To these two Betty WAS
a personal possession, bestowing upon them a marked distinction. They
were hers and she was theirs. No one else so owned her. Heaven had given
her to them that their last years might be lighted with splendour.

On her way to one of the garden parties she stopped the carriage before
old Doby's cottage, and went in to him to speak a few words. She was of
pale convolvulus blue that afternoon, and Doby, standing up touching his
forelock and Mrs. Welden curtsying, gazed at her with prayer in
their eyes. She had a few flowers in her hand, and a book of coloured
photographs of Venice.

"These are pictures of the city I told you about--the city built in the
sea--where the streets are water. You and Mrs. Welden can look at them
together," she said, as she laid flowers and book down. "I am going to
Dunholm Castle to a garden party this afternoon. Some day I will come
and tell you about it."

The two were at the window staring spellbound, as she swept back to the
carriage between the sweet-williams and Canterbury bells bordering the
narrow garden path.

"Do you know I really went in to let them see my dress," she said, when
she rejoined Lady Anstruthers. "Old Doby's granddaughter told me that he
and Mrs. Welden have little quarrels about the colours I wear. It seems
that they find my wardrobe an absorbing interest. When I put the book on
the table, I felt Doby touch my sleeve with his trembling old hand. He
thought I did not know."

"What will they do with Venice?" asked Rosy.

"They will believe the water is as blue as the photographs make it--and
the palaces as pink. It will seem like a chapter out of Revelations,
which they can believe is true and not merely 'Scriptur,'--because _I_
have been there. I wish I had been to the City of the Gates of Pearl,
and could tell them about that."

On the lawns at the garden parties she was much gazed at and commented
upon. Her height and her long slender neck held her head above those of
other girls, the dense black of her hair made a rich note of shadow amid
the prevailing English blondness. Her mere colouring set her apart.
Rosy used to watch her with tender wonder, recalling her memory of
nine-year-old Betty, with the long slim legs and the demanding and
accusing child-eyes. She had always been this creature even in those
far-off days. At the garden party at Dunholm Castle it became evident
that she was, after a manner, unusually the central figure of the