een
me picked up in the yard, for that you know already. I cannot help
feeling that Bob may have had something to do with my recovery, for I am
sure though rough in his manners he was a well-meaning dog. If so, I am
grateful to him. To end a long story, my dear mistress, I must remark
that I have no longer any wish to know more of the world. It is far too
rough and noisy a place for me, and you need have no fear, therefore,
that I shall try to repeat my experience, or shall ever forget the
lesson taught me by `my Sunday out'."

CHAPTER FOUR.

"When is she coming?"

"To-morrow."

"Are you glad?"

"No. Are you?"

"I don't care. I wonder how long she will stay. I know Mother said a
week, but I dare say she'll ask her to stay longer as she did last
year."

"Well, I know she'll be tiresome, and I shall be glad when she goes
away."

"I'm going to sleep now."

"Oh, Martha, how soon you always do go to sleep! I'm not a bit sleepy
yet."

A snore from the other little bed soon showed Betty that further talk
was hopeless. She would have liked to chatter longer, but Martha had a
way of falling asleep at the most interesting points, and Betty knew it
would be useless to try and rouse her now.

So she resigned herself to her own thoughts with a sigh. Kitty was
coming to-morrow! Coming before Martha and she had had any enjoyment of
their country life together, for the children had only just left London.
Coming to spoil all their plans and games with her tiresome ways, just
as she had done last year. Of course she would insist on being first in
everything, on ruling everyone, and would be as pushing and disagreeable
as possible. It was all very well to say that she was a visitor and
must do as she wished, but that did not make it any the less provoking.

And then Martha took it all so quietly. It was almost impossible to
rouse her to be angry, and that was annoying too in its way. "I
suppose," thought Betty, very sleepily now, "that I ought to try to be
patient too, but sometimes I really _can't_." She fell asleep here, and
dreamed that Kitty was an immense "daddy-long-legs" flapping and buzzing
about in her hair.

The next afternoon Kitty arrived, full of excitement, and ready to be
more than delighted with everything.

She was eleven years old, just Martha's age, and Betty was two years
younger. Fresh from her life in London, where there always were so many
lessons to be learned and so little