he had
seen him do a hundred times that afternoon, a queer sinking feeling of
loneliness possessed her, and she almost wanted to catch the rail and
swing back on again as the next pair of car steps flung by her.

Then a voice that sounded a little like Jane's said pleasantly in her
ear: "Is this Lizzie Hope?" and Betty turned with a thrill of actual
fright to face Nellie Carson and her little sister Emily.

"Bobbie'll be here in a minute to carry your suitcase," said Nellie
efficiently; "he just went over to see if he could borrow Jake Peter's
wheelbarrow in case you had a trunk. You didn't bring your trunk? O, but
you're going to stay, aren't you? I'm goin' up to the city to take a
p'sition, and Mother'd be awful lonesome. Sometime of course we'll send
fer them to come, but now the children's little an' the country's better
fer them. They gotta go to school awhile. You'll stay, won't you?"

"How do you know you'll want me?" laughed Betty, at her ease in this
unexpected air of welcome.

"Why, of course we'd want you. Jane sent you. Jane wouldn't of sent you
if you hadn't been a good scout. Jane knows. Besides, I've got two eyes,
haven't I? I guess I can tell right off."

Emily's shy little hand stole into Betty's and the little girl looked
up:

"I'm awful glad you come! I think you're awful pretty!"

"Thank you!" said Betty, warmly squeezing the little confiding hand. It
was the first time in her life that a little child had come close to her
in this confiding way. Her life had not been among children.

Then Bob whirled up, bareheaded, freckled, whistling, efficient, and
about twelve years old. He grabbed the suitcase, eyed the stranger with
a pleasant grin, and stamped off into the darkness ahead of them.

It was a new experience to Betty to be walking down a village street
with little houses on each side and lights and warmth and heads bobbing
through the windows. It stirred some memory of long ago, before she
could scarcely remember. She wondered, had her own mother ever lived in
a small village?

"That's our church," confided Emily, as they passed a large frame
building with pointed steeple and belfry. "They're goin' to have a
entertainment t'morra night, an' we're all goin' and Ma said you cud go
too."

"Isn't that lovely!" said Betty, feeling a sudden lump like tears in her
throat. It was just like living out a fairy story. She hadn't expected
to be taken right in to family life this way.

"But how