made a contrast. She had grown to be
even taller than Betty, and she looked uncomfortable, and as if she had
been forced to come. That was a silly, limp shake of the hand with which
she returned Betty's warm grasp. Oh dear, it was evidently a dreadful
thing to go to make a call! It had been an anxious, discouraged
getting-ready, and Betty thought of the short, red-cheeked, friendly
little Becky whom she used to play with, and was grieved to the heart.
But she bravely pushed a chair close to the guest and sat down. She
could not get over the old feeling of affection.

"I thought you would be over here long ago. I ought to have gone to see
you. Why, you're more grown up than I am; isn't it too bad?" said Betty,
feeling afraid that one or the other of them might cry, they were both
blushing so deeply and the occasion was so solemn.

"Oh, do let's play in the shed-chamber all day to-morrow!"

And then they both laughed as hard as they could, and there was the dear
old Mary Beck after all, and a tough bit of ice was forever broken.

Betty threw open the parlor blinds, regardless of Serena's feelings
about flies, and the two friends spent a delightful hour together. The
call ended in Mary's being urged to go home to take off her best gown
and put on an every-day one, and away they went afterward for a long
walk.

"What are the girls doing?" asked Betty, as if she considered herself a
member already of this branch of the great secret society of girls.

"Oh, nothing; we hardly ever do anything," answered Mary Beck, with a
surprised and uneasy glance. "It is so slow in Tideshead, everybody
says."

"I suppose it is slow anywhere if we don't do anything about it,"
laughed Betty, so good-naturedly that Mary laughed too. "I like to play
out-of-doors just as well as ever I did, don't you?"

Mary Beck gave a somewhat doubtful answer. She had dreaded this
ceremonious call. She could not quite understand why Betty Leicester,
who had traveled abroad and done so many things and had, as people say,
such unusual advantages, should seem the same as ever, and only wear
that plain, comfortable-looking little gingham dress.

"When my other big trunk comes there are some presents I brought over
for you," confessed Betty shyly. "I have had to keep one of them a long
time because papa has always been saying every year that we were sure to
come to Tideshead, and then we haven't after all."

"He has been here two or three times," said Mar