came aware of a
small boy at the drawing-room window talking to some one within, whom
she presently discovered to be Beth.

"What are you doing there, Beth?" she demanded severely. "Who is this
boy?"

Beth started. "Sammy Lee," she gasped. "Mr. Lee's grandson at the end
of Orchard Row."

"Why are you talking to him?" her mother asked harshly. "I won't have
you talking to him. Who will you scrape acquaintance with next?" Then
she turned to Sammy, who stood shaking in his shoes, with all the rosy
colour faded from his fair fat cheeks, too frightened to stir. "Go
away," said Mrs. Caldwell, "you've no business here talking to my
daughter, and I won't allow it."

Sammy sidled off, not daring to turn his back full till he was at a
safe distance, lest he should be seized from behind and shaken. He was
not a heroic figure in retreat, but Beth, in her indignation, noted
nothing but the insult that had been offered him. For several days,
when her mother was out, she watched and waited for him, anxious to
atone; but Sammy kept to the other side of the road, and only cast
furtive smiles at her as he ran by. It never occurred to Beth that he
was less valiant than she was, or less willing to brave danger for her
sake than she was for his. She thought he was keeping away for fear of
getting her into trouble; and she beckoned to him again and again in
order to explain that she did not care; but he only fled the faster.
Then Beth wrote him a note. It was the first she had ever written
voluntarily, and she shut herself up in the acting-room to compose it,
in imitation of Aunt Grace Mary, whose beautiful delicate handwriting
she always did her best to copy--with very indifferent success,
however, for the connection between her hand and her head was
imperfect. She could compose verses and phrases long before she could
commit them to paper intelligibly; and it was not the composition of
her note to Sammy that troubled her, but her bad writing. She made a
religious ceremony of the effort, praying fervently, "Lord, let me
write it well." Every day she presented a miscellaneous collection of
petitions to the Lord, offering them up as the necessity arose, being
in constant communication with Him. When she wanted to go out, she
asked for fine weather; when she did not want to go out, she prayed
that it might rain. She begged that she might not be found out when
she went poaching on Uncle James's fields; that she might be allowed
to catch s