Odd | Page 6

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 do any of those.'
And Betty's tone was very determined.
'What are you going to do, then?'
'I shall be busy all by myself. I'm going out to look for some one.'
'Who?' asked Molly curiously.
'Some one Mr. Roper told me about. He sent his love to her and a kiss. It's a secret between me and Mr. Roper, I shan't tell you any more.'
And Betty rolled over in the grass with a delighted chuckle at the puzzled faces round her.
'It's only one of her make-ups,' Douglas said, recovering his composure. 'Let me tell you of my plans. Do you see those thick trees at the top of that hill? That's a real wood. Now, if nurse sends us out tomorrow afternoon while she takes a nap, I'm going there, and you girls must come after me.'
'And us, too,' put in Bobby, listening attentively.
'If you can walk so far, and don't go telling nurse about it.'
'How far is it? Six miles?' asked Molly, who would have been willing to walk ten, had her brother so ordained.
'It is only through three fields, Sam told me.'
Sam was one of the carters, who had already become one of Douglas's