Odd | Page 2

the linen kept there. It was a small, square room, containing a table and
one chair; the window was high above the children's reach, and locked
cupboards were on every side. Nurse invariably used it for punishing
small offences, and being a woman of stern principles, she generally set
the little culprit a text to learn whilst there. A Bible was on the table,
and Betty was led up to it.

'You will stay here till tea-time, and will not come out until you have
learnt a text, and said you are sorry for knocking down your little
brother in a fit of wicked temper. This is the fourth time I have had to
bring you here this week, and it is now only Tuesday. I have more
trouble with you than all the others put together, and you ought to be
ashamed of yourself.'
Betty was sobbing bitterly, and when nurse left the room and turned the
key behind her, the child flung herself down on the floor.
'It's a shame! It's all Douglas and Molly: they make promises and don't
keep them; and it was ever so much nicer a story than Molly's. I know
they'd have liked it if they'd heard it; they never think I can do
anything!'
To explain the cause of Betty's grievance, I must tell you that it was a
custom of the little Stuarts to await the muffin man's approach on his
rounds, and as his bell would sound, they would take it in turns each
day to relate to the others an account of the different houses he had
gone to, and who had been the fortunate individuals to receive the
muffins that had already disappeared from his tray. It was an idle hour
in the nursery from four to five, and if the gathering dusk kept the
active eyes still, the fertile brains were brought into requisition. Telling
stories was a constant delight, and the wonderful adventures that befell
the muffins on their daily rounds kept the little gathering quiet and
happy till tea appeared.
Betty's stories were not inferior to her elders, and it was her childish
sense of justice and consideration that was outraged. But tears will
come to an end, and soon the little maiden was perched up at the table
to learn the task before her. She turned over the pages till she reached
Revelation, that mysterious and mystical book that so fascinates and
contents a child's soul, though the wisest on earth read it with
perplexity and awe. And after a moment or two Betty had found a text
to learn, and when nurse appeared later on she repeated unfalteringly
with shining eyes and with a note of triumph in her tone 'And I said
unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which
came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made

them white in the blood of the Lamb' (Rev. vii. 14).
'That's a good child; are you sorry?'
'Yes,' was the reply, rather absently given, for Betty's mind was on the
white-robed throng; and how could she let nurse know all the workings
of her busy brain over the verse she had been taking into her heart and
soul?
'And remember,' said nurse gravely, 'that no naughty children who
quarrel and fight will ever be in heaven.'
'Not even if they've been through great tribulation?' quickly demanded
Betty.
But nurse did not hear, and Betty was received into the well-lighted
nursery with acclamation from the others, already seated at the round
table for tea.
'We've made a new game, Molly and I,' announced Douglas.
He was a fair, curly-headed boy with an innocent baby face, and a
talent for inventing the most mischievous plans that could ever be
concocted, with a will that made all the others bow before him. Molly
was also fair, with long golden hair that reached to her waist; extreme
self-possession and absence of all shyness were perhaps her chief
characteristics. 'I am the eldest of the family,' she was fond of asserting,
and she certainly claimed the eldest's privileges. Yet her temper was
sweet and obliging, and she could easily be swayed and led by those
around her.
'Is it one for outdoors or indoors?' asked Betty with interest.
'Indoors, of course; we'll tell you after tea.'
'Your mother wants you in the drawing-room after ten,' put in nurse;
'you and Miss Molly are to go down.'
Molly looked pleased, not so Douglas. At last, putting down his piece

of bread and butter, he looked up into nurse's face with one of his
sweetest looks.
'Why are grown-up people so very dull, nurse? They all are just the
same, except Uncle Harry. They are dreadfully heavy and dull.'
'They have so little