and down the passage
to Cyril's room, to look at his face upon the pillows; and the tears
were heavy in her eyes because she was quitting her "early" home.

When she had reached the pantry she remembered something, and went back
to her bed room, to place by Nancy's side her only remaining doll, a
faded hairless beauty, Belinda, by name.

And she pinned a note upon the pincushion (all her heroines who fled
from their early homes, left notes upon the pincushion) addressed to
"Father and Mother," and as she passed their door she stroked it
lovingly. In the pantry she was guilty of several sobs, while she cut
the bread, it seemed so pitiful to her to be going away from her home in
the grey dawn to seek a livelihood for her family. In truth her small
heart ached creditably as she ate her solitary breakfast, and it might
have gone on aching only that she suddenly bethought herself of time.
Half-past five, John had said, and she remembered all that she had done
since half-past four.

"It _must_ be half-past five now," she said. "I'll eat this as I go,"
and she folded two pieces of bread and butter together.

Then she found her bonnet and the strip of paper with the song upon it,
and grasping her half-pennies set forth.

She ran most of the way to the store, which, it may be remembered,
occupied the corner, just before you come to Wygate School.

As Betty came in sight of it she saw John standing still there, and she
thought gratefully how good it was of him to wait for her.

He wore a very old and very baggy suit, a dirty torn straw hat (of which
it must be owned he had plenty), and neither boots nor stockings.

The children eyed each other carefully, noting every detail, and both in
their own heart admiring the other exceedingly.

Betty's face had lost its traces of tears, but had not got back its
happy look. Her mouth drooped sadly.

"What's up?" asked John as they turned their faces towards the silent
south.

"It hurts me, leaving the little ones," said Betty, who was now in
imagination Madam S----. "You have no brothers and sisters to provide
for."

John sighed. "No," he said, "I've no one but an old grandfather, and he
grudges me every crust I eat. He's cut me off with a shilling."

For a space Betty was envious. For a space she liked John's imagination
better than her own. That "cutting off with a shilling" seemed to her
very fine.

He showed her his shilling. "I've _that_," he said, "to begin life on.