Page 26 - An Australian Lassie

"T must work harder--harder--harder!" he said. "T must put my book away, and grind out those articles for
Montgomery!"

Nancy, in a big white sun-bonnet, clean for the new week, passed under his window and turned her face to the
wicket gate. He could hear that she was crying in a miserable forsaken way, crying and talking to herself away
within that capacious bonnet of hers.

He called "Baby!" and leaned over his window sill to her. But she did not hear him. She just went murmuring
on to the gate.

Then two other hurrying little figures came along. Cyril, with a battered hat crushed down on his head, and his
school-bag over his shoulders, and Betty with her boots unlaced, a white bonnet under her arm, and a
newspaper parcel, which she was trying to coax into neatness, in one hand.

"Tt's all through you and your ghosts," Cyril was saying grumblingly. "T know T'd have done my lessons only
for you, Betty Bruce."

"What is the matter with Nancy?" asked their father, leaning over the window sill once more. "Why was she
crying?"

"'Cause she thinks she'll be late," said Betty easily. "She always cries if she thinks she's late."

Down the road they went, Nancy hurrying and crying, Cyril grumbling, Betty silent.

To none of them had Monday morning come exactly right--fresh and uncrumpled.

Betty sat down, just outside her grandfather's gate, to lace her boots, and Cyril went grumbling on about a
hundred yards behind Nancy.

Then did a fresh crease get into the new week's first day for Betty. Looking under her arm as she bent over her
boot, she beheld three figures walking down the road, and at the first glimpse of them her face grew hot.

"Geraldine and Fay!" she exclaimed.

The centre figure was dressed in a lilac print, and wore a spotless apron and a straw hat. Upon either side of
her walked a little golden-haired girl, one apparently about Betty's age, and one Nancy's. Their dresses were
white and spotless, and reached almost to their knees; their hats were flat shady things trimmed with muslin
and lace. Their hair was beautifully dressed and curled, their boots shining--and buttoned, and their faces
smiling and happy-looking.

They were Betty's ideals! Little rich girls, who rode ponies, and drove--sometimes in a village cart with a
nurse, and sometimes in a carriage with a lady who invariably wore beautiful hats and dresses. Sometimes,
again, they were to be seen in a dog-cart with a dark man who seemed a splendid creature indeed to Betty.

The little girl by the roadside grasped her unbuttoned boot in one hand, her bonnet and newspaper parcel in
the other, and in a trice had squeezed herself under her grandfather's fence, just at a point where two or three
panels were broken down.

Then she peeped out to see if they were looking. But no--they had not seen her. Betty gave a great sigh of
relief as she watched them. How beautiful they were. How dainty! Betty looked down at her own old boots,
old stockings, old dress. She turned her bonnet over disdainfully and thought of their lace-trimmed hats--their
golden hair!