Elizabeth Brucewas "detained for inattention."
No one else out of all the four and thirty scholars of Wygate School was kept in to-day. One after the other, hands folded behind them, they had marched to the door. Then delightful sounds—the scuffling of feet, stifled screams, gigglings and low buzzings of talk—had stolen over the partition that separated the cloak-room from the class-room, and Elizabeth, sitting on the high-backed form, with all the other empty forms in front of her, nibbled her pencil in melancholy loneliness.
She wondered if Nellie Underwood and Cyril would wait for her. Only yesterday she had waited a dreary hour for them and had carried Cyril's bag home for him to ease his wounded spirit.
Then she began her task. She seized a slate, arranged two slate-pencils to work together and expedite her task and wrote: "Elizabeth Bruce detained for inattention."
When she had written the statement ten times the silence in the cloak-room struck chill upon her. All the rest had found their hats and bonnets then and gone outside.
She sat on the floor under her desk and tried to see the playground through the open door. Two small pinkly-clad figures dashed past the door, chased by a maiden in blue—all screaming and laughing.
"Nell Underwood!" ejaculated Betty gladly, and went back to her slate warmed and cheered.
She made her pencils work harder than before, kneeling upon the form in an excess of industry.
Even as she wrote the statement for the fortieth time, voices and laughter came from the playground—but a cold silence had come by the fiftieth.
At the sixtieth her little moist hand was cramped, and she had to stay to work herfingers rapidly. At the seventieth the tears were trickling down her cheeks, for she was only Elizabeth Bruce "detained for inattention," the schoolroom was only a schoolroom, and the forms were only forms—and empty. And that was the master down at the desk there, exercise books and slates around him and a pen behind his ear. For a space the tears splashed down hard and fast upon her slate and the sight of the big drops aroused her self-pity. The larger the splashes the larger her self-sorrow.
A sharp "Go on with your work, Elizabeth Bruce" waked her to the necessity of drying her eyes and slate and adjusting her pencils for again writing, "Elizabeth Bruce detained for inattention."
But at the eightieth time of writing it, she was no longer Elizabeth Bruce, the daughter of a moneyless author. Her name was now Geraldine Montgomery, and she was the adopted daughter of a millionaire. Her mother, she had decided, was a gipsy, and was even now hovering near at hand to steal back her beautifully dressed child.
By the time she had written the melancholy statement of Elizabeth Bruce's detention, her face had all its old smiling serenity again.
She rose, sighing thankfully, and collecting her slates, walked down soberly to the busy master at his desk.
"Let this be a lesson to you, Elizabeth," he said, running his eye down slate after slate. "Ten times each side, twenty times each slate, five slates—one hundred. More punishments are meted out to you than to any other child in the school. I shall find it necessary, if this state of things continues, to write to your father. Clean the slates and return them to their places—then go."
Elizabeth found the cloak-room empty. She assured herself that every one had gone home—of course; but her eyes flashed round the press room, and to that corner between the press and the door, for a blue-frocked little girl with red hair. And, of course, as she was now Geraldine Montgomery, the disappointment of finding the corner empty was not so keen as it would have been merely to Elizabeth Bruce.
"I think," said this foolish little girl aloud, "I'll wear my leghorn hat with the ostrich feathers in it to-day. Papa always likes that." And she took her old pink bonnet down from her peg and slipped it upon her head. Then she stuffed her books into her black school-bag and turned to the door.
Elizabeth Bruce fancied Cyril would be away there under the saplings playing knucklebones impatiently, and her eyes eagerly scanned the deserted playground. No kneeling figures, no Nellie Underwood, no Cyril, no knucklebones. For a second the tears trembled in her eyes at the thought that no one had waited for her, but in a minute Elizabeth Bruce slipped away, and Geraldine Montgomery in her leghorn hat was treading the homeward way.
Behind her, she told herself, an old gipsy woman was skulking—she had seen the ostrich feathers, the "rare lace upon the simple rich dress."
It was just behind the store that the gipsy and Geraldine both disappeared.
The store turned one blank wall upon Carlyle Road—which was the home road—and Elizabeth came round the corner sharply and then stood still. There, kneeling upon the red clayey earth, his face to the wall, was big John Brown.
Elizabeth made out that he was writing or figuring with blue chalk upon the wall's blankness, and although her heart feared the big rough boy she had "fought," she drew nearer.
"Hulloa!" said John Brown, flushing when he saw the small pinafored maiden he had an unpleasant recollection of beating so short a time ago, and whom he had carefully avoided ever since.
"Hulloa!" said Betty, surprised into speaking to him.
Brown made a seat of his boot-heels and surveyed her, being much too bashful to open up a conversation.
But Betty was not bashful.
"What are you doing?" she asked, and a very inquisitive face stared at him from the depths of the pink sun-bonnet.
"'Is it a horse?' queried Betty.""'Is it a horse?' queried Betty."
"H'm!" said John, and made a few more strokes with his pencil.
"Is it a horse?" queried Betty. "Yes it is—there are no horns, and it's too big for a dog or cat. Yes, it's a horse."
"H'm!" said John again. Then he looked at his handiwork, drawing further off to see it from Betty's point of view.
