Betterson." He who, in this
unsettled state of things, taking a hint from the middle name,
pronounced boldly aloud, "LORD BETTERSON," was a public benefactor.
"Lord Betterson" and "Lord Betterson's Castle" had been popular ever
since.

The house, with its door-posts of unpainted pine darkly soiled by the
contact of unwashed childish hands, and its unfinished rooms, some of
them lathed, but unplastered (showing just the point at which the
owner's resources failed), looked even more shabby within than without.

This may have been partly because the house-keeper was sick. She must
have been sick, if that was she, the pale, drooping figure, sitting
wrapped in an old red shawl, that summer afternoon. She looked not only
sick, but exceedingly discouraged. And no wonder.

[Illustration: "LORD BETTERSON."]

At her right hand was an empty cradle; and she held a puny infant in her
arms, trying to still its cries. At her left was a lounge, on which lay
the helpless form of an invalid child, a girl about eleven years old.
The room was comfortless. An old, high-colored piece of carpeting half
covered the rough floor; its originally gaudy pattern, out of which all
but the red had faded, bearing witness to some past stage of family
gentility, and serving to set off the surrounding wretchedness.

Tipped back in a chair against the rough and broken laths, his knees as
high as his chin, was a big slovenly boy of about seventeen, looking
lazily out from under an old ragged hat-rim, pushed over his eyes.
Another big, slovenly boy, a year or two younger, sat on the doorstep,
whittling quite as much for his own amusement as for that of a little
five-year-old ragamuffin outside.

Not much comfort for the poor woman and the sick girl shone from these
two indifferent faces. Indeed, the only ray of good cheer visible in
that disorderly room gleamed from the bright eyes of a little girl not
more than nine or ten years old,--so small, in truth, that she had to
stand on a stool by the table, where she was washing a pan of dishes.

"O boys!" said the woman in a feeble, complaining tone, "do, one of you,
go to the spring and bring some fresh water for your poor, sick sister."

"It's Rufe's turn to go for water," said the boy on the doorstep.

"'T ain't my turn, either," muttered the boy tipped back against the
laths. "Besides, I've got to milk the cow soon as Link brings the cattle
home. Hear the bell yet, Wad?"

"Never mind, Cecie!" cried