"She went back to her bedroom, to place by Nancy's side her only remaining doll.""She went back to her bedroom, to place by Nancy's side her only remaining doll."
Needlessto say Betty did not "waste" any time that night over home-lessons. How can the beginner of a great singer be expected to care whether the pronoun "that" in "I dare do all 'that' may become a man," is relative or possessive? or whether Smyrna is the capital of Turkey or Japan? or even whether the Red Sea has to do with Africa or China.
Betty did not even open her school satchel, or peep at the cover of her books. Instead, she copied out the words of her song and learnt them sitting there at the table with Cyril.
Neither was Cyril doing home-lessons. He certainly had his books spread out before him, but the contents of his pockets were strewn upon his open books, and he wasexamining them and grumbling now and again at the rapacity of certain school-mates who had caused him to lose certain treasures, or accept less valuable ones, on the school system of "I'll give you this for that."
He turned over three coloured marbles in disgust. For them he had bartered away a catapult, and now his heart was heavy over the exchange.
"Artie Jones is a sneak," he grumbled. "He ought to have given me six marbles for that catapult. Eh? What do you say?"
The question was directed to Betty, whose lips were moving.
She shook her head, and sighed drearily, for she had entered into the very being of the little beggar girl who sang for a penny.
"Nothing," she said. "Nothing you'd understand. Don't chatter."
"Don't be so silly," said Cyril. "I'm as old as you, any way."
"Mother says I'm an hour older than you," said Betty.
"That's nothing," said Cyril.
"You can learn a lot in an hour," quothBetty, and bent her attention to her strip of paper.
"I told mother about the dirty plates, so there," said the boy. "And——"
"Bah!" said Betty, and pushed her fingers into her ears.
Betty had several plans for waking early, amongst which may be named—putting marbles in her bed that in rolling unconsciously about for comfort she might be awakened by the discomfort. That had answered very well once or twice. Another was to place her pillow half-way down the bed, that she might be within reach of the foot of it—and then to rest her own foot on a lower rail and tie it there. Another was to prop herself into a sitting position and fold her hands across her chest, that by sleeping badly she might not sleep long.
Many a night had her father and mother laughed at the attitude chosen by their second daughter, and arranged her that her sleep might be easier.
"Betty wants to get up early," they would say and smile. But upon this night—thenight before the battle—they did not go to her room at all.
Mrs. Bruce was reading a new magazine, and saying now and again, as she turned a leaf or smiled at her husband, that shehadintended doing a bit of mending; and Mr. Bruce was polishing up a chapter in his book, and saying now and again as he paused for a choicer word, or smiled at his wife, that hehadintended doing that blessed article on Cats, for Flavelle. So they both went on being uncomfortably comfortable.
Betty tried all her expedients for early rising, and yet peaceful was her sleep throughout the night. Her lashes lay still on her rounded cheeks, her rosy lips smiled and her brown curls strewed the pillow, just as effectively as though she were on a velvet couch, and a living illustration of a small princess, sleeping to be awakened by a kiss.
She awoke just as the day was pinkly breaking and the night stealing greyly away, awoke under the impression that John Brown was cutting off her foot. It was a great comfortto find it there and merely cold and cramped from lack of covering and an unnatural position.
She remembered everything immediately without even waiting to rub her eyes, and she sprang out of bed at once, even though her right foot refused to do its duty, and she had to stand for a valuable minute on her left.
The clock hands (she had carried the kitchen clock into her bedroom to Mary's chagrin), pointed to a quarter to five, and Betty realized she had only an hour in which to dress eat her breakfast, bid good-bye to any home objects she held dear, and travel down the road to the store.
She was vexed, for she had meant to get up at four.
She got into her tattered Saturday's frock (her Cinderella costume) and she brushed and plaited her short curly hair, as well as it would allow itself to be plaited. Then she made a bundle of her boots and stockings and school-day frock and hid them away under the skirt of her draped dressing-table, and opened her money-box and extracted thecontents (thirteen half-pennies). This was the fortune with which she purposed to face the world.
And so real had this thing become to her now, that she crept to the far side of the double bed to kiss the sleeping Nancy, and down the passage to Cyril's room, to look at his face upon the pillows; and the tears were heavy in her eyes because she was quitting her "early" home.
