Part 11 (1/2)

'And I'm awfully afraid I've broken the horrid old thing, and I don't like that d.i.c.k Green! He took my sixpence and ran off, and I worked the handle up and down for hours; he told me the music would come in about a quarter of an hour. It never did, but the organ gave great gasps and groans; you never heard such a noise, just like Mr. Giles when he goes to sleep after tea! It's awfully hard work pulling the handle up and down; I hope I haven't broke it. I think it wants some one to play on the front of it, but the front part is locked up. But I've had a kind of adventure. When I came out there was a strange gentleman looking at one of the graves in the church, so I went up to see what he was looking at, and it was the stone image of a little girl, and there were some pink roses in her hands.'

Betty edged up close to her brother as he got thus far, and asked eagerly, 'What did he say about the roses?'

'He looked at me with an awful frown, and I folded my arms and frowned back, like this!'

And Douglas rumpled his fair brow into many creases, and looked so ferocious that Molly was quite awed, though disrespectful Betty laughed aloud.

'”What are you doing here?” he said. ”Did you put these roses here?”

'”No,” I said; ”oughtn't they to be there? I'll take them away.” And then he frowned worse than ever, and said, ”Don't you dare to lay a finger on them!” and then he muttered something about the church being always full of children now. But I didn't listen to him much; I was busy looking at the little girl, and thinking, and then I made up a beautiful story on the spot; it's something like some of the fairy stories we read in our big books. I'll tell it to you in a minute. I said to him that I thought I could tell him where the roses came from, and he said ”Where?” and then I said to him that the little girl was a sleeping beauty waiting for a prince to come along and kiss her and wake her up; but he hadn't come yet, so a fairy was watching her till he came; and every moonlight night she would bring some flowers in, and creep inside them and sleep with her, to keep all the goblins off, and she would sing her songs in the night, and tell her stories, and comfort her----'

'But,' interrupted Molly, 'if she was asleep, how could she hear the fairy?'

'You're too sharp! Perhaps you'll wait. I was just going to say that in the night she was able to open her eyes, only she couldn't get up.

I had just got as far as that, when the gentleman said ”Pshaw!” and then he told me to run off, and not come into the church again to tomfool--that's what he said. He was a kind of dark, grim-looking ogre, and I'll--well, I shall have more to do with him yet!'

This awful threat was accompanied with a very significant shake of the flaxen head, but Betty cried out hotly,--

'You don't know anything about it! He's the father of that little girl, and he goes to her grave to say his prayers and cry. I know more about him than you do, so there!'

'What do you know?'

But Betty walked off, hugging Prince under her arm, and calling out as she went, with a spice of superiority in her tone, 'Prince and I know all about him, and her, and the roses; that's _our_ secret.'

CHAPTER VII

Haymaking

It was only a few days after this that nurse took all the children to tea at an old farmhouse about two miles off. They rode part of the way in a farm waggon, and were all in the best of spirits, for it was haymaking time,--a time of entrancing joy to all children, and to the little Stuarts a new and delightful experience. They had tea out in one of the fields under a shady elm, and were just separating after it was over to have one more romp in the hay, when, to Betty's intense surprise, who should come across the field but Nesta Fairfax! She evidently knew Mrs. Crump, the farmer's wife, well, for she sat down and began chatting away about all her family, and then she caught sight of Betty.

'Why, it's my little friend!' she said, stooping down and kissing her; 'and are these your brothers and sisters?'

Betty got crimson with delight, and introduced one after the other with great importance, and Nesta won all their hearts at once by joining them in their frolic. Her laugh was as gay as theirs, and she could run as fast as any of them.

'You're rather a nice grown-up person,' said Douglas approvingly, as at last she took her leave; 'you aren't so dull and stupid as grown-up people generally are! Will you come and see us one day at our farm?

I'll take you to see the sweetest white mice in the stable that Sam keeps, and there's heaps of easy trees to climb in the orchard, if you like climbing!'

'And I'll show you a baby calf only two days old,' put in Molly, 'and three black and white kittens in a loft, with a lot of apples one end.

We've jolly things at our farm, if you'll only come.'

'And a see-saw and a swing,' added the twins.

'And what will Betty show me?' asked Nesta, amused.

'I think I'll show you the flowers, and the forget-me-nots and watercress in the brook,' said Betty meditatively.

'Then I really must come, with such an enchanting programme before me,'

said Nesta; and she kissed them all round, told nurse she envied her her little family, cracked some jokes with old Crump and his wife, and departed, leaving behind her a breezy brightness and cheeriness that she brought with her wherever she came.