"Yes," he said, with badly concealed pride; "it's a horse right enough. It's a race-horse. I drew him from memory."
"Why didn't you draw him on paper?" asked the small girl.
"Won't be let. And no sooner do I see a bit of blank wall than I begin drawing something on it," said the reader ofSelf-made Men.
Betty only heeded the first part of his sentence.
"Who won't let you?" she asked, standing on one leg as she put the question.
"My people," said John. "They don't want me to be an artist."
Betty's eyes rounded themselves.
"Areyou going to be an artist?" she asked.She was intensely interested. The boys who played in her kingdom had not arrived at the stage of thinking what they were going to be. What they were was all-sufficient unto them. Cyril had once declared his intention of keeping a sweets' shop, but that was quite a year ago now.
Betty had read many stories about artists, and they were always set in romantic or tragic circumstances. The look she gave to the one before her warmed him into becoming confidential on the spot. He did not tell her all at once, not all even that first afternoon, although they took the homeward way together.
But he gave her a rough outline of the lives of several artists who had sprung from the ranks, and of one in particular who lived in a cellar, and tasted of starvation as a boy; one who, denied paper, could not yet deny the genius within him, but drew in coloured chalks upon any vacant wall that came in his way. And he always drew animals—and usually horses and dogs.
The little brown face under the sun-bonnetglowed with delight. Never in all her life had the imaginative small maiden come across a boy like this. Big John Brown, indeed! Bully, indeed! Gardener's boy, indeed! How could she and Cyril ever have said, ever have thought, such things?
Presently, for the boy had never had such a listener in his life before, he told her of other men—Stephenson, Newton, Shakespeare—and Betty took off her bonnet as her earnestness increased, and tucked it under her arm after a way she had when agitated.
"Oh, I wish I was a boy," she said. "What's the good of a girl? What can a girl do? Don't you know anything about self-made women?"
John knew very little. In fact he too very much doubted the "good of a girl." He told her so quite bluntly, but added that she'd better make the best of it.
"Theremustbe some self-made women," insisted Betty. "I'll ask father to-night."
John thought deeply for a few minutes, seeing her distress. He really ransacked his mind, for besides sorrow for her sorrowing hecould plainly see the admiration with which she regarded him, and he wanted to show her that he knew something about women too.
"There's Joan of Arc," he said, "and—there's Grace Darling!"
But Betty was indignant. "They're in the history book!" she said.
John thought again, but could only shake his head.
"All women can do," he said, "is wash up, and cook dinners, and mend clothes!"
Betty's lips quivered.
"I won't be a woman," she said, "Iwon't!"
John owned to sharing her craving to be rich, but he wanted tomakehis wealth himself—which set Betty's imagination galloping down a new road.Shehad only thought hitherto of her grandfather's riches, which had seemed to her and Cyril to be all the money there was in the world.
But now John had slid back a door and let her peep into all the glories of a new world, and she had seen there wealth and fame to be had for the earning—by men and boys!
"Try and find out about self-made women,"she said, when he left her at the turn through the bush. "See if there were any women artists, or women inventors, or women pirates, oranything. Good-bye."
Sothat it was John who showed Betty the thing in all its beauty. It was he, who, so to speak, called her to the mountain top, and pointed out to her the cities of the world to be climbed above. And it seemed to little independent-hearted Betty to be the most glorious thing in the world to climb upon one's own feet, pulling oneself upwards with one's own hands.
She wondered how she could have ever wanted such a very ordinary happening as for her grandfather toadoptthem and give themhismoney. Here was this wonderful John Brown actually longing to give up her grandfather—his grandfather. For he had soon convinced her that Captain Carew was his grandfather too, and while allowing that he might be hers, he showed her how verylittle in the eyes of the worldherrelationship counted for. He, he said, was the son of his grandfather's eldest son—that their names were different was solely owing to the fact that his father had changed his name for private reasons. She and Cyril and all the rest of them were merely the children of his grandfather'sdaughter. And, as he impressed upon Betty, women didn't count for much in the world's eyes.
Yet Betty was very earnest in her intention to be something great—something self-made, and John was willing enough not to stand in her way. He himself was going to start at once;hewas not going to waste any more time over going to school and doing lessons. He pointed to his grandfather as a fine example of a man who had risenbecausehe had not wasted time in learning. He told Betty they could not begin their "career" too early.
It was Betty who suggested waiting till the Christmas holidays, and it was John who said—
"Perhaps you'd better wait till the nextChristmas. I will have got a bit of a start by then and will be able to help you."
But Betty was indignant at that.
"I won't be helped!" she said. "I won't be helped by you, John Brown. Stay at home till Christmas yourself—I'm goingnow!"
Her career had to be decided upon, and very little time remained in which to decide. John intended beginning life as an errand boy. In his spare time, he said, he would go on with his drawing, and if an opportunity occurred, he would work his passage out somewhere in some ship. He was rather vague about all but the errand running; that he saw to be the first step towards greatness.
Betty was not long before she decided he was keeping some part of his design from her. And every afternoon when they had left school and each other, she was nervous lest he should have gone by morning—gone and left her to find her way into the world alone!
And here was she unable to decide upon her career! She even asked questions about Joan of Arc and Grace Darling, and set herself tofind out if there were any other women in the history book.
