g on about a hundred yards behind Nancy.

Then did a fresh crease get into the new week's first day for Betty.
Looking under her arm as she bent over her boot, she beheld three
figures walking down the road, and at the first glimpse of them her face
grew hot.

"Geraldine and Fay!" she exclaimed.

The centre figure was dressed in a lilac print, and wore a spotless
apron and a straw hat. Upon either side of her walked a little
golden-haired girl, one apparently about Betty's age, and one Nancy's.
Their dresses were white and spotless, and reached almost to their
knees; their hats were flat shady things trimmed with muslin and lace.
Their hair was beautifully dressed and curled, their boots shining--and
buttoned, and their faces smiling and happy-looking.

They were Betty's ideals! Little rich girls, who rode ponies, and
drove--sometimes in a village cart with a nurse, and sometimes in a
carriage with a lady who invariably wore beautiful hats and dresses.
Sometimes, again, they were to be seen in a dog-cart with a dark man who
seemed a splendid creature indeed to Betty.

The little girl by the roadside grasped her unbuttoned boot in one hand,
her bonnet and newspaper parcel in the other, and in a trice had
squeezed herself under her grandfather's fence, just at a point where
two or three panels were broken down.

Then she peeped out to see if they were looking. But no--they had not
seen her. Betty gave a great sigh of relief as she watched them. How
beautiful they were. How dainty! Betty looked down at her own old boots,
old stockings, old dress. She turned her bonnet over disdainfully and
thought of their lace-trimmed hats--their golden hair!

"Oh, I am glad they didn't see me!" she said aloud fervently.

Just then a voice shouted, a rough word to her from the path, and Betty
awoke to two alarming facts. The one, that she was in the emu's
enclosure and that one great bird was bearing curiously towards her
already; the other, that her grandfather was the one who had called to
her, and that John Brown, who was careering down the path on his
bicycle, had stopped and was evidently giving information about her.

Her grandfather waved an angry hand.

"Out you go!" he shouted. "If you come here again, I'll set the dogs
loose!"

Betty squeezed herself under the fence just before the emu reached her,
and once more faced a very crumpled Monday morning.

CHAPTER VII

"CAREW-BROWN"

It must be confessed that