: iso-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS LULU BETT*** E-text prepared by Brendan Lane, Dave Morgan, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders MISS LULU BETT

English Character set encoding: iso-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS LULU BETT*** E-text prepared by Brendan Lane, Dave Morgan, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders MISS LULU BETT

There emerged from the fringe of things, where she perpetually hovered, Mrs. Deacon's older sister, Lulu Bett, who was "making her home with us."

The temper of Mrs. Bett, who also lived with them, had days of high vibration when she absented herself from the table as a kind of self-indulgence, and no one could persuade her to food.

But Mrs. Bett's door was heard softly to unlatch.

The door to the bedroom now opened and Mrs. Bett appeared.

"Hungry now?" Mrs. Bett was hungry now.

" Mrs. Bett turned her gentle, bloodless face toward her daughter, and her eyes warmed.

" Grandma Gates was a rheumatic cripple who lived next door, and whenever the Deacons or Mrs. Bett were angry or hurt or wished to escape the house for some reason, they stalked over to Grandma Gatesin lieu of, say, slamming a door.

And the black fireplacethere was Mrs. Bett to the life.

Mrs. Bett was in Dwight Herbert's leather chair and she lolled at her ease.

"Inie ought to make over her delaine," Mrs. Bett comfortably began.

"Dear, dear," said Mrs. Bett, "I had on a delaine when I met your father."

To the two pallid beings accessory to the Deacons' presence, Mrs. Bett and her daughter Lulu now bore no relationship.

Toward nine o'clock Mrs. Bett announced that she thought she should have a lunch.

Mrs. Bett demanded shrilly.

Mrs. Bett was asleep.

"Is it Miss Lulu Bett?" he abruptly inquired.

Monona now ran to Mrs. Bett, stood beside her and stared about resentfully.

Mrs. Bett, her arm still circling the child Monona, now made her first observation.

When Dwight had finished his narration, there was a pause, broken at last by Mrs. Bett: "You tell that better than you used to when you started in telling it," she observed.

Mrs. Bett's voice shrilled from within the house, startlingly closejust beyond the blind, in fact: "Go on, Lulie.

oh no! "Either lay still or get up and set up," Mrs. Bett directed her at length.

"Act as good as you look, Lulie," Mrs. Bett called after them.