isn't fair!" she said at last to the thoughtful John Brown. "You'd
never have known about being an errand boy and an artist only for your
books. You've got a lot of books to help you."

But John told her how he had been decided upon his "career" all his
life, ever since his father had left him alone on the station in the
country which time was, as the reader will be aware, situated somewhere
about his first birthday. But he magnanimously proposed to place his
grandfather's library at her feet, or rather to place her feet within
his grandfather's library.

"You can come and take your pick," he said.

At this period of her life Betty was not troubled with pride--the pride
of the slighted and poor relation.

She accepted his offer rapturously, only adding, "You'd better keep my
grandfather out of the way when I come."

"Come when he's having his afternoon sleep," said John.

So Betty was smuggled into her grandfather's library.

It was Saturday afternoon when she went to the great house. She had to
slip away from Dot, who was making elaborate alterations to a pretty
blue muslin frock (she was invited to spend the next Saturday and Sunday
with Alma Montague, the doctor's daughter); her mother was calling
"Betty, come here," in the front garden as she reached the track through
the bush, and Cyril and Nancy had implored her to "come and play
something."

But Betty had a "career" to think of. She ran through the bush and
arrived breathless at that part of her grandfather's fence which ran
past their coral islands. At a certain hour every afternoon, John said,
his grandfather went to sleep. It was during this sleep time that Betty
was to search the shelves of his library for a book that should
enlighten her as to the best way to become a "self-made woman."

She slipped under the fence, and into the little belt of bush that
bounded the emu run, and where she, as a ghost, had waited.

John's signal came very soon, and Betty immediately took off her bonnet
and rolled it up under her arm--the better to hear--and marched boldly
across the gravel paths to the library window where John stood.

"Where is he?" asked Betty.

"Asleep on the little verandah," said John; "he always sleeps a long
time after dinner."

Betty stepped into the room and looked around her curiously.

It was such a room as she had never seen yet, and it pleased her
greatly. Two enormous bookcases full of books stood side by side against
one wall.