"It isn't fair!" she said at last to the thoughtful John Brown. "You'd never have known about being an errand boy and an artist only for your books. You've got a lot of books to help you."
But John told her how he had been decided upon his "career" all his life, ever since his father had left him alone on the station in the country which time was, as the reader will be aware, situated somewhere about his first birthday. But he magnanimously proposed to place his grandfather's library at her feet, or rather to place her feet within his grandfather's library.
"You can come and take your pick," he said.
At this period of her life Betty was not troubled with pride—the pride of the slighted and poor relation.
She accepted his offer rapturously, only adding, "You'd better keep my grandfather out of the way when I come."
"Come when he's having his afternoon sleep," said John.
So Betty was smuggled into her grandfather's library.
It was Saturday afternoon when she went to the great house. She had to slip away from Dot, who was making elaborate alterations to a pretty blue muslin frock (she was invited to spend the next Saturday and Sunday with Alma Montague, the doctor's daughter); her mother was calling "Betty, come here," in the front garden as she reached the track through the bush, and Cyril and Nancy had implored her to "come and play something."
But Betty had a "career" to think of. She ran through the bush and arrived breathless at that part of her grandfather's fence which ran past their coral islands. At a certain hour every afternoon, John said, his grandfather went to sleep. It was during this sleep time that Betty was to search the shelves of his library for a book that should enlighten her as to the best way to become a "self-made woman."
She slipped under the fence, and into the little belt of bush that bounded the emu run, and where she, as a ghost, had waited.
John's signal came very soon, and Betty immediately took off her bonnet and rolled it up under her arm—the better to hear—and marched boldly across the gravel paths to the library window where John stood.
"Where is he?" asked Betty.
"Asleep on the little verandah," said John; "he always sleeps a long time after dinner."
Betty stepped into the room and looked around her curiously.
It was such a room as she had never seen yet, and it pleased her greatly. Two enormous bookcases full of books stood side by side against one wall. Another wall was book-lined for about eight feet of its height and ten of its length. The centre-table had a dark blue cloth upon it and bore magazines, books and newspapers and writing materials.
Betty's feet rested pleasurably on the thick rich carpet and her eyes went from easy chair to easy chair.
"My father ought to have this room," she said, "he writes the most beautiful books, and I know he'd write ever so many more if he lived here."
"Here's the book I got myself from," said John, advancing to a bookcase.
But Betty was oblivious of her errand. She lingered by the table, turning over the covers of the magazines, and picture after picture caught her eye.
One in particular she lingered over. It represented a bric-a-brac strewn room.
"The boudoir of Madam S——," it said.
"Oh!" exclaimed Betty, and dropped her sun-bonnet into her grandfather's chair. "Oh, John, when I've made myself, I'll have a room likethis!"
She began to read and her eyes smiled. Then she sank down on the floor, carrying the book with her, and leaning her back against a table-leg she lost herself in an interview with Madam S——.
Madam replied to several searching questions blithely. She told a little story about her large family of brothers and sisters, their extreme poverty and her own inordinate love of music. Then there was a pathetic touch when sickness, poverty and hunger darkened the poor little home, and she, a mite of eight,had stood at a street corner in a foreign city and sung a simple song. A crowd had soon collected, and a keen-eyed, bent-shouldered man had been passing by hurriedly, and had stopped, caught by a "something" in the little singer's voice, and face, and attitude. He had finally pushed his way through the crowd and stood beside the little girl in the tattered frock.
Thatsong andthatinterview had been the beginning of a great career. Hard work and small pay had intervened, but success had followed success, and now not one of her concerts to-day meant less to her than hundreds of pounds. Dukes threw flowers at her feet, Princes loaded her with diamond brooches, tiaras, necklaces, bangles; kings and queens and emperors "commanded her to sing before them," and gave her beautiful mementos.
Betty was breathing quickly as she came to this stage of Madam S——'s career. She turned a leaf, and a face smiling under a coronet looked at her.
"Madame S——, present day," the words below said.
A neighbouring photograph showed a mite with a pinched face and a tattered frock.
"Madame S——, at eight years old!" was the inscription.
"And I'm twelve," said Betty. "Twelve and a bit."
She turned her head, then raised it sharply. There standing beside her was her grandfather.
The two looked at each other.
What Betty saw at first—it must be confessed—was the keen-eyed, bent-shouldered individual who had appeared to the little street singer, and the silly little imaginative maiden waited for him to speak.
What the grandfather saw was a small girl of "twelve and a bit," in a pink print frock; a small girl with a brown shining face, golden-brown hair and brown eyes, and parted red lips, a little person in every way different from the pale-faced ghost who had visited him awhile back—so different that he did not know her.
He simply took her for a little school-girl and no more.
Then Betty remembered who he was—who she was—where she was—and a few other matters of similar importance, and a red, red flush spread over her face and to the tips of her small pink ears.
The sea-captain opened his mouth in a jocular roar.
"Who's been sitting in my room?" he demanded. "Why, here she is!"
Betty's lip quivered. Shewasbeginning to be afraid—or rather she was afraid.
"I—I just wanted to see a book," she said.
"And what book did youjustwant to see?"
He took the magazine from her and noticed two things—how her hand shook and how bravely her eyes met his.
