and Peter pull off his hat with that sort
of shy respect which the most careless among us must pay to a fresh
sorrow or loss. But, in spite of her grave look, Miss Betty seemed
very pleased to see them.

'Good morning, Pete; good morning, Nancy,' she said. 'How kind of you
to come so early! Did you guess I should be down?'

'I thought maybe you would, miss,' said Nancy, 'only the shutters being
up I thought you must be asleep still.'

'I dressed in the dark,' said Miss Betty, giving her scarf a little tug
which didn't straighten it much, 'because I didn't want to wake Angel.
Poor Angel, she was so late coming to bed last night; I'd been asleep
ever so long and woken up again while she was talking to Penny.'

And then she stopped and looked from one to the other with a
questioning look in her eyes.

'You know, don't you?' she said at last; 'you've heard about the sad
thing that's happened?'

For once in a way Nancy left her brother to answer.

'We haven't heard nothing for certain, Miss Betty,' he said, 'only
people talked, and we knew Penny had gone to fetch you home; but father
said we weren't to say nothing till we knew for certain.'

'It's quite true,' said Miss Betty gravely,' quite dreadfully true,
Pete. Our brother, Mr. Bernard, has been killed in the West Indies,
and we are very poor now; we have left school and come home to live.'

I fear that the last piece of news so much did away with the sadness of
the first that Nancy's face broadened into a delighted smile, and she
only just cut short an exclamation of joy. Luckily Miss Betty was not
looking at her, and she saw Peter's frown and felt a little ashamed of
herself.

'I want to tell you everything,' Miss Betty went on; 'it was very nice
of your father not to want people to talk, but now we should like every
one to know because we are very proud of my brother, and we want our
friends to be. Will you come into the arbour and I'll tell you?' and
she led the way across the garden while Peter and Nancy followed
willingly enough. The arbour was that sort of bower which we see in
old-fashioned pictures and sing about in old songs. There had been
roses climbing over it all the summer, and a few blossoms hung there
still, pale and fragrant, among a tangle of clematis and everlasting
peas. On the little grass plot just outside the arbour there was a
stone figure, not like the nymphs and Cupids and water-carriers which
we find in trim old-fashioned