's, feeling very old and sedate the while, for it must be owned
conscious virtue has a sobering effect.

But the action threw Betty into a towering rage.

"If you don't take down your old text I won't get into bed at all. I've
only been trying to make you all rich."

And Dot, who was always alarmed into placidity when she had provoked
wrath, returned "Blessed are the pure in heart" to its own position on
the wall.

CHAPTER XXI

"GOOD-BYE, GOOD-BYE"

All was ready very early in the morning, for Dot was to start upon her
journey at ten o'clock.

The little school trunk and the family portmanteau stood side by side in
the hall, labelled and ready to go forth--neat clean labels, bearing the
inscription in Dot's best hand-writing--

"MISS BRUCE,
Passenger to Katoomba,
Blue Mountains."

A strange excitement was upon Dot. She had never before in her life been
upon a railway journey.

The household generally, from her father down to little Nancy, treated
her with gentle politeness as a newly arrived and just departing guest.

At breakfast the bread was handed to her without her once asking for
it; Nancy watched her plate eagerly, that she did not run out of butter;
Mary ran in with a nicely poached egg just at the right moment; Mrs.
Bruce kept her cup replenished without once asking if it was empty.

"Don't do any view hunting or gully climbing alone," said Mr. Bruce.
"It's the easiest thing in life to be lost in the bush. Besides, no girl
should roam about alone."

"Oh, don't be too venturesome, darling!" said Mrs. Bruce. "Just think if
you fell down one of those valleys or gaps or falls!"

Yet Dot had never been "too venturesome" in her life.

"A little more bread?" inquired Cyril; "don't bother to eat that crusty
bit; we can, and I'll give you some fresh."

"More butter?" piped Nancy; then taking a leaf from Cyril's book--"Don't
bover to eat it if it's nasty; _we_ will. Have some jam astead."

And Betty, in the silence of her bedroom, was drinking cold water and
eating dry bread, without any one asking solicitously "if she would
have a little more, or leave that if she did not like it, and have
something nicer."

"Yet I was trying to earn money for them all," she said aloud. "I won't
try any more. Dot only spends it, but they love her more than me."

It was while these thoughts were busy in her mind that Dot ran down the
passage and opened the door suddenly. Su