His glance wandered over the open page, and a wonderment came to him what there was here to interest such a child.
The next second the fatal question was on his lips.
"And what is your name?" he asked.
Betty's lips moved, but no sound left them. She just sat dumbly there gazing into her grandsire's face.
The old man sat down on the pink bonnet. He was not in the least anxious over her name. She was a schoolmate of John's, of course; he had often stumbled over these active eager little creatures in the back yard, in the near paddock, by the emus' run, near the pigeon-boxes, on the staircase.Onlyhitherto they had been of John's own sex. This pretty little nervous girl interested him.
He drew her magazine towards him.
"We're waiting for the name—aren't we, Jack?" he said.
Then Betty realized that her hour was indeed come. She rose to her feet and stood in front of him gulping down a few hard breaths.
"I—I didn't come to get us adopted this time," she quavered.
"Eh?" said Captain Carew. He spoke dully, yet the faintest glimmerings of light were beginning to break on him. Her attitude, something familiar in her voice, her height and shining curly head brought that evening to his mind, when she had owned to an intention of wishing to frighten him. Aslow anger stirred him, anger against this child, her parents, and himself.
"Your name!" he said harshly.
And at the sound of his own voice his anger grew. His lip thrust itself out when he had spoken, and his whole face wore its hardest, most unlovely look.
"Your name, girl?"
And Betty hesitated no longer. Her only point of pride at this age lay in assuming bravery whether she had it or not. "We Bruces are afraid of no one," being her favourite speech, and as inspiriting to her as the sound of the war-drum to a warrior bold.
She stood straight and her brown eyes looked straight into his brown eyes.
"Elizabeth Bruce," she said.
The old man's anger blazed fiercely.
"Look here my girl," he said, "you can tell your father it's a bit late in the day for these games. Tell him I've got the only grandchild here that ever I want. Now—go."
But Betty stood her ground.
"My father didn't send me," she said, and her face went from red to white. "He didn'tknow I was coming at all—and—sure's death! he never knew anything about the ghosts. I came to get Cyril adopted because he's getting tired of cutting wood an' only getting a penny a week."
The old man broke into a hoarse laugh.
"And this time to get yourself adopted," he said.
But Betty shook her head vigorously.
"No, I only wanted to see what sort of woman to be," she said. She walked to the open window.
"I'm not going to adopt you," said the old man, "so go—GO! Never let me see you inside my gates again—by day or by night. Go!"
And once more Betty took a swift departure by way of the balcony door. And again she left a bonnet behind her.
Thethird Saturday and Sunday before the ending of term, Dorothea spent with her "intimate" friend, Alma Montague.
Alma's home was a very beautiful one at Elizabeth Bay, and, as Dot told her mother, there were parlour-maid, housemaid, kitchen-maid and every other sort of maid there.
Dot slept in one of the visitor's rooms, and had a bathroom and a sitting-room opening off her bedroom for her exclusive use. The sitting-room and bedroom were "treated" with the same colouring—a tender wonderful shade of blue. The wall paper was just suggestive of blue; the ceiling was delicately veined with blue; the curtainswere, Dot felt certain, blue. The easy chairs and the lounge, the footstools and the cushions were dull blue.
Such a beautiful room.
Again, in the bedroom, there were delicate suggestions of blue among the whiteness.
And the bathroom! How different in every way from the little wooden unlined room at home. There the ceiling-joists were gracefully festooned with cobwebs, the floor had many a great hole in it, caused by white ant and damp. No water was laid on—only a tap came from a tank outside, which in its turn was fed from an underground well. And whenever Dot wanted a bath she had to coax or bribe Cyril or Betty to work the pump. Dot herself hated working the pump—it blistered her little hands.
Here the floor was leaded the walls tiled, the bath itself painted a delicate sea blue. There was a square of carpet just beyond the edge of the lead; a cushioned chair, two hospitable taps, one offering cold, one hot water. All sorts of toilet luxuries were at hand, pretty coloured soaps, loofahs,lavender-water, ammonia, violet powder, violet scent.
No wonder poor Dot was in an ecstasy with her surroundings, and that she roamed round her rooms and sighed with happiness because she was here, and with sorrow because she was going away in two days.
On Saturday morning she and Alma went shopping. They breakfasted alone at nine o'clock, Alma's father being in his consulting-room and her mother in bed (she had been at the theatre on Friday evening and Dot had not even seen her).
So the two girls lingered over a very dainty breakfast table till nearly ten o'clock, when Alma suggested "shopping."
Dot had only two frocks, besides her morning pink print with her. One was a blue muslin that had to last her for next week at school; the other was a white muslin and her best. She had taken them out of her dress-basket and hung them carefully in her pretty wardrobe, and now that Alma spoke of shopping she was in miserable doubt which to wear.
"I'm going to wear a blue," said Alma, "you wear yours, too, Thea dear, and then people will think we are sisters. Sisters! Oh, don't I wish I had a sister!"
Dot, who possessed three, shook her head as she handled her muslin dress.
"I think it's very nice to be the only one," she said. "The only child! It's lovely!"
"But I'm so lonely except when I'm at school," said Alma sadly.
Dot opened her eyes. She was just slipping her blue frock carefully over her shining curly head, but she stopped with her head half through to wonder at Alma.
