Many a night had her father and mother laughed at the attitude chosen by
their second daughter, and arranged her that her sleep might be easier.

"Betty wants to get up early," they would say and smile. But upon this
night--the night before the battle--they did not go to her room at all.

Mrs. Bruce was reading a new magazine, and saying now and again, as she
turned a leaf or smiled at her husband, that she _had_ intended doing a
bit of mending; and Mr. Bruce was polishing up a chapter in his book,
and saying now and again as he paused for a choicer word, or smiled at
his wife, that he _had_ intended doing that blessed article on Cats, for
Flavelle. So they both went on being uncomfortably comfortable.

Betty tried all her expedients for early rising, and yet peaceful was
her sleep throughout the night. Her lashes lay still on her rounded
cheeks, her rosy lips smiled and her brown curls strewed the pillow,
just as effectively as though she were on a velvet couch, and a living
illustration of a small princess, sleeping to be awakened by a kiss.

She awoke just as the day was pinkly breaking and the night stealing
greyly away, awoke under the impression that John Brown was cutting off
her foot. It was a great comfort to find it there and merely cold and
cramped from lack of covering and an unnatural position.

She remembered everything immediately without even waiting to rub her
eyes, and she sprang out of bed at once, even though her right foot
refused to do its duty, and she had to stand for a valuable minute on
her left.

The clock hands (she had carried the kitchen clock into her bedroom to
Mary's chagrin), pointed to a quarter to five, and Betty realized she
had only an hour in which to dress eat her breakfast, bid good-bye to
any home objects she held dear, and travel down the road to the store.

She was vexed, for she had meant to get up at four.

She got into her tattered Saturday's frock (her Cinderella costume) and
she brushed and plaited her short curly hair, as well as it would allow
itself to be plaited. Then she made a bundle of her boots and stockings
and school-day frock and hid them away under the skirt of her draped
dressing-table, and opened her money-box and extracted the contents
(thirteen half-pennies). This was the fortune with which she purposed to
face the world.

And so real had this thing become to her now, that she crept to the far
side of the double bed to kiss the sleeping Nancy,