When she had reached the pantry she remembered something, and went back to her bed room, to place by Nancy's side her only remaining doll, a faded hairless beauty, Belinda, by name.
And she pinned a note upon the pincushion (all her heroines who fled from their early homes, left notes upon the pincushion) addressed to "Father and Mother," and as she passed their door she stroked it lovingly. In the pantry she was guilty of several sobs, while she cut the bread, it seemed so pitiful to her to be going away from her home in the grey dawn to seek a livelihood for her family. In truth her small heart ached creditably asshe ate her solitary breakfast, and it might have gone on aching only that she suddenly bethought herself of time. Half-past five, John had said, and she remembered all that she had done since half-past four.
"Itmustbe half-past five now," she said. "I'll eat this as I go," and she folded two pieces of bread and butter together.
Then she found her bonnet and the strip of paper with the song upon it, and grasping her half-pennies set forth.
She ran most of the way to the store, which, it may be remembered, occupied the corner, just before you come to Wygate School.
As Betty came in sight of it she saw John standing still there, and she thought gratefully how good it was of him to wait for her.
He wore a very old and very baggy suit, a dirty torn straw hat (of which it must be owned he had plenty), and neither boots nor stockings.
The children eyed each other carefully, noting every detail, and both in their own heart admiring the other exceedingly.
Betty's face had lost its traces of tears, but had not got back its happy look. Her mouth drooped sadly.
"What's up?" asked John as they turned their faces towards the silent south.
"It hurts me, leaving the little ones," said Betty, who was now in imagination Madam S——. "You have no brothers and sisters to provide for."
John sighed. "No," he said, "I've no one but an old grandfather, and he grudges me every crust I eat. He's cut me off with a shilling."
For a space Betty was envious. For a space she liked John's imagination better than her own. That "cutting off with a shilling" seemed to her very fine.
He showed her his shilling. "I'vethat," he said, "to begin life on. Many a fellow would starve on it.I'mgoing to make my fortune with it."
They were the words one of his heroes had spoken, and sounded splendid to both.
"I've sixpence-halfpenny," said Betty, andunclosed her little brown hand for a second. "That's all!"
They walked on. In front of them and behind ran the dusty road, like a red line dividing a still bush world. Overhead was a tender sky, grey stealing shyly away to give place to a soft still blue. Already the daylight was wakening others than these foolish barefooted waifs. Here and there a frog uttered its protest against, mayhap, the water it had discovered, or been born to; the locusts lustily prophesied a hot day. Occasionally an industrious rabbit travelled at express speed from the world on one side of the red road to the world on the other. And above all this bustle and business and frivolity rang the brazen laugh of a company of kookaburras, who were answering each other from every corner of the bush.
After some little travelling the fortune seekers came upon a cottage standing alone in a small bush-clearing on their right. Three cows stood chewing their cud, and waiting to be milked, a scattering of fowls was shaking off dull sleep, and making no little ado about it,and near the door a shock-headed youth was rubbing both eyes with both hands.
Betty and John walked on. These signs of awakening life roused them to a livelier sense of being alive.
Yet a little further and they came to what Betty always called a "calico" cottage, which is to say, a cottage made of scrim, and white-washed. Windows belonged to it, and a door, and a garden enclosed by a brushwood fence.
"Let's peep in the gate," said Betty, "it's such asweetlittle house."
"Wait till you see the houseImean to have," quoth John.
But Betty preferred to peep in then. She went close to the half-open gate and popped in her head.
Inside the gate was a garden, and all its beds were defined by upended stout bottles—weedless, sweet-scented beds wherein grew such blooms as daisies, and violets, stocks, sweetpeas, sweet williams, lad's love and mignonette.
"Oh!" said Betty. "Oh—just smell! just put your head in for a minute, John."
But John was for "pushing on," and getting to Sydney to make his shilling two.
While they were parleying, a man came round the corner of the "sweet little house," and his eyes fell on the bonneted maiden.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed, "and who's this? Polly?"
"No," said Betty.
"Na-o. Then p'raps it's Lucy. Eh?"
John tugged at Betty's dress and said "Come on," urgingly; but the man was already letting down two slip-rails a little way from the crazy gate, and his eyes rested on the second barefooted imp.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed, "An' how's this any'ow?"