"Lonely!" she said. "Here! In this house! And you've got your father and mother!"
Alma shook her head dolefully.
"Father is always busy," she said, "and mother is always out—or entertaining. Oh, Thea, I would love to have you for my very own sister. I would give everything I have if I could have you."
Dorothea smiled kindly. Mona Parbury had told her the same—and Minnie Stevenson,and Nellie Harden. They all wanted her for theirveryown sister. It was only such little madcaps as her own sisters, Betty and Nancy, who were indifferent.
Alma was small and undeveloped. She was seventeen and looked hardly fifteen. Her large dark eyes looked pathetic in her thin sallow face. Her lips were thin and colourless, her hair straight and dull brown. No prettiness at all belonged to her. Only wistfulness and gentleness.
So they went shopping together, the two little girls in blue. And they had no chaperon at all with them, no schoolmistress, or governess, or mother, or aunt—no one to direct their eyes where they should look, and their smiles when they should be given out and when withheld. No one to carry the purse.
Dot had two shillings and sixpence halfpenny in her small worn purse. Her mother had slipped the money in. "I can't bear for you to be without money, Dot dear," she had said, "but try your best not to spend it."
Alma's purse seemed full of half-crowns and shillings and sixpences!
Dot bought herself a new hat-band and a pretty lace-trimmed handkerchief; and she tried to hide from Alma how very little both had cost.
Alma made several peculiar mistakes in her purchases. For instance, she bought just twice as much gold liberty silk as she would need for a sash, and she had to beg Dot to accept the part that was too much, as she would be so tired of the thing if she had twojustalike. And she bought a pair of size two evening shoes, and remembered when they were going home that size two was a size too big for her. She wished she knew of any one who wore two's. Dot wore three's, didn't she? No?—two's! How lovely! Then Dot would take the shoes, wouldn't she, and save them from becoming mouldy! And she bought two pretty lace-trimmed collars, just alike—and she hated two of her things to be alike. So Dot would take one off her hands, wouldn't she?
Only each time she said "Thea," or "Thea darling!" And she bought her a silver"wish" bangle as a keepsake, and a little scent bottle and fan for "remembrance."
Before they went home they went into an arcade shop and had strawberries and cream, and a big ice cream and sponge cake each. And they met several straw-hatted youths to whom Alma bowed.
She told Dot to count how many hats were taken off to her, and Dot counted, and behold, the number was ten.
Dot herself felt rather envious. She only knew one grammar-school boy, who smiled from ear to ear and blushed with delight on seeing her.
Then they went home.
When they opened the dining-room door the table was set for luncheon, and a bald-headed gentleman was waiting at the head of it, a book propped up before him.
When the girls came in he went on reading just as before, deaf to their chatter, blind to the pretty blue of their dresses.
Alma ran down the room to him, and kissed the top of his head.
"Home again, father!" she said.
And then he looked up smiling, and stroked her little sallow face with one finger.
"This is myverydearest friend—Dorothea Bruce!" said Alma delightedly, and drawing Dot forward.
The great doctor, who was small in stature, stood up then and took little Dot's hand in his, and a very kindly smile came to his eyes as he looked into her lovely childish face.
"I'm very glad to see my daughter's dearest friend," he said, and he patted her soft pink cheeks also.
The door opened again just as this introduction was over, and a new nervousness attacked Alma. Another tinge of yellowness crept into her skin, her eyes grew wistful, and she began to stammer.
"My f-friend, mother—Thea—Dorothea Bruce," and Dot turned curiously and shyly round to the door. Entering there was a very beautiful woman in a tea gown. Her eyes were like Alma's, only far lovelier, her complexion was only a few years less fresh and perfect than Dorothea's own—and her hair was red-gold and beautiful.
When her glance rested on Dorothea's face, a look of pleasure crept into them—just pleasure at seeing any one so flower-like and sweet as this little maid from school.
"I am very pleased to see you, dear," she said graciously, and she stooped forward and kissed the girl's cheek.
Then she looked at Alma—poor undersized Alma, with her yellow skin and bloodless lips—and she sighed. But she kissed her also, and asked how she had spent her morning and whether she had come from school this morning or yesterday afternoon.
When luncheon became the order of the day conversation died out. Dr. Montague, indeed made two or three attempts at light talk—but Dot was shy and Alma was nervous and Mrs. Montague was apparently elsewhere in thought, so that presently silence fell.
Dinner was at seven that night. It was a meal of many courses, several wines two servants, and finger glasses. And again Dot was perfectly if silently happy—although the finger glasses (of which she had seen none before) threw, her off her balance until she had stolen a glanceat Alma to "see how she did," whereupon Dot performed the operation with infinitely more grace than Alma.
Alma wore a white silk dress and gold sash, and Dorothea white muslin and gold sash, and the doctor's eyes went from one little whitely clad maid to the other, smilingly.
The happy look on his small daughter's face pleased him greatly.
His wife often said he neither saw nor heard what was going on around him, but he had very soon discovered his little girl's supreme contentment.
He asked Dorothea if she were going away for Christmas and the holidays, and Dorothea shook her golden head and said, "No; she was going to stay at home."
