led broadly, she repeated the rhyme:

"For love's sweet sake, in my hour of need,
Blossom and deck me, little seed!"

As she opened her eyes, Lloyd, obeying a whisper from her mother, threw
back the lid of the trunk. All that Betty could utter, as she looked
within, was a long-drawn cry of surprise: "Oh-oo-oo!"

There, inside, lay a pile of light summer dresses, some white, and the
rest in as many tints of pale pinks and blues and buffs and lilacs as
could be found in a bunch of fresh sweet peas. Below were glimpses of
linen and lace and embroidery, and in the top tray two pretty hats. One
trimmed simply with rosettes of ribbon, the other a broad-brimmed
leghorn with a wreath of forget-me-nots.

One look into Betty's face was enough reward for Mrs. Sherman. It was
ample return for all the trouble she had taken. What was the money
expended and the discomforts of that tiresome morning that she shopped
in town, or the many trips to the dressmaker's, compared to the rapture
in Betty's shining eyes? Mrs. Sherman had never seen such happiness, or
heard such a gladness in a voice as when Betty cried out, "Oh,
godmother! Are you a witch? It is too good to be true. I thought I was
coming to an ordinary house party, and I've walked straight into a real,
live fairy tale! Oh, I can never thank you enough! Never, never, never."
She threw her arms around her godmother's neck and kissed her again and
again.

Presently leaving Betty to gloat over her treasures by herself, Lloyd
followed Mrs. Sherman out of the room. "Now I see what you meant,
mothah," she said, "about the different ways of givin' things. It can't
hurt anybody's pride if you make them feel that you give it for love's
sweet sake. That was a beautiful way you did it, mothah, and I'll never
fo'get it."

CHAPTER VII.

BITS FROM BETTY'S DIARY.

"THE LOCUSTS," June 4, 1900.

This morning when I sat down at my writing-desk to finish a letter to
Davy, I found this little blank book, bound in white kid, with my
initials on the back in gold letters. When I first came, godmother heard
me wishing that I could put a slice of my good times away in a box every
day, and save it to take home and enjoy afterward, as people do
fruit-cake sometimes, after Christmases and weddings. So she has given
me this pretty white book, and every day while I am in this House
Beautiful I shall write something in it with this darling little
pearl-handled pen.

Even i