A Dutch Belle.
FROM AN UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT.
Baltus Van Kleeck left the world without disposing of that portion of it which he claimed to own, and when his pretty daughter Getty became, by operation of law, sole proprietress of several square miles of the terrestrial globe, without any guardian or man of business to guide or instruct her in its management, her position was one of no little embarrassment. Not that she would have so regarded it had she been left quite to herself in exercising her sovereignty, for Getty was an easy, good-natured soul, who said yes to every body's advice, and to all applications for favors.
Not a tenant but would have had his rent lowered, or his house repaired, or some privilege granted, or restriction removed, had it not been for the perpetual interference of Aunt Becky, a shrivelled, nervous old lady, who was kept in a continual state of excitement by the fear that her niece would be imposed upon. "Do n't you do it, Getty!" were the words with which she usually burst in upon these conferences, spectacles on nose, without waiting to hear the specific subject of negotiation.
"I'll tell you what, Aunt," said the heiress, one day, after one of these interviews, from which the applicant had retired discomfited by the very first gleam of Madame Becky's glasses, "I must have an agent to manage these matters, for they are quite beyond my comprehension. What with farms to hire, and farms to sell, and
