round my feet, and setting every nerve in my head quivering and
throbbing.'

'Take the dog outside,' said Mrs. Fairfax quietly; then, turning to
Betty, who looked very perturbed and flushed, she said, 'Jennings will
take care of him, and he shall have some dinner in the kitchen.'

'He won't be beaten, will he? He didn't know it was wrong to follow
me'; and Betty's eyes began to fill with tears, as she saw Prince
seized by the scruff of his neck, and carried off, in spite of
indignant growls and snaps.

'No, he won't be beaten,' she was assured; but after this she had no
appetite for her dinner; and when the ladies rose from the table she
ran up to Mrs. Fairfax.

'May I have Prince again now? He's so very good. I want him
dreadfully.'

'Yes, he shall be brought to you. What are you going to do with the
child, Nesta?'

'I will take her out into the garden, mother. But I hear old Mrs. Parr
has come up for some linseed meal I promised her. Her husband is very
ill again with bronchitis. I shall not be gone long.'

'Then Betty shall come upstairs with me.'

Again Nesta wondered, but wisely said nothing.

Prince came scampering across the hall, and Betty, now completely
happy, took hold of Mrs. Fairfax's hand, and went upstairs into a
lovely little boudoir, where she sat down in a low cushioned seat by
the window, and chattered away to her heart's content.

'Did you send Prince to me? You did, didn't you? I knew it was you!
He is such a darling, and it makes me into a couple--which I've never
been before.'

Mrs. Fairfax smiled; she seemed to lose some of her stiffness when with
Betty alone.

'And is he as much a companion as another brother or sister might be?'

'I think he's much nicer. I wouldn't have any one instead of him for
all the world.'

'What have you been doing with yourself since I saw you?'

'Lots and lots of things. I go to church to hear Miss Fairfax play the
organ; and I take flowers to dead Violet; and I have got into lots of
scrapes; but I don't think I'm quite as naughty here as I used to be in
London. At least, we can't quite make it out. Douglas was saying the
other day, nurse lets him climb any trees here; but if he tried to
climb a lamp-post, or even one of the trees in the parks, in London, he
was always being whipped or put into cells for it! And in the country
we can go out without gloves, and run races along the roads, and swing
on gates, and we never get punished a