Betty's Bright Idea was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe and first published in 1875. And this holy time, so hallowed and so gracious, was settling down over the great roaring, rattling, seething lifeworld of New York in the good year 1875. Who does not feel its oncoming in the shops and streets, in the festive air of trade and business, in the thousand garnitures by which every store hangs out triumphal banners and solicits you to buy something for a Christmas gift? For it is the peculiarity of