John, who had a greater dread of capture than Betty, inquired innocently if there were any wild flowers up this way.
The man drew his hand across his eyes to banish sleep inclinations. "Not many now, I reckon," he said. "There might be a few sprigs of 'eath an' the flannel flowers ain't all done yet. Goin' to town?"
Betty nodded, and John said,—
"Yes—we'll be gettin' back 'ome" in a fair imitation of his questioner's voice.
"I'll be goin' as far as the markets," said the man "an' I don't mind givin' you a lift ef you like."
John's eyes brightened, for he was longing for the centre of the city, and he had felt they were covering ground very slowly. And Betty's brightened because she thought she would soon coax the man into letting her drive.
So the fortune seekers made their entry into town in a fruit cart.
Everymorning there was a skirmish between Betty and Cyril as to who should have the first bath, and Betty generally won, because as she pointed out, she had Nancy to bath, too, and to make her bed, and set the table, and cut the lunches, whereas Cyril only had to bring up two loads of wood.
But this morning, to Cyril's delight, he was first and he got right into the room and fastened the door with the prop (a short thick stick which was wedged between the centre of the door and the bath, and was Mr. Bruce's patent to replace the handle that "lost itself"), and still Betty came not. And he loitered in the bathroom and played, and half-dressed, and then undressed, and got back into the bath, and out again, and dressed, and still no Betty banged at the door.
"Can't make out where Miss Betty's got to," said Mary sulkily, "I'll tell your mother on her. She's not set the table, and she's not cut the lunches, and she's not done nothing."
Cyril, who had brought up his wood and otherwise and in every way performed his morning's duties, waxed indignant at Betty and her negligence, and went down the passage to her room, muttering—
"I'll tell mother of you, Betty Bruce, so there!"
But no Betty Bruce was there. Only Nancy in her nightgown still, and playing with poor faded Belinda.
Mary had to set the table, and Mary had to cut the lunches, and Nancy had to miss her bath, and go to Mary for the buttoning of her clothes. And all because Betty had gone out to make her fortune!
Mrs. Bruce came out of her room late—which was a very usual thing for her to do—and she called:—
"Nancy, come and take baby. Betty, find me a safety pinquickly. I think I saw one on the floor near the piano."
And Mr. Bruce followed her in his slippers, and called—
"Nancy—Betty—one of you go down to the gate and bring up the paper."
Cyril ran to them breathless with his news—
"Betty's never got up yet. Mary's had to do all her work an' she's not got breakfast ready yet. And Nancy's had to dress herself an' all."
Mrs. Bruce opened her eyes—just like Dot did when she was very surprised, and said,—
"Then go andmakeBetty get up at once." But Cyril interrupted with—
"She's not in bed at all. She's out playing somewhere; I daresay she's gone to school so's to be before me and Nancy. She's always doing that now."
Mrs. Bruce had to hurry to make up for lost time—as she had perpetually to do—and she could not stay to lend an ear to Cyril's tale. So he was left grumbling on about Betty, and school, and a hundred and one things that were "not fair."
Nancy had a bowl of porridge and milk in the kitchen, superintended in the eating of itby Mary, who was giving baby her morning portion of bread and milk.
Cyril carried his porridge plate to the verandah that he might watch if Betty was lurking around in the hopes of breakfast.
And Mr. Bruce read the paper and sipped a cup of abominably made coffee serenely.
They were such a scattered family at breakfast time usually, that one away made little difference. No one but Cyril missed Betty at the table. Her services in the house were missed—so many duties had almost unnoticeably slipped upon her small shoulders, and now it was found there was no one to do them but slip-shod overworked Mary.
Just as Cyril was setting off to school Mary ran after him with a newspaper parcel of clumsy bread and jam sandwiches.
"I'm not sending Miss Betty's," she said—"it'll teach her not to clear out of the way again."
Mrs. Bruce put her head out of the kitchen window—she had not had "time" for any breakfast yet beyond a cup of tea.
"Send Betty home again," she said; "sheshan'tgo to school till her work's done."
