A neighbouring photograph showed a mite with a pinched face and a
tattered frock.

"Madame S----, at eight years old!" was the inscription.

"And I'm twelve," said Betty. "Twelve and a bit."

She turned her head, then raised it sharply. There standing beside her
was her grandfather.

The two looked at each other.

What Betty saw at first--it must be confessed--was the keen-eyed,
bent-shouldered individual who had appeared to the little street singer,
and the silly little imaginative maiden waited for him to speak.

What the grandfather saw was a small girl of "twelve and a bit," in a
pink print frock; a small girl with a brown shining face, golden-brown
hair and brown eyes, and parted red lips, a little person in every way
different from the pale-faced ghost who had visited him awhile back--so
different that he did not know her.

He simply took her for a little school-girl and no more.

Then Betty remembered who he was--who she was--where she was--and a few
other matters of similar importance, and a red, red flush spread over
her face and to the tips of her small pink ears.

The sea-captain opened his mouth in a jocular roar.

"Who's been sitting in my room?" he demanded. "Why, here she is!"

Betty's lip quivered. She _was_ beginning to be afraid--or rather she
was afraid.

"I--I just wanted to see a book," she said.

"And what book did you _just_ want to see?"

He took the magazine from her and noticed two things--how her hand shook
and how bravely her eyes met his.

His glance wandered over the open page, and a wonderment came to him
what there was here to interest such a child.

The next second the fatal question was on his lips.

"And what is your name?" he asked.

Betty's lips moved, but no sound left them. She just sat dumbly there
gazing into her grandsire's face.

The old man sat down on the pink bonnet. He was not in the least
anxious over her name. She was a schoolmate of John's, of course; he had
often stumbled over these active eager little creatures in the back
yard, in the near paddock, by the emus' run, near the pigeon-boxes, on
the staircase. _Only_ hitherto they had been of John's own sex. This
pretty little nervous girl interested him.

He drew her magazine towards him.

"We're waiting for the name--aren't we, Jack?" he said.

Then Betty realized that her hour was indeed come. She rose to her feet
and stood in front of him gulping down a few hard breaths.

"I--I didn't com