urse, everyone grows old."

"Not now! People are just discovering how to grow young instead."

Lady Anstruthers looked into the clear courage of her laughing eyes.

"Somehow," she said, "you say strange things in such a way that one
feels as if they must be true, however--however unlike anything else
they are."

"They are not as new as they seem," said Betty. "Ancient philosophers
said things like them centuries ago, but people did not believe them. We
are just beginning to drag them out of the dust and furbish them up and
pretend they are ours, just as people rub up and adorn themselves with
jewels dug out of excavations."

"In America people think so many new things," said poor little Lady
Anstruthers with yearning humbleness.

"The whole civilised world is thinking what you call new things," said
Betty. "The old ones won't do. They have been tried, and though they
have helped us to the place we have reached, they cannot help us any
farther. We must begin again."

"It is such a long time since I began," said Rosy, "such a long time."

"Then there must be another beginning for you, too. The hour has
struck."

Lady Anstruthers rose with as involuntary a movement as if a strong hand
had drawn her to her feet. She stood facing Betty, a pathetic little
figure in her washed-out muslin frock and with her washed-out face and
eyes and being, though on her faded cheeks a flush was rising.

"Oh, Betty!" she said, "I don't know what there is about you, but there
is something which makes one feel as if you believed everything and
could do everything, and as if one believes YOU. Whatever you were to
say, you would make it seem TRUE. If you said the wildest thing in the
world I should BELIEVE you."

Betty got up, too, and there was an extraordinary steadiness in her
eyes.

"You may," she answered. "I shall never say one thing to you which is
not a truth, not one single thing."

"I believe that," said Rosy Anstruthers, with a quivering mouth. "I do
believe it so."

"I walked to Mount Dunstan," Betty said later.

"Really?" said Rosy. "There and back?"

"Yes, and all round the park and the gardens."

Rosy looked rather uncertain.

"Weren't you a little afraid of meeting someone?"

"I did meet someone. At first I took him for a gamekeeper. But he turned
out to be Lord Mount Dunstan."

Lady Anstruthers gasped.

"What did he do?" she exclaimed. "Did he look angry at seeing a
stranger? They say he is so ill-temp