But even at eleven o'clock no Betty had arrived. Mary, who had done all the washing-up—and done some of it very badly—was sent by her mistress to strip Betty's bed and leave it to air. And she found the note on the pincushion, and after reading it through twice, carried it in open-eyed amazement to her mistress, who was eating a peach as she sat on the verandah edge, and merely said, "Very well, give it to your master."
So Mr. Bruce took it, and opened it very leisurely, and then started and said: "Ye gods!" and read it through to himself first and then out aloud.
"Dear Father and Mother" (it said)—"I am going away from my childhood's home to make a fortune for all of you. My voice is my fortune. When I've made it I shall come back to you. So good-bye to you all, and may you be very happy always."Your loving daughter,"Betty."
"Dear Father and Mother" (it said)—
"I am going away from my childhood's home to make a fortune for all of you. My voice is my fortune. When I've made it I shall come back to you. So good-bye to you all, and may you be very happy always.
"Your loving daughter,"Betty."
Mrs. Bruce put down her peach and said: "Read it again, will you, dear," in a quiet steady way as though she were trying to understand.
And Mr. Bruce read it again, and then passed it over to her to read for herself.
"She's somewhere close at hand, of course!" he said. "Silly child!"
"Shecouldn'tgo very far, could she?" asked Mrs. Bruce, seeking comfort.
Mr. Bruce shook his head.
"One never quite knowswhatBetty could do," he said. "She's gone to find her fortune, she says. I wonder now if that is her old crazy idea of hunting for a gold mine. No! 'My voice is my fortune,' she says. Good lord! Whom has she been talking to? What books has she been reading?"
Mrs. Bruce sighed and smiled. As no immediate danger seemed to threaten Betty, there appeared no reason for instant action. They could still take life leisurely, as they had done all their married days. It was only madcap Betty who ever tried to hurry their pace or upset the calm of their domestic sky—Betty with her ways and plans and pranks.
So Mrs. Bruce leaned back on the verandah post.
"Where one has onlyonechild," she said, "life must be a simple matter. It is when there are several of several ages that the difficulty comes in. Now we, for instance, need to be—just a year old—and six years old—and twelve and seventeen—all in addition to our own weight of years."
Her husband smiled. "You do very well," he said. "I saw you playing with Baby this morning, and I've heard you and Dot talk, and could have imagined she had a school-friend here."
"Dot—yes! But Betty—no!"
"Betty is at an awkward age," said Mr. Bruce. "I confessIknow very little of her. What is hersingingvoice like? I think, dear, you'd better give me a list of the clothing she has on, and I'll go down the road and make a few inquiries."
The only dress they could discover "missing," to Mrs. Bruce's horror, was the tatteredSaturday frock. And Mary found the boots and stockings under the dressing-table, so the conviction that she had gone barefoot was forced upon them.
At twelve o'clock Cyril was startled to see his father enter the schoolroom, and he observed that Mr. Sharman shook hands with him in a very affable manner, which was, of course, very condescending of Mr. Sharman. In fact, it led Cyril to hope for leniency from him in the looming arithmetic lesson.
A low voiced conversation took place, and then Cyril was called down to the desk and questioned closely about his truant sister.
But of course Cyril knew nothing.
Then another very strange thing happened.
While Mr. Bruce and Mr. Sharman and Cyril were standing in the middle of the floor—Cyril feeling covered with glory from his father's and Mr. Sharman's intimacy in the eyes of the whole school—another shadow darkened the doorway. And the other shadow belonged to no smaller a person thanCaptain Carew, of Dene Hall, Willoughby, N.S. Wales.
Miss Sharman went out to meet him before the little trio knew he was there, and his hearty "Good morning, ma'am! I've come for news of that young scapegrace, my grandson, John Brown," filled the room.
Whereat Mr. Bruce turned round, and he and the captain faced each other, and Cyril, in great fear, looked up to see if Arthur Smedley, the dread bully, had heard how the great captain of Dene Hall had absolutely, and in the hearing of the whole school acknowledged John Brown to be his grandson, and had not so much as glanced at Cyril, who stood there quite close to him.
It was the first time for more than seventeen years that Captain Carew and Mr. Bruce had been so close together, despite the fact that the fences of their respective properties were within sight of each other.
