that first day I settled to be a
sailor?'

'The Sunday afternoon when we saw Kiah? Yes, of course I do, Godfrey.
I never dreamed when we went up to the Place that day what it would put
into your head.'

'It wasn't only going to the Place,' said Godfrey thoughtfully; 'I
don't know whether I should have settled like that if you hadn't said
that to me before.'

'Said what, Godfrey? I don't remember.'

'Don't you, Aunt Angel? I do, every word; about being useful and
making the world a bit better. I knew then I'd got to do it, and it
was only to settle how; and when I heard about Kiah and the captain, I
thought it seemed the nicest way, and I knew it would please you. And
it does, doesn't it? That's the best part of going, knowing you're
glad for me to go.'

Angelica's hand met Betty's in the dusk and held it tight, and for once
it was she who answered for them both:

'Yes, Godfrey dear, very glad and very proud.'

'I told the captain so yesterday,' Godfrey went on; 'and he said I'd
better make up my mind directly to be a hero, for I came of an heroic
family. That was what he said, and I sha'n't forget. There's the
captain and Cousin Crayshaw.'

'Yes, go and meet them,' Angel said, for Betty's hand was trembling in
her own and she could hear the catch in her breath that meant she was
strangling her tears. She slipped her hand out of Godfrey's arm and
let him go forward, while she and Betty drew back through the gap in
the yew hedge to Miss Jane's arbour, just where Betty had flung herself
down in despair on that first day of Godfrey's coming to Oakfield.
They were almost the same words that she gasped out now on Angel's
shoulder, as they sat down on the bench side by side; for Betty, though
she was nineteen now and wore her hair in a knot at the top of her
head, and considered herself a rather elderly person, was much the same
vehement little lady as the Betty we knew at thirteen.

'I can't do it,' she sobbed, 'I can't, it's no use; I'm not the right
person to be--to be a hero's aunt. I don't want him to go, I shall die
if he gets killed; I sha'n't be proud, I shall only be miserable; what
am I to do?'

Angel's arms tightened their clasp, she bent her head low over Betty's
fair hair and tried to speak once or twice in vain. Then she said at
last:

'Dear, we must just say what we said the first day he came. We want to
love him, not our own pleasure in him; we haven't loved him and prayed
about him