After an American holiday she used to return to France, Germany, or Italy, with a renewed zest of feeling for all things romantic and antique.

After a few years in the French convent she asked that she might be sent to Germany.
"I am gradually changing into a French girl," she wrote to her father.
"One morning I found I was thinking it would be nice to go into a convent, and another day I almost entirely agreed with one of the girls who was declaiming against her brother who had fallen in love with a Californian.

You had better take me away and send me to Germany." Reuben Vanderpoel laughed.

He understood Betty much better than most of her relations did.

He knew when seriousness underlay her jests and his respect for her seriousness was great.