To-day Captain Carew grew a deep dark-red from his neck to the top of his forehead, and Mr. Bruce went quite white and held his head very high.
And Mr. Sharman drew back nervously, for he, like most other people, knew all about the relationship of these two men to each other, and about their deadly feud.
But the captain strode down the room, just as though he owned Mr. and Miss Sharman and every boy in the school, and he raised his voice somewhat as he repeated his statement about his grandson, "John Brown."
"And if you'll kindly excuse Cyril, I'll take him with me," said Mr. Bruce quietly, continuing his sentence, just as if no interruption had occurred at all.
In the playground Cyril received his commands, glad indeed to have them to execute instead of the arithmetic lesson and play-hour which the ordinary happenings of life would have brought about.
"Go into the bush," said his father, "and search there for her. Look everywhere where you are accustomed to play. She may have fallen down somewhere and hurt herself."
"Yes, father," said the boy obediently. "How'd it be to see if she's fallen in the creek?"
His father gave him an angry look.
"Afterwards go home," he said. "Let the creek alone, and don't talk such folly—Betty is more than five. Tell your mother I'm going to give it into the hands of the police."
Cyril went into the bush—not very far—because the growth was thick, and he had a great dread of snakes.
"S'pose I were bitten," he said, "and I just had to stay here by myself and die! Wonder where Betty is; it's very silly of her to go and lose herself like this.Inever lose myself at all."
He came to a two-rail fence, and climbed up and sat on one of its posts, and then he looked around as far as the bush would let him see.
"It's better to keep near a fence," he said. "Then if a bull comes, you're safe. If he jumped over I could roll under, and we could keep doing it, an' he couldn't catch me.... 'Tis silly of Betty to get lost.Iwouldn't get lost. You never know how many bulls and things there are about."
He looked round again, and then he climbed down and ran back to the road.
"I'll go home now," he said, "I can't find Betty anywhere. I've looked and looked. And school will be out soon, and how do I know Arthur Smedley took his lunch to-day; he might be coming home."
Whereat this valiant youth looked over his shoulder, and saw the boys running out of the school gate. So he took to his heels and ran home as fast as ever he could.
Thefortune seekers were set down at a street corner near the Quay at half-past six.
When it had come to the matter of crossing the harbour, from the Northern Shore to the Quay, in the punt (they two sitting in the cart the while), they had found themselves called upon to pay a penny each for the passage over, which they had enjoyed amazingly. Betty paid both pennies, having the coppers, but she urged John to be quick and get his shilling changed to pay her back.
At the street corner John suggested leaving her for awhile. "This would be as good a corner as any other for you, Betty," he said, and slapped the shutters of a chemist's shop as he spoke, "You stand here, and you'll catch everybody who goes by."
"There's no one going by yet," said Betty."What are you going to do? You're not going to leave me all alone?"
"Well," said John, "we might stick together a bit longer, anyway. I'll come back for you. You sing your song, and I'll just go and see if any shops want a boy. I don't suppose the offices are opened yet. What I'd like is a good warehouse, and then I'd rise to be manager, and partner. That's the sort of thing. I don't think there's much in a shop after all, but I'll have to find out where the warehouses are. A tea warehouse is good,Ican tell you. You get sent out to India for the firm, and then come back and are made a partner."
He started off, only to be stopped after he had gone a few steps, by Betty's voice calling, "Get your shilling changed, I want my penny"; to which he nodded.
Betty had the corner all to herself then. Down the street, and up the street, and down the side street, whichever way she craned her neck she could see no one.
It seemed to her a very good opportunity to try her powers. So she commenced. Atfirst it must be confessed she made no more sound than she had done in talking to John. And the street was so used to voices that it did not open an eye.
Therefore Betty grew bolder, and forgot in singing that she was not at the bend in the old home-road, where she had practised once or twice since she had decided upon her career. Her voice rose clearly—shrilly—and sometimes she remembered the tune quite fairly. When she forgot it, she filled in what would have otherwise been a pause with a little bit out of any other tune that came into her head.