Whereupon he asked Alma if she wouldn't like to carry her "dearest friend" up the mountains with her, and Alma went quite pink with delight and said—
"Oh, Father! Oh, Theadear!"
And Dot raised her pretty shy eyes and said—
"Oh, Alma!" and then looked at Mrs. Montague as if to ask if such happiness was possible.
Mrs. Montague laughed.
"I will write and ask your mother," she said, "but we really can't take 'no.'" And she said it so graciously that the tears came into Alma's eyes.
"It would betoolovely!" said Dot breathlessly.
On Sunday afternoon, just as the evening shadows were stealing out and the daylight was growing grey, Alma ran into the little blue sitting-room, her great eyes luminous.
"Oh, Theadarling!" she said, and then she stopped in surprise. Only a little while ago Dot had tripped upstairs, her hair in a golden plait down her back, her dress not so low as her boot-tops by quite three inches.
And now! She was sitting in an easy chair, her dress skirt lowered till it reached the floor, her hair loosely done up on the top of her head, her blue, blue eyes staringthrough the windows to the darkening harbour waters, afar off.
She blushed rosily red when Alma ran in.
"I—I was just thinking," she said.
"What were you thinking of, Thea?" asked Alma, "and what have you done your hair like this for? Youdolook so pretty—I wish the girls could see you."
Dot pulled her friend towards her and patted the arm of her chair for her to sit there. Then she leaned her head upon Alma's shoulder and held one of her hands between her own two.
"I waswishingI were grown-up, really grown-up," she said; "I did my hair up to see how I looked. I tried to do it like your mother does hers."
Alma stroked her head gently.
"My mother is in love with you," she said. "She has just been saying all sorts ofbeautifulthings about you. She says she wishes you were her daughter."
"Oh!" said Dot. "Her daughter! How IwishI were!"—and no disloyalty to her own mother was meant. "To live here always! To be rich! To——"
She paused. "Oh, Alma," she added, "youarea lucky girl."
But Alma only sighed.
Dot began to think again, comparing in her own mind this home of Alma's with her own little bush home.
"Oh!" she said at last; "How happy you ought to be. How would you like to change places with me!"
And to her surprise Alma burst into tears, covering her face with her little trembling hands.
Gentle ways belonged to Dorothea.
She stood up and put her friend into her chair and then she knelt beside her, and slipped her arm round her waist.
"DearestAlma!" she whispered.
"Oh," sobbed Alma, "if only you were myveryown sister Thea—Icouldn'tlove you more. I'msolonely. Father is always busy, and mother—mother is disappointed in me."
Dot opened her eyes in surprise. She had never dreamed of a mother beingdisappointedin her child.
"I'm not pretty—or clever—oranything," sobbed Alma. "She's always been disappointed in me—ever since I was a tiny baby—and I've always known it—and—and—she doesn't know I know. Oh dear!"
Dot was shocked. "Darling Alma!" she said again.
"It's dreadful to be the only child—and to be a disappointment," said Alma. "I think father is sorry for us both."
Dot stroked the girl's straight hair.
"You've got lovely eyes," she said, "and you're very clever at crotchet work."
"What's that!" said Alma drearily. "Mother wouldn't mind if I never touched a needle. She says if a girl hasn't beauty she has only one other chance in the world—and that is to be brilliant. Idotry to be clever—but it's no good."
Dot kissed her.
"When you are grown up you'll look different," she said. "You'll wear long trailing dresses—and—do your hair like this—and——"
But Alma sprang to her feet.
"What a croaker I am," she said. "Inevertold this to any one before. Thea—it is my verybiggestsecret. You'll never tell any one, will you? Never! never! Father says if I'm good I'll be beautiful enough forhim. But oh, I wish I were you!"
"AndI'vebeen wishing I were you," said Dot.
"I suppose," said Alma, with one of her most wistful looks, "I suppose we'remeantto be ourselves for some reason. And we must make the best of ourselves just as we are!"
And the two girls kissed each other tenderly.
"I've to be an elder sister," said Dot, with a sudden thought towards Mona Parbury.
"And I've to be an only child," said Alma, "and we've both to make the best of our state of life—eh?"
OnMonday morning Betty took the road to school with running feet. A fear was at her heart that John Brown had set out upon his expedition into the world this day. Had gone—and left her behind! Had begun "life" and left her at school!
And it must be confessed that she liked the thought of two waifs facing the world together, very much better than one.
She was not at all disturbed (when it was over) about the interview with her grandfather. It had not, like its predecessor, sent her to bed weeping and ashamed and resolved upon the expediency of "turning over a new leaf."
She had been vexed that her grandfather had had so short a sleep—and that John had not given her warning of his approach—as he had promised to do.
And she was very much distressed to find she had left her pink bonnet behind her. Her mother had discovered its loss when giving out the week's clean one, and had insisted upon her searching every corner in the house for it.
"It's was Dot's," said Mrs. Bruce. "Dot never lost a bonnet in her life. You will have done with bonnets soon, but yours will do for Nancy. I expect you left it at school, you tiresome child."
It certainly would have electrified Mrs. Bruce if her small daughter had confessed to her bonnet's whereabouts. But Betty's scrapes were many and various at this period of her life, and it never entered into her head to tell them to her mother, who was absorbed in her garden and her books, nor to her father, who was supposed to be always "thinking stories."
