Page 59 - An Australian Lassie

CHAPTER XIV

JOHN'S PLANS

On Monday morning Betty took the road to school with running feet. A fear was at her heart that John Brown
had set out upon his expedition into the world this day. Had gone--and left her behind! Had begun "life" and
left her at school!

And it must be confessed that she liked the thought of two waifs facing the world together, very much better
than one.

She was not at all disturbed (when it was over) about the interview with her grandfather. Tt had not, like its
predecessor, sent her to bed weeping and ashamed and resolved upon the expediency of "turning over a new
leaf."

She had been vexed that her grandfather had had so short a sleep--and that John had not given her warning of
his approach--as he had promised to do.

And she was very much distressed to find she had left her pink bonnet behind her. Her mother had discovered
its loss when giving out the week's clean one, and had insisted upon her searching every corner in the house
for it.

"Tt's was Dot's," said Mrs. Bruce. "Dot never lost a bonnet in her life. You will have done with bonnets soon,
but yours will do for Nancy. T expect you left it at school, you tiresome child."

Tt certainly would have electrified Mrs. Bruce if her small daughter had confessed to her bonnet's
whereabouts. But Betty's scrapes were many and various at this period of her life, and it never entered into her
head to tell them to her mother, who was absorbed in her garden and her books, nor to her father, who was
supposed to be always "thinking stories."

So Betty ran to school with her clean bonnet tucked under her arm, after promising that she would "try to
bring the other one home with her."

Her mind was now at rest upon her future "career." She had quite determined to be a second Madam S—
with this sole difference in their lives--Madam S--- faced the world at her street corner at the age of eight,
and Betty was not beginning till she was "twelve and a bit."

Still, she had a few worries.

She was worried over John--lest he should have gone and left her; and she was worried over the great
question, "What song to sing?" as many singers have been before.

She had thought of "God save the Queen," but the words did not fulfil all requirements, while "Please give me
a penny, sir"--that song she had found among a heap of yellow old ones with her mother's name--maiden
name, Dorothea Carew--upon them, seemed to have been written just for the occasion. The only pity was, that
whereas Betty knew "God Save the Queen" perfectly, "Please give me a penny, sir" was almost a stranger to
her.

She had learnt a verse of it on Saturday night when she ought to have been doing her arithmetic; and on
Sunday evening she had coaxed her mother to the piano, and begged her to sing "just this one song, please."
Her mother sang very prettily--like Dot--and she had thrown a good deal of pathos into the old song, so that
Betty's ambition was fired, and she had almost decided upon the song straightaway.