For those who would like to know the words of the song she was singing, and who may not have it among their mother's girlhood songs, as Betty had, it may be as well to copy them from the paper she held in her hand to refresh her memory from—
"Please give me a penny, sir; my mother dear is dead,And, oh! I am so hungry, sir—a penny please for bread;All day I have been asking, but no one heeds my cry,Will you not give me something, or surely I must die?"Please give me a penny, sir; you won't say 'no' to me,Because I'm poor and ragged, sir, and oh! so cold you see;We were not always begging—we once were rich like you,But father died a drunkard, and mother she died too."Chorus—"Please give me a penny, sir; my mother dear is dead,And, oh! I am so hungry, sir—a penny please for bread."
"Please give me a penny, sir; my mother dear is dead,And, oh! I am so hungry, sir—a penny please for bread;All day I have been asking, but no one heeds my cry,Will you not give me something, or surely I must die?
"Please give me a penny, sir; you won't say 'no' to me,Because I'm poor and ragged, sir, and oh! so cold you see;We were not always begging—we once were rich like you,But father died a drunkard, and mother she died too."
Chorus—
"Please give me a penny, sir; my mother dear is dead,And, oh! I am so hungry, sir—a penny please for bread."
At the end of the first verse she found it necessary to run her eye over the paper before beginning the second.
Perhaps it was just as well for her serenity that she did not look up as she sang. For just as soon as her voice rose into anything approaching a tune—it was near the end of the first verse—a face looked down upon her from the corner window of the second story of the chemist's house.
It was a young face, early old—white and drawn and marked by the unmistakable lines of suffering.
Betty knew nothing about the trouble of the world in those days; nothing of suffering, nothing of sorrow. And the woman aboveher knew of all. She leaned over the window-sill and her eyes smiled pityingly as they rested on the small bared head.
She had been praying her morning prayer near the open window, begging for strength to bear her sorrows, and for as many as might be to be taken from her, when Betty's voice quavered right up to her window.
She looked down, and there was the small singer's curly brown head. She looked longer, and saw Betty clasp a bare foot in one hand and stand on one foot, drop the foot from her hand and reverse the action.
It was merely a habit of Betty's, but the woman found in it a sign that the child was worn and weary—worn and weary before seven o'clock in the morning.
She drew her dressing-gown around her, searched her dress pocket for her purse, and leaning out dropped sixpence upon the pavement close to the little singer.
Betty stopped at once and looked around her, down the street and around the corner; at the shop shutters and door, but never once so high as the windows.
The woman smiled to herself.
"Poor little mite," she said. "I must remember even the little children have their griefs! It should make me grumble less."
Betty ran along the street in the direction John had taken. She felt shemusttell some one. Then, as a thought struck her, she ran back to the house, looked up to the second story and saw a smiling face, and then set off again, running down the street for John.
Not seeing him, she stopped at the next corner and examined her coin lovingly. Then she looked up atthatcorner window and began to sing again.
But this time her reward came from the street. Three bluejackets were walking down the street to the Quay, lurching over the pavement as they walked. The child's song touched and stirred that latent sentimentality of theirs.
Her "orsurelyI shall die," brought a silver threepence from one of them, and a copper from each of the others.
Betty felt wealthy now, beyond the dreamsof avarice. She had made a shilling in an hour!
She looked at the post office clock high up in the air there above her head, and it informed her that it was only a quarter past seven. Not eight o'clock yet! And she had made a shilling! Twelve pennies! As much as she received in six months by staying at home!
She sat down on the kerbstone to count her money, putting her feet in the dry guttera la manièreborn. She made first of all a stack of her half-pennies, and then of her pennies. There were nine half-pennies, three pennies, a threepenny bit and a sixpence. The grand total she found was one and fourpence halfpenny. More than even John had started out with.
While she was thus like a small miser counting her money, a hand swooped suddenly down upon the heap of coppers and swept them away. Betty looked up to scream, but it was only John. And he warned her solemnly how easily such a dreadful theft could be committed.
"I wish to goodness the shops would open," he said discontentedly. "I'm beginning to want some breakfast, I can tell you."
Betty unfolded her hands and displayed her wealth of coin. "A shilling in an hour," she said, and John's look of surprised unbelief delighted her.
"You picked it up!" he said.
"Oh, I didn't!" cried Betty. "People gave it to me just for singing! A shilling an hour! I forget how much Madam S—— makes in an hour. I think its more than a pound!"
