curly hair. And the moon chose that moment to sail from under the cloud
and put Betty's face in a soft silver light.

Brown whistled. "By Jove!" he said, the "sister."

Betty crammed her hat down upon her head again.

"I'm not," she said. "It's not! It's me, Cyril. Come on, _coward_,
_bully_!"

She made a little rush at him, but Brown threw down his switch.

"Thanks," he said. "I'm not taking any this trip."

"Come on," urged Betty.

"I don't fight girls, thanks."

Betty began to cry in a heart-broken desperate way.

"It's not me," she said. "It's Cyril. It's Cyril. Oh, it's Cyril!"

But Brown, smiling darkly, turned from her, jumped over the fence, and
took his way through the banana grove to his home.

And what pen could tell of his heaviness of heart, and great shame in
that he had _thrashed_ a girl. He could feel her light weight yet as he
swung her round, hear her girlish voice crying, "We Bruces fight till
we die!" see her thin white face in the moonlight as her hat fell off,
and she looked at him and said--

"Come on, coward, bully!"

How he tingled with shame. Coward, bully! Yes, he had hit a girl.

Betty started for home at a brisk run, for during her adventure the
night had advanced, and her imagination peopled the surrounding bush
with bogeys, and imps and elves.

And as she ran, sobs broke from her, solely on account of her physical
woes.

Within the wicket gate she walked slowly. How could fear of outer
darkness remain, when the dinning-room window sent such a bar of light
beyond.

She crept softly along the verandah to the window and peeped in. Her
father was lying on the old cane lounge, his eyes upon her mother who
sat at the piano, in a pretty fresh dress, flower-like as ever. For a
space, while little boy-Betty looked, she just touched the keys tenderly
as if she loved them like her flowers, then she struck a few chords, and
began to sing "Home, Sweet Home," in her sweet girlish voice.

And Betty turned away, the tears running down her cheeks, and her small
heart aching.

"I've been bad again," she said, "and I meant to be good always. I don't
believe you _can_ be good till you are grown up." She ran along the
passage into the little bedroom which she and Dot and Nancy shared, and
she fell down by Dot's quiet white bed and buried her face in the quilt.

"Bad again," she sobbed. "I've been bad again. Oh, I'm _glad_ I got
thrashed, it ought to do me good." But it is to be feare