writing-desk, 'what do you want, Betty?'

'I want one of father's books,' the child said earnestly, 'one that Dick Somebody wrote—a book that tells the meaning of everything.'

'I wish there was such a one in existence,' said the young man, smiling a little sadly. 'Now what is in your little head, I wonder?'

'It's a word I want to find, please.'

'Oh, a word! Bless the child, she means a dictionary!' and Mr. Roper laughed as he drew a fat volume out of a shelf, and placed it on a table by the little girl.

'May I help you to find it?'

'It's tribulation. I don't know how it's spelt.'

He did not ask questions; that was one thing that attracted Betty towards him. She was a curious mixture of frankness and reserve. She would confide freely of her own free will, but if pressed by questions would relapse at once into silence. He found the word for her, and she read with difficulty, 'Trouble, distress, great affliction.'

'Do they all mean tribulation?' she asked.

'Tribulation means all of them,' was the answer.

'And can children have tribulation, Mr. Roper?'

'What do you think?'

'I must have it if I'm to get to heaven,' she said emphatically; and then she left him, and the young man repeated her words to himself with a sigh and a smile, as he replaced the book in its resting-place.

CHAPTER II

'Mother Nature'

A few evenings after this, as nurse was undressing the little girls for bed, Mrs. Stuart came into the nursery. She was going out to dinner, and looked very beautiful in her soft satin dress and pearls. She was tall and stately, with the same golden hair as Molly, but her face was somewhat cold in expression.

Sitting down in an easy chair by the fire she asked,—

'What is the matter with Betty? is she in disgrace again?'

Betty was standing in her long nightdress at the foot of her small bed; her hands were clenched, and there was a resolute, determined look upon her flushed face.

'One of her obstinate fits,' said nurse angrily; 'she generally goes to bed before Miss Molly, and because I have let her stay up a little later to-night she is as contrary as she can be! I can do nothing with her, a good whipping is what she wants!'

Betty's blue eyes wandered from nurse's face to her mother's, as if seeking consolation there; her hands relaxed, and a slight quiver came to the little lips.

'Are you going to a party, mother? may I come and kiss you?'

It was Molly who spoke. She was in the act of scrambling into bed, but upon receiving permission she made her way, a little shyly, across to where her mother was seated.

'Now keep your hands off my dress,' Mrs. Stuart said with a smile; but she put her arm round the little figure and kissed her, and sent her back to bed perfectly happy. All the children adored their mother, though it was adoration at a distance.

'Now come here, Betty; what have you been doing? How is it that I never visit the nursery without hearing complaints of your naughtiness?'

'I'm going to be good now,' said Betty, hanging her head, and coming slowly forward into the firelight.

'She has refused to say her prayers,' said nurse sternly.

'I will say them now'; and Betty raised her eyes to her mother somewhat wistfully.

'Why did you refuse to say them when nurse told you to?'

'Because Molly was saying her prayers.'

'Well, what had that to do with it?'

Betty did not answer.

'Answer me.'

The child looked round; nurse had left the room. She worked her little foot backwards and forwards in the long-haired rug rather nervously, and then, almost in a whisper, said,—

'God couldn't listen to both of us, and I wanted Him to listen to me.'

Mrs. Stuart gazed perplexedly at her little daughter, then laughed.

'You are a little goose! Go and say your prayers at once, and get into bed. I have come here to talk to nurse.'

Betty crept away. Her mother's amused laugh had hurt her more than nurse's scoldings. It was hard to have one's secret feelings brought to light and scoffed at, and her sensitive little soul felt this, though in a dim, uncertain way.

'I want to have God all to myself,' was her thought, as a few minutes later she laid her little head down on the pillow; 'I wonder if I'm very wicked. I won't say my prayers if He is not listening.'

'Now, nurse,' said Mrs. Stuart, as that worthy reappeared, 'I want to talk to you. Your master and I are going abroad after Easter; he is not well, and the doctors have ordered him away. I want to send you and the children into the country for the summer. I don't fancy them being at the seaside all that time. You were telling me some time ago of your old home; isn't it a brother of yours who has the farm? Yes? Well, do you think they have room to take you all in?'

Nurse's face glowed with pleasure.

'He has no chick or child, ma'am, and the house is large and roomy; his wife was saying in a letter to me they should like lodgers in the summer. I'm sure it would please them to take us in; and the country round there is wonderfully healthy.'

'I think that would answer very well,' Mrs. Stuart went on thoughtfully; 'we may be away six months: and the children are looking pale, a country life will do them all the good in the world. Let them run wild, nurse, they will come back to their lessons all the better for it. Miss Grant told me this morning she would have to give up teaching—her mother is very ill—so, all things combined, I think this plan will work well. Will you write to your brother and find out if he can take you in the last week in April? Let me know when you have heard from him.'

Mrs. Stuart rose as she spoke; her visits were never long, and nurse left the room with her.

'Betty,' said Molly, in an eager tone, 'did you hear? We're going into the country.'

'I heard; and no lessons, and we're to run wild; how lovely!' Betty's curly head bobbed up and down in excitement, then she said persuasively, 'Molly, let you and me keep it a secret together; we won't tell Douglas or the twins.'

This required consideration. Molly sat up in bed and looked thoughtful.

'I never do have a secret with you,' pleaded Betty. 'You and Douglas have lots; I never have any one to have secrets with.'

'Well, I'll see,' and there was a little of the elder sister in Molly's tone. 'I'll tell you to-morrow morning. Oh, it will be jolly in the country, won't it? And nurse's home that she tells us about is like our story-books: it's full of calves, and lambs, and horses, and ducks, and chickens, and haymaking, and pigs!'

'And ponds, and apple orchards, and we shall have cream, and honey, and strawberries every day!' continued Betty.

The little girls' voices were raised in their excitement, and they did not notice a door at the end of the room slowly open.

'What a row! Are you telling stories?'

It was Douglas, who slept in a little room off the nursery, and who had been roused by the sound of talking.

'Hush! nurse will hear. Come and sit on my bed,' said Molly, 'and then you will hear all about it.'

'Oh, Molly, it was to be our secret!'

'Douglas won't tell. Besides, nurse is sure to tell us; she knew we were awake and listening.'

Betty gave a little sigh, then joined eagerly in giving her brother the delightful information.

He listened, rumpling up his fair curls, and blinking his blue eyes, which were already heavy with sleep.

'Easter is years off,' he said at last. 'Why, we are still in winter. I daresay we shan't go, after all.'

'We are in February now,' said Molly, looking a little disappointed at the calm way he received such rapturous news.

'If I go,' Douglas went on meditatively, 'I shall ask father to let me have a gun, and I shall shoot rabbits and birds every day.'

'Then you'd be a wicked, cruel