"Don't you want your breakfast?" asked John.
"Let's count how many hours in a day," said Betty, twisting about to see a clock, the high post office clock they were walking under now, and found it. "I want to make my fortune quickly and go home and surprise them. How much money is in a fortune, John?"
John considered deeply for a minute and then gave it as his idea that five hundred pounds was usually called a fortune.
"The child's song touched and stirred that latent sentimentality of theirs.""The child's song touched and stirred that latent sentimentality of theirs."
"That'll take a good bit of making," said Betty.
"Well, you didn't expect to make it in a day did you?" asked John roughly.
"Oh, no," said Betty cheerfully, "I was only wondering how many hours there are in a day—at a shilling an hour."
She began to count slowly on the fingers of one hand all the hours until seven o'clock at night, the first hour to be from eight till nine o'clock in the morning.
"Eleven hours!" she said. "That's eleven shillings! Eleven shillings, John. Oh, and one hour gone, that's twelve! Twelveshillingsa day, just fancy, John! Oh, I'll soon be rich."
"But you couldn't sing every hour in the day," said sensible John, although his eyes plainly expressed admiration for her brilliant career. "Why, you'd get hoarse!"
"I only sang twice in this hour," said Betty; "the rest of the time I've just been counting my money and looking round me."
"But you mightn't make a shilling every hour," said John.
"But—some hours I may make more, so it's about equal."
"I wish we could have some breakfast," said John, reverting to his trouble. "I'm jolly hungry, I can tell you."
"So am I," said Betty. "Twelve shillings a day—six days in a week. Oh, can I sing on Sundays, John?"
"Hymns," quoth the boy.
"Um! I could sing 'Scatter seeds of kindness' and 'Yield not to temptation.' Um! I never thought of hymns. I think I'll sing hymns to-day as well, 'cause I'm not very sure of my song yet, and every now and then I have to stop to look at the words. Can I sing hymns on other days than Sundays, John?"
"Better not," said the cautious John; "better keep the proper things for the proper days. Well, Betty Bruce, if you're going to stay here all day, I'm not. I'm getting awfully hungry."
At last Betty's motherliness awoke.
"My poor John!" she said, "of course you're hungry. We'll go to a shop and get a really good breakfast. I wasn't thinking. When a person begins to make a lot of money, they generally forget other things, don't they?"
"Um!" said John, who had made nothing at all. "We'll go and get a good breakfast and then we'll be fit for anything, won't we. Come on."
They turned round the corner into King Street, and there to their delight found the shops one by one opening their eyes—drapers, chemist, fruiterers, and then at last a shop with cakes in the window.
The children stood at the door and peeped in. They saw myriads of white tables and a couple of sleepy looking girls. One girl held a broom and was leaning on its handle and surveying the stretch of floor to be swept. Her eyes at last went to the door, and Betty, seeing they had been observed walked slowly in, leaving John outside.
"No," said the girl, shaking her head.
"We want some breakfast," said Betty, andadded "please," as her eyes fell on a trayful of pastry on the counter.
Again the girl shook her head.
"Can't give you any here," she said; "now run away."
Then Betty's face flushed; for though one may sing to earn an honest livelihood and competency, it is quite another thing to be taken for a beggar.
"We'll pay for it," she said, and then forgot her pride and urged, "Go on, we're so hungry! We've been walking about since five o'clock."
Something in the child's face touched the girl's heart. She herself had been up at half-past five and knew a great deal about poverty and privation.
"Well, come on then," she said. "Go and sit down at one of them tables and I'll fetch you something."
Betty ran to the door and called "John," in an ecstatic tone, "come on."
Then the two of them chose a table and sat down.
"Not porridge, please," called Betty to thegirl. "Just cakes and things, and lemonade instead of tea.I'llpay the bill."
But John brought out his shilling.
"I'll pay for myself," he said grimly, "and I'll pay you back the penny I owe you, too."
Byten o'clock Betty had made another shilling, having caught the workers of the city as they were going to their day's toil.
And it must be owned it was a mysterious "something" about the child herself that arrested what attention she drew. Perhaps it lay in the fresh rosiness of her face, in the clearness of her sweet eyes, in the brightness of her young hair; for her courage ebbed away so soon as two or three were gathered around her; her voice sank to a whisper, she drooped her head, trifled with one wristband or the other, stood first on one foot and then on the other, and displayed the various signs of nervousness Mr. Sharman's stern eye provoked her to.
