COUSIN BETTY’S LETTER.

Southland Times, Issue 19546, 9 May 1925, Page 18

COUSIN BETTY’S LETTER.

My I‘ear Cousins, This is your very offended Cousin Betty writing to you for sympathy. My hair fe all ruffled and my lip is trembling, and I’m quite sure there's a wild, wild look in my eye. Doesn’t it sound terrible! You will have read, or will read the Competition Stories commended this week, and I just wonder what you think about that Cousin who has wounded me so deeply! Do you see that she actually suggests that in a paper in May. 2025, she will read the results of the Sewing Competition in Cousin Betty’s letter! Tears of wounded dignity spring in my eyes, and everything is blurred as I write. If I were just a tiny bit younger, you would hear my sobs rising in escaping niffs! But really, wasn’t that simply horrible? What should we do to the Cousin who auggests that your Betty takes such a long time? Will we cut off her ear, or her stationery supplies, or will we just hold up our heads and treat her remark with contempt? Yes, I think that’s what we’ll do, and not let her know we ever noticed it. Fancy! when here I have been, and am, as busy, as busy, still receiving belated jackets from lots of Cousins, and being just as fully occupied as ever I can be. What an injustice! Nevertheless, I am fully prepared to overlook the matter, dear, because I know it was an inadvertent slip. You didn’t really mean anything, I know, and I was only joking. The results of the jackets you will find in next week’s letter. I have asked some ladies, who know a great deal about sewing and fancy-working, much more than your Betty (in fact, I think that together they’ll know as much as there is to know), and they will come in earlier in the week to judge them. We have decided to giverin) —jo marks for the actual sewing. (b) 5 marks for the neatness with which it is put together. (c) —5 marks for blending of colours. (d) —lO marks for the fancy-work. (e) —5 marks for the general effect. The respective ages wifi be given due consideration, so I want anv Cousin who has been helped to write to me at once and tell me about it, and to what extent, so as to be quite fair. Next week, too, in the same letter, I will tell you about the surprise—a very big surprise I can tell you, which also h*> something to do with the jackets. I will also tell you about the Clan for the Cousins over 16, and the arrangements I have made. The following week, if you have sent me in a suitable slogan for it, you will see a reproduction of the badge, and quite soon after that you may own one—a real one—of your own. I was very disappointed that only one Cousin sent me in a suggestion for this, so I hope that you will make up for it this coming week, or I will think that you are not really interested in a badge, and then .... So get your wits together, Cousins mine, and prove that you are backing up • - Your devoted COUSIN BETTY.