'Go and shake hands,' whispered Nesta.

Betty went up to the couch and held out her little hand. The invalid took it, and the fair, flushed little face seemed to attract her.

'This is a perfect baby, Nesta; I thought you meant a much older child.

Well, little girl, haven't you a tongue in your head? Have you nothing to say? It's the way of this house: here I lie from morning to night without a soul to speak to, and if I do have a visitor it is half a dozen words, and then off they go! I should like them to lie here and suffer as I do--perhaps they might have a little more feeling for an invalid if they did.'

'Are you going to die?' asked Betty timidly.

'Take her away!' gasped Miss Grace; 'don't bring a child to mock me; and I suppose you will be devoting yourself to her the whole day, and I shall have no one to read the paper to me.'

'No,' said Nesta brightly, 'I am going to let her play in the garden, and then I shall come to you as usual. Come along, Betty; now you and Prince can have a scamper.'

Out into the garden they went; but Betty rubbed her eyes in bewilderment when she got there. Surely she had seen this garden before! Was it in her dreams last night?

She tripped across the velvet lawn, answering Nesta's questions and remarks rather absently, and then suddenly she turned round with a beaming face. 'I've been here before,' she said; 'I had some lilies from over there, and I came through that little door in the wall from the wood. Do you know my lady? She looks like a queen. Does she live with you?'

Nesta looked perfectly bewildered.

'You must be dreaming, Betty. How could you have come here? When did you come?'

Betty told her of her adventure in the wood, and Nesta listened in wonder.

'It must have been my mother, and yet I can hardly understand it. It is unlike her to take any notice of children.' Then she added, 'Do you think you can make yourself happy in the garden, Betty, or would you like to go down the green walk outside the little gate?'

'Will you open the gate and let me see?' said Betty thoughtfully.

Nesta took her to it, and then for a moment they stood silent, looking down the green avenue, with the golden sunshine glinting through the leafy trees, and the tall bracken swaying to and fro in the summer breeze.

'Which do you like best, Betty--the garden or this?'

Betty turned and looked behind her at the lovely flowers and beautifully kept gra.s.s and gravel walks, and then she heaved a little sigh as she looked out into the wood.

'My beautiful old lady asked me that question before, and I thought then I liked the garden, but now I like this green walk best,' she said.

'You prefer nature uncultivated, don't you? So do I. But I do not often come out here. This is my mother's favourite spot.'

'Did you say "Nature"?' questioned betty eagerly. 'Do you mean Mother Nature? You said you would show her to me one day.'

'So I did, I have quite forgotten. Well, there she is out there, Betty. Nature is G.o.d's beautiful earth: the country, the birds, the rabbits, and the squirrels--everything that He makes and that man leaves alone.'

'I don't understand;' and the child's white brow was creased with puckers. 'I thought she was a woman: Mr. Roper said she was; he said he had learnt many a lesson from her.'

'And so have I,' said Nesta softly. 'Listen, Betty. Sometimes I have gone out of doors tired and worried and sad; I have wandered through the wood, and the sweet sounds and sights I have seen in it have brought me home rested and refreshed. They have spoken to me of G.o.d's love, and G.o.d's care, and G.o.d's perfection. You are too little to understand me, I expect, but you will when you get older. G.o.d makes everything beautiful, and He watches over the tiny birds and insects whom no one but Himself ever sees. The tiniest flower is noticed by Him, and all His works in nature lead us to think of Him, and to remember how He loves and cares for us.'

Betty's blue eyes were raised earnestly upwards.

'G.o.d does love everything, doesn't He? And He loves Prince just as much as He does you and me.'

Nesta hesitated. 'I think, darling, G.o.d has a different love for us to what He has for animals. We have cost the dear Saviour His life; our souls have been redeemed. Animals have no souls, they do not know the difference between right and wrong----'

'But Prince does,' broke in Betty hastily; 'he knows lots of the Bible, for I've told him about it, and I read The Peep of Day to him on Sunday. He likes it; he lies quite still on my lap and folds his paws and listens like anything. And I've told him about Jesus dying for him, and how he must try to be good. And he does try: he wanted to run after some little chickens yesterday, and I called him and told him it was wicked, and he came away from them directly; and I know he wanted to go after them dreadfully, for he was licking his lips and glaring at them!'

This outburst from Betty was too much for Nesta. She looked at her with perplexity, then wisely turned the subject, and after a few minutes' more chat left her, and went back to the house.

Betty wandered out into the wood, and then seating herself on a soft bank surrounded by ferns and foxgloves, she drew Prince to her.

'Come, you little darling, how do you like this? Isn't it lovely to be spending a day in that lovely house, and not have to be shut out with only some lilies to take away? Do you like it, Prince? And do you think we shall see that nice queen, and find out if she sent you in a basket to me? Do you understand about nature, Prince? I wish I did, but it's the earth, I think; you put your mouth down and kiss it.

Isn't it nice and soft?'

And then, laying her curly head on the velvet moss, Betty pressed her lips to it, whispering, 'Mother Nature, Mr. Roper sent you his love and a kiss!'

Prince was not content to stay as quiet as this for long, and when a rabbit popped out from a hole close by, he was after it like lightning.

Betty tore after him delightedly, and a scamper removed from her busy little mind for the time thoughts that were beginning to trouble her.

When Nesta returned to the garden half an hour after, she found Betty deep in conversation with the old gardener, and Prince was hunting for snails in a thick laurel hedge close by.

'We didn't stay out in the wood very long,' Betty explained; 'we got tired of running after rabbits.'

'You must come in to luncheon now; I want you to come up to my room to wash your face and hands.'

'Will the cross lady be at lunch?' asked Betty, as she trotted up the broad oak stairs a few minutes later.

'Hush, dear; she is ill, remember. I don't think she will lunch with us.'

Nesta took her little visitor through a long pa.s.sage to a pretty bedroom, and Betty looked about at all the pictures and knick-knacks, asking ceaseless questions, and fingering everything that she could get hold of. Her curls were brushed out, her hands and face washed, and then she was brought down to the large drawing-room.

'This is my little friend, mother,' said Nesta, going in.

A tall figure turned round from the window, and Betty saw her mysterious lady once again. She looked colder and sterner than ever, and put up her gold pince-nez to scan the little new-comer down; but Betty's radiant face, dimpling all over with pleasure as she held up her face for a kiss, brought a softer gleam to the old grey eyes, and, to her daughter's astonishment, Mrs. Fairfax stooped to give the expected kiss.

'It is the little trespa.s.ser,' she said. 'I did not know I should see you again so soon.'

Then she turned to Nesta. 'Grace informed me she intended to lunch with us. She is in the dining-room already, so we will wait no longer.'

They walked in silence across to the dining-room, and Betty, awed by the big table, the noiseless butler, and the cold, formal stateliness of the meal, sat up in her big chair, subdued and still.

CHAPTER X

A Little Messenger

Miss Fairfax seemed the most talkative, but her conversation was a perpetual flow of complaints; the food, the weather, and her ailments were her chief topics, and Betty's round eyes of amazement, as she sat opposite, served to irritate her more. At length she gave a little start and scream.

'I am sure there is a dog in the room!' she exclaimed. 'How often I have told you, Jennings' (this to the butler), 'to keep the dogs out of our rooms!'

'It's my dog,' said Betty at once; 'it's only Prince; he always sits under my chair; he's such a dear, he waits as quiet as a mouse.'