very
tight.

"No," said Betty again; "I have made a discovery. Scotch heather does
not grow here in this airless sort of place. Sylvia and Hester, Margaret
was good enough to show me what she calls heather. There are a few
straggling plants just at the other side of that bit of common. I don't
want ours to die slowly. Our plants shall go at once. No, we don't water
them. Sylvia, go into your garden and pull up the plant; and, Hester,
you do likewise Go, girls; go at once!"

"But, Betty----" said Margaret.

"You had better not cross her now," said Sylvia.

Margaret started when Sylvia addressed her in this tone.

Betty's face was painfully white, except where two spots of color blazed
in each cheek. As her sisters stooped obediently to pull up their
heather, Betty bent and wrenched hers from the ground by which it was
surrounded, which ground was already dry and hard. "Let's make a
bonfire," she said. "I sometimes think," she added, "that in each little
bell of heather there lives the wee-est of all the fairies; and perhaps,
if we burn this poor, dear thing, the little, wee fairies may go back to
their ain countree."

"It all seems quite dreadful to me," said Margaret.

"It is right," replied Betty; "and I have a box of matches in my
pocket."

"Oh, have you?" exclaimed Olive. "If--if Mrs. Haddo knew----"

But Betty made no response. She set her sisters to collect some dry
leaves and bits of broken twigs; and presently the bonfire was erected
and kindled, and the poor heather from the north country had ceased to
exist.

"Now, you must see _our_ gardens," said Margaret, "for you must have
gardens, you know. Olive and I will show you the sort of things that
grow in the south, that flourish here, and look beautiful."

"I cannot see them now," replied Betty. She brushed past Margaret, and
walked rapidly across the common.

Sylvia's face turned very white, and she clutched Hetty's hand still
more tightly.

"What is she going to do? What is the matter?" said Margaret, turning to
the twins.

"She can't help it," said Sylvia; "she must do it. She is going to
howl."

"To do what?" said Margaret Grant.

"Howl. Did you never howl? Well, perhaps you never did. Anyhow, she must
get away as far as possible before she begins, and we had better go back
to the house. You wouldn't like the sound of Betty's howling."

"But are you going to let her howl, as you call it, alone?"

"Let her? We have no voice in the mat