So Betty ran to school with her clean bonnet tucked under her arm, after promising that she would "try to bring the other one home with her."
Her mind was now at rest upon her future"career." She had quite determined to be a second Madam S—— with this sole difference in their lives—Madam S—— faced the world atherstreet corner at the age of eight, and Betty was not beginning till she was "twelve and a bit."
Still, she had a few worries.
She was worried over John—lest he should have gone and left her; and she was worried over the great question, "What song to sing?" as many singers have been before.
She had thought of "God save the Queen," but the words did not fulfil all requirements, while "Please give me a penny, sir"—that song she had found among a heap of yellow old ones with her mother's name—maiden name, Dorothea Carew—upon them, seemed to have been written just for the occasion. The only pity was, that whereas Betty knew "God Save the Queen" perfectly, "Please give me a penny, sir" was almost a stranger to her.
She had learnt a verse of it on Saturday night when she ought to have been doing her arithmetic; and on Sunday evening shehad coaxed her mother to the piano, and begged her to sing "justthis one song,please." Her mother sang very prettily—like Dot—and she had thrown a good deal of pathos into the old song, so that Betty's ambition was fired, and she hadalmostdecided upon the song straightaway.
This morning she arrived at school flushed and hot, before either Cyril or Nancy, and she began at once to explore the playground for John Brown the artist. Two little lines of boys and girls were playing a sober game of French and English away under the gum trees, and Betty ran her eyes along the lines—but no John Brown was there.
Two boys were skirmishing just behind the cloak-room, but neither of them was John Brown. Five were playing "leap frog," but John Brown was not there. One sat on the doorstep learning a lesson, but that was only Artie Jones.
Then a motley crowd of boys and girls came trailing in at the gate, and the bell began to ring.
Betty drew into the shadow of the newwing, the "Babies' Wing," and scanned the new arrivals eagerly.
Fat Nellie Underwood gave her a bunch of jonquils and fell into line to march into the schoolroom. Minute Hetty Ferguson begged to be allowed to do her hair in the dinner-hour. "Please, Betty dear," she urged. But Betty was looking for John and did not heed.
Cyril was there and grumbling. He was pushing a boy who had pushed him, and pressing his lips together as he pushed, when, all at once, he saw Betty, and left the field to the other boy.
"You're going to catch it, Betty Bruce!" he whispered. "You'll just see! I'm going to tell of you when I go home. Teach you to sneak off to school by yourself."
But Betty's eyes were looking past Cyril, looking for a squarely built figure in grey.
Cyril drew nearer. "You never washed up the porridge plates," he said. "I found them in the dresser cupboard. An' the knives an' forks. An' baby's basin. I'll tell of you."
Then he fell into line and carried his fair pretty face into the schoolroom, where Miss Sharman patted his cheeks when he went to present a little bunch of Czar violets to her.
Miss Sharman presided over Class A for grammar upon Mondays and Thursdays, and Cyril, who was but very weak on adverbs and prepositions, always gave her a sweet-smelling nosegay to begin the day with.
And Miss Sharman had a very tender spot in her heart for pretty Cyril, where she had none for scapegrace Betty. She had doctored Cyril for bruises, had washed his face in her own room and brushed his wavy hair; had kissed him, and given him cakes, and acid drops, and bananas. And although these small sweet matters were just between Miss Sharman and Cyril—their influence might be felt upon grammar days.
Nancy came into school crying—crying noisily. She was rubbing her eyes with one hand, a moist dirty hand, and leaving her face the worse for the contact.
The master inquired sternly what was thematter, and called her to his side. And Nancy told him sobbingly that she "fort she was late, an' now she wasn't." And he patted her head so kindly that the little maid lowered her sobs at once and finally let them die away in an occasional hiccough of sorrow.
Betty came in at last. She had run as far as the store and back again in search of John Brown—and had found him not. She felt quite certain now that he was away practising his genius upon some wall in the great world.
When she came into the schoolroom her face was red with running and excitement, her hair was rough, and her bonnet under her arm still, so oblivious was she to the things of this very every-day and commonplace world.
"Elizabeth Bruce, what is that you have under your arm," Miss Sharman inquired, as Betty walked to her place, which was somewhere in the second form.
Betty looked in surprise—and there was her bonnet. She had to walk out and hang itup, while the class, and even the babies tittered at her blunder.
But there in the cloak-room she found John Brown. He was in the act of hanging his hat upon his own particular peg—the highest one in the room.
"Oh!" said Betty, "hereyou are!"
"You're a nice one," said John Brown.
"What have I done?" asked the little girl eagerly.
But John Brown simply looked his scorn, and it made his face very ugly indeed.
"Oh, whathaveI done?" begged Betty. "Do tell me."
"Trust a girl to mull things up," said John.
"Elizabeth Bruce, return to your class," said a stern voice from the schoolroom, and Betty shot herself back through the door in the twinkling of an eye.
A lengthy space of valuable time was given over to moods and tenses, perfects, pluperfects, pasts, futures; and Betty, whose fortitude was much shaken by John Brown's remarks, sat listlessly five places above him,caring not the least about such mighty words as "cans" and "coulds" and "shalls" and "shoulds," although the air was full of them.