At eleven o'clock, John, who had madethreepence by carrying a bag for a lady, looked Betty up at the appointed corner and proposed lemonade and currant buns, for which she was quite ready.
Afterwards they stood for a valuable half-hour outside the waxworks and explored the markets, where Betty sang "Scatter seeds of kindness," in spite of John's solemnly given advice to keep it for Sunday. Here she only made a penny halfpenny by her song, but as she said to John—
"Every one must expect some bad hours."
Then, too, there was in her heart a feeling of certainty that a keen eyed, bent shouldered old gentleman would be passing soon, and carry her away straight to the very threshold of fame, as Madam S——'s old gentleman carriedher.
When they had become thoroughly acquainted with the markets, John suggested she should again "count up," with a view of deciding what sort of lodgings she could afford for the night.
Betty had not thought of such a trivial thing, leaving it possibly for her old gentlemanto settle. But she was more than willing to "count up" again.
So they went into a corner behind a deserted fruit stall, sat down upon an empty case, and made little stacks of pennies and half-pennies and small silver coins.
She had two shillings and a penny, she found in all, and John told her she could afford to go to one of the places he had seen this morning, where a bed and breakfast were to be had for sixpence.
"I have seen some places where they charge a shilling," said John. "It seems an awful lot to pay for a bed and a bit of breakfast. But a sixpenny place will do for you, and as you're only twelve they might take you for threepence."
"And where will you go?" asked Betty anxiously.
"Oh, I'd be sixpence, you see, because I'm thirteen and a half," said John. "I can't afford to pay sixpence. It's always harder for a fellow to get on than for a girl. That's why you hear more about self-made men than self-made women—they're thought more of.No bed for me, I expect, for some time to come. I'll have to sleep in the Domain. I heard a fellow talking this morning, and he said he's been sleeping there for a week now. And, you know, Peterborough, the artist I told you about—well, he slept for a week in abarrel!"
"How much money have you got?" asked Betty.
"Eightpence!" said John. "No one seems to want an errand boy to-day."
Betty began to feel very doleful at being one step above John in this the beginning of their career. But she dared not offer to lend to him, he had been so very insistent upon paying her back her penny, and paying for his own breakfast and lemonade and buns.
He took her and showed her two houses which bore the words, "Bed and breakfast, 6d.!" and then he led the way to the Domain, having been through it many times with his grandfather, while to stay-at-home Betty it was no more than a name. Macquarie Street lay asleep as they travelled through it andpast Parliament House and the Hospital and the Public Library.
It never for a moment occurred to Betty that Dot was domiciled in that street of big high houses and hushed sounds. She knew Dot's school address was "Westmead House, Macquarie Street," but she had not the remotest idea that she and John were travelling down Macquarie Street past Westmead House.
Just inside the Domain gates they paused to admire Governor Burke's statue, and to count their money again in its shade.
Then John pointed out to her the tree-shaded path that runs to Woollomooloo Bay and the great sweeping grass stretch that lay on one side of it.
Many men were there already, full length upon the grass, their hats over their eyes, asleep or callous to waking.
Betty at once signified her intention of spending her first night out here, also, and pointed to a seat under a Norfolk Island pine tree.
"We could be quite cosy there," she said, "and you could lend me your coat."
"But I'd want it myself," said John.
"John inGirls and Boys Abroadused always to give Virginia his coat," said Betty.
It was slightly to the right of Governor Burke's statue that Betty was inspired to sing "Yield not to temptation," standing with her back to the iron railing.
And it was just as she was being carried out of herself and singing her shrillest in the second verse that Miss Arnott, the English governess in Westmead House, brought her line of pupils for their daily constitutional down the Domain.
Pretty Dot, and the judge's daughter, Nellie Harden, were at the head of the line, and were conversing in an affable manner and low voices upon the newest trimmings for summer hats, when the little couple near the statue came into view.
Betty's eyes were downcast that she might not be distracted by her audience, but John, who was clinging to the railing near her, saw the marching school, saw Dot, and knew that she had seen.