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and
they won't let me change. I've broken a jug and basin, and nearly pulled
a cupboard over, and spilt a bottle of cod-liver oil all over Billy's hair,
and upset nurse's work-basket, and then I ran away and hid, and came
down here. You don't know how tiring it is to be hunted by four
animals all at once.'
Mr. Roper sat down on the stairs by her and laughed heartily. 'Poor
little hunter!' he said, 'and how does nurse bear all this raging storm
around her?'
'Oh, nurse is with mother, in the night nursery. Sophy is running after
all of us. I don't know who she pretends to be, but when I left her she
was sitting on the floor wiping Billy's hair and crying.'
Betty's tone and face were grave, and Mr. Roper stopped laughing.
'Have you been thinking over tribulation any more?' he asked.
Betty nodded.
'A lot,' she said emphatically, then shut up her little lips tightly; and Mr.
Roper knew he was to be told no more.
'Are you going into the country, Mr. Roper?' he was asked presently.
'No, indeed. I am not rich enough to have such a holiday as is in

prospect for you. I wonder what you will do with yourselves all the
time? You must come back much the better and wiser, Betty, for it.'
'Why?'
'You will be six months older, and old Mother Nature is the best
governess for little ones like you. She will teach you many a lesson, if
you keep your eyes and ears open.'
Betty's eyes were very wide open now.
'Does she live at the farm? I never heard nurse speak of her. We don't
want another governess there. How do you know her?'
'I knew her when I was a little boy, and loved her. I love her now, but
my work is in London, and I never get much chance of seeing her.'
'She must be very old,' Betty said meditatively.
'Very old; and yet every year she seems younger and more beautiful.
You will see her at her best, Betty. I shall expect you to come home
and tell me all about her.'
'Shall I give her your love and a kiss when I see her?'
'Yes,' said the young man, smiling down upon the earnest child beside
him.
A rush of feet behind them, and Molly and Douglas came tearing
downstairs.
'Here she is! Where have you been? Bobby has cut his head open, and
Sophy has rushed to nurse, and nurse is scolding away, so we came off.
Mr. Roper, do you know we're going away to-morrow?'
'And will you come and see us one day, Mr. Roper?'
'Mr. Roper, does every farmer in the country go about in his night-shirt?
Douglas says they do, and we have pictures of them.'

'And are there stags and wild boar to hunt? Do tell us.'
Mr. Roper made short work of these questions, and departed. He was a
reserved, reticent man, and did not understand the boisterous spirits of
the little Stuarts. Betty was his favourite; he was always ready for a
chat with her, but the others worried him.
Nurse was very thankful when she got herself and her little charges all
comfortably settled in the railway carriage for Tiverstoke the next day.
Sophy was not going with them, but the longing to be in the old home
again quite compensated nurse for the additional labour and
responsibility she would have.
The children had parted from their parents with great composure. Mrs.
Stuart had reiterated parting injunctions to nurse, and their father had
presented all five with a bright half-crown each, which gift greatly
added to their delight at going.
'Not much affection in children's hearts,' said Mr. Stuart to his wife, as
he watched the beaming faces gathered round the cab window to wave
'good-bye.'
'They will get through life the better for absence of sentiment and
demonstrativeness,' replied Mrs. Stuart; and perhaps those words were
an index to her character.
CHAPTER III
Was it an Angel?
It was a lovely afternoon in May, a week after the children's arrival at
Brook Farm. They were together in the orchard, which was a mass of
pink and white bloom. Bobby and Billy were having a see-saw on a
low apple branch; Douglas was perched on a higher bough of a cherry
tree, and the little girls were lying on the ground. Tongues were busy,
as usual.
'We've seen everything round the house,' Douglas was asserting in

rather a dictatorial tone; 'and now we must be busy having
adventures--people always do in the country.'
'What kind?' asked Molly meekly.
'They get tossed by bulls, or lost in the woods, or drowned in ponds,'
Douglas went on thoughtfully.
'I'm not going to