where the girls were waiting for her.

"There is some reason for all this distress that I am unable to
discover," she said. "Joyce, maybe if you would go in and talk to her
you might find out."

"She must be lots worse than we were," whispered Eugenia to Lloyd, as
the high, shrill voice, so unlike Betty's usual tones, went on
complainingly in the next room.

"Hush!" warned Lloyd. "She's telling Joyce what the matter is." The
words came out to them distinctly. She was speaking with a nervous
quickness as if her fever had almost reached delirium.

"I was trying to dig one of those roads," wailed Betty, in a high,
querulous voice. "One that would last for ever, don't you know? like the
one they built for Tusitala. You _do_ know, don't you?" she insisted,
feverishly, but Joyce had to acknowledge that she had never heard of it,
and Betty cried again, because she felt too nervous and ill to explain.

"There, there! never mind!" said Joyce, soothingly, thinking that
Betty's mind was wandering. "You can tell me all about it when you get
well."

"But I want you to know _now_!" sobbed Betty, with all the unreasoning
impatience of a sick child. "It is all in my 'Good times book.' I cut it
out of an old _Youth's Companion_, just after I came, and the piece is
inside the cover of that little white and gold book in the
writing-desk. Read it, won't you? Then you will understand."

Joyce took the slip of paper to the window, and glanced rapidly along
the lines.

"No, read it aloud!" demanded Betty, fretfully. "I want to hear it, too.
It is such a sweet story, and I read it over every day to help me
remember."

Mrs. Sherman and the girls, sitting outside the door, leaned forward to
listen, as Joyce read aloud the newspaper clipping that Betty counted
among her chief treasures. This is what they heard:

"THE ROAD OF THE LOVING HEART."[1]

"Remembering the great love of his highness, Tusitala, and his
loving care when we were in prison and sore distressed, we have
prepared him an enduring present, this road which we have dug for
ever."

* * * * *

In a far-off island, thousands of miles from the mainland, and
unconnected with the world by cable, stands this inscription. It
was set up at the corner of a new road, cut through a tropical
jungle, and bears at its head the title of this article, signed by
the names of ten prominent chiefs. This is t