She went down a place, through not being able to find a passive participle for the verb "to bid," Miss Sharman shaking an angry head at her eager "bidded." And she went down two for knowing nothing of the present tense of "slain."
That brought her one place removed from John Brown, and all her eagerness now was to go one lower and learn at once wherein lay her offence.
So, although she knew perfectly that the verb "to fall" had "fell" for its past participle, she uttered an eager "failed" and sat next to John Brown.
"Disgraceful!" said Miss Sharman. "You could not have opened your book, Elizabeth (which was only too true). Your little sister Nancy, in the babies' class, could have told you that."
But Elizabeth saved herself with the verb, "to sing," and sat uneasily in case John shouldblunder over "to fight." But he was quite correct and did not need his small neighbour's eager whisper.
And then Miss Sharman passed on to other verbs and other pupils, and John and Betty were left in peace, side by side, outwardly two indifferently intelligent pupils, inwardly perplexed, distressed and elated by their new ambition.
"What have I done?" whispered Betty.
"Silly!" whispered John.
"But—whathaveI done?"
"Girl!" whispered John in scorn.
The trouble at Betty's heart stirred and hurt her. Was it not enoughto bea girl, without beingcalledone—and in such a whisper. She sat still, and, to save herself from tears, bit her lips and pressed them together, and pinched her left arm with her right hand, as she sat there with her arms folded behind her.
And John thought she didn't care!
He looked at her out of an eye-corner and added, "I'm done with you," as a final stab.
Betty said, "Oh no, John," imploringly, and Miss Sharman caught her whisper and saw her lips move, and said—
"Elizabeth Bruce—don't let me have to look at you again this morning. You are very troublesome. Why can you not take a leaf out of your brother's book, I wonder?"
The morning wore on, and tenses and moods gave place to drill. Then they all went into the playground, and armed themselves with poles, and formed into lines.
John, as the tallest and straightest-backed and sturdiest-limbed pupil in the school, was always at the head of one line. While Nellie Underwood and Betty Bruce, being of a height and age, headed a line alternately.
It fell to Betty's lot to be head of a line to-day, and though she had to "right wheel and march," with John for a partner, down the middle and up again, and "left wheel and march" from John to meet again, and "right wheel and march," and all of it over and over and over again, John's eyes onlyignored the little distressed face in the cotton bonnet, or told her contemptuously that she was a "girl."
At eleven o'clock recess he was skirmishing with four smaller boys (using only one hand to their eight) and Betty walked up and down under the gum trees arm in arm with two other girls in sun-bonnets.
At dinner-time John scampered home to roast fowl and bread sauce, and Betty and Cyril and Nancy carried their lunch bag to a shady corner and ate bread and jam sandwiches with relish, finishing up with a banana each.
It was not until afternoon school was well over that Betty found John in any way approachable. He was skimming stones along the dusty road with practised skill, and Betty, alone and hurrying, caught him up.
She artfully admired a stone that sped for a couple of hundred yards an inch or so above the earth, without, to all seeming, ever touching it. And John condescended to be pleased at her praise.
When she had at his command tried herhand at throwing and been condemned by him, she put her question again.
"Why aren't you speaking to me, John? What have I done?"
"I'm speaking!" quoth John. "But I'm done with you."
"But what have I done?"
"Done! Only got me into a row with my grandfather. Only got me to bed at six o'clock without any tea for speaking to you. That's all."
"And shan't you speak to me any more?" asked Betty.
"Only just speak," said John.
"And—and——" Betty's voice quavered with anxiety—"shan't you run away with me?"
"Mightn't" said John. He sent another stone speeding down the road, and Betty watched it with misty eyes, as she trudged along behind him. She did not speak.
"You should have cleared when I coughed," said John. "I told you I'd cough, but you sat there reading and wouldn't look up."
Still Betty was silent.
"You'd give the whole blessed show away," said John. "What's the good of running away and being brought back to school. That comes of being a girl."
And then he looked at her and saw the tears were running down her cheeks and her lips quivering.
"You're crying!" he said, turning round to her sharply.
"Oh, I'm not," said Betty, and dragged her bonnet further over her face. "That horrid stone of yours made a d-dust, and its—it's got in my eyes."
John laughed. "If you do run away," he said, "what shall you do?"
Betty's ambition leapt to life, and her tears dried themselves on her cheeks and in her eyes.
"I'm going to sing," she said. "I'm going to stand at a street corner and sing, and I'm going to wear a tattered old dress and no boots and stockings. And then an old gentleman will pass by and he'll hear me and stand still, and he'll take me away to make a singer of me; and even lords will come to hear me sing, and kings and queens."
John was stirred.
"I'm going without boots, too," he said, "and I shall be in tattered things. I shall get a place as errand boy first, and——"
"When are you going?" asked Betty artfully.
"To-morrow," said John.
"Why, so am I," said Betty. "How funny."
"If you like," said John, "I'll see you to some street corner. I'm going at five o'clock in the morning."
"Why, so am I," said Betty. "Oh, yes; let's go together."
"You can be down at the store by half-past five," said John. "That'll give us time to get a bit of breakfast. And we'll be in Sydney early, before they find out we've gone."