Part 17

"I suppose it's being good that made you run after Nelly Foster. I wished that I had gone to see her more, when you went; but she used to act hatefully sometimes before you came. She used to cry in school, though," confessed Becky.

"I didn't 'run after' her. You do call things such dreadful names, Mary Beck! There, I'm getting cross, my foot is all stinging."

"Turn it just the other way," advised Mary eagerly. "Let me pound it for you," and she briskly went to the rescue. Betty wondered afresh why she liked this friend herself so much, and yet disliked so many things that she said and did.

Serena always said that Betty had a won't-you-please-like-me sort of way with her, and Mary Beck felt it more than ever as she returned to her rocking-chair and jogged on again, but she could not bend from her high sense of disapproval immediately. "What do you think the unjust steward parable means, then?" she asked, not exactly returning to the fray, but with an injured manner. "It is in the Sunday-school lesson to-morrow, and I can't understand it a bit,--I never could."

"Nor I," said Betty, in a most cheerful tone. "See here, Becky, it doesn't rain, and we can go and ask Mr. Grant to tell us about it."

"Go ask the minister!" exclaimed Mary Beck, much shocked. "Why, would you dare to?"

"That's what ministers are for," answered Betty simply. "We can stay a little while and see the girls, if he is busy. Come now, Becky," and Becky reluctantly came. She was to think a great many times afterward of that talk in the garret. She was beginning to doubt whether she had really succeeded in settling all the questions of life, at the age of fifteen.

The two friends went along arm-in-arm under the still-dripping trees. The parsonage was some distance up the long Tideshead street, and the sun was coming out as they stood on the doorsteps. The minister was amazed when he found that these parishioners had come to have a talk with him in the study, and to ask something directly at his willing hands. He preached the better for it, next day, and the two girls listened the better. As for Mary Beck, the revelation to her honest heart of having a right in the minister, and the welcome convenience of his fund of knowledge and his desire to be of use to her personally, was an immense surprise. Kind Mr. Grant had been a part of the dreaded Sundays, a fixture of the day and the church and the pulpit, before that; he was, indirectly, a reproach, and, until this day, had never seemed like other people exactly, or an every-day friend. Perhaps the good man wondered if it were not his own fault, a little. He tried to be very gay and friendly with his own girls at supper-time, and said afterward that they must have Mary Beck and Betty Leicester to take tea with them some time during the next week.

"But there are others in the parish who will feel hurt," urged Mrs. Grant anxiously; and Mr. Grant only answered that there must be a dozen tea-parties, then, as if there were no such things as sponge-cake and ceremony in the world!

XII.

BETTY AT HOME.

EVERYBODY was as kind as possible when Betty Leicester first came to Tideshead, and best company manners prevailed toward her; but as the girls got used to having a new friend and playmate, some of them proved disappointing. Nothing could shake her deep affection for honest-hearted Mary Beck, but in some directions Mary had made up her inexperienced and narrow mind, and would listen to none of Betty's kindly persuasions. The Fosters' father had done some very dishonest deeds, and had run away from justice after defrauding some of the most trustful of his neighbors. Mary Beck's mother had lost some money in this way, and old Captain Beck even more, so that the girl had heard sharp comments and indignant blame at home; and she shocked Miss Barbara Leicester and Betty one morning by wondering how Henry and Nelly Foster could have had the face to go to church the very Sunday after their father was sent to jail. She did not believe that they cared a bit what people thought.

"Poor children," said Miss Leicester, with quiet compassion, "the sight of their pitiful young faces was enough for me. When should one go to church if not in bitter trouble? That boy and girl look years older than the rest of you young folks."

"It never seemed to me that they thought any less of themselves," said Mary Beck, in a disagreeable tone; "and I wouldn't ask them to my party, if I had one."

"But they have worked so hard," said Betty. "Jonathan said yesterday that Harry Foster told him this spring, when he was working here, that he was going to pay every cent that his father owed, if he lived long enough. He is studying hard, too; you know that he hoped to go to college before this happened. They always look as if they were grateful for just being spoken to."

"Plenty of people have made everything of them and turned their heads," said Mary Beck, as if she were repeating something that had been said at home. "I think I should pity some people whose father had behaved so, but I don't like the Fosters a bit."

"They are carrying a heavy load on their young shoulders," said Miss Barbara Leicester. "You will feel differently by and by, about them. Help them all you can, Mary!"

Mary Beck went home that morning much displeased. She didn't mean to be hard-hearted, but it had seemed to her like proper condemnation of wrong-doing to treat the Fosters loftily. Now that Betty's eyes had filled with tears as she listened, and Miss Leicester evidently thought less of her for what had been said, Mary began to feel doubtful about the matter. Yes, what if her father had been like theirs,--could she be shut up like a prisoner, and behave as she expected the Fosters to behave? By the time she reached her own house she was ashamed of what she had said. Miss Leicester was at that moment telling Betty that she was astonished at such bitter feeling in their young neighbor. "She has never really thought about it. I dare say she only needs a sensible word or two to change her mind. You children have such tremendous opinions," and Aunt Barbara smiled.

"Once when I was staying in the Isle of Wight," said Betty, "I belonged to such a nice out-of-door club, Aunt Barbara."

"Did you? What was it like?"

"Oh, not really like anything that I can think of, only we had great fun together. We used to walk miles and miles, and carry some buns or buy them, and get milk or ginger-beer at the farms. There are so many ruins to go to see, and old churches, and homes of eminent persons of the time of Elizabeth, and we would read from their works; and it was so pleasant coming home by the foot-paths afterward," announced Betty with satisfaction. "The governesses used to go, too, but we could outrun all but one of them, the Barry's, and my Miss Winter, who was as dear as could be. I had my lessons with the Duncans, you know. Oh, it was such fun!--the others would let us go on as fast as we liked, and come poking along together, and have their own quiet pleasures." Betty was much diverted with her recollections. "I mean to begin an out-of-door club here, Aunt Barbara."

"In my time," said Aunt Barbara, "girls were expected to know how to sew, and to learn to be good housekeepers."

"You would join the club, wouldn't you?" asked Betty anxiously.

"And be run away from, like the stout governesses, I dare say."

There was an attempt at a serious expression, but Miss Leicester could not help laughing a little. Down came Miss Mary at this moment, with Letty behind her, carrying cushions, and Betty sprang up to help make the couch ready.

"I wish that you would belong, too, and come with us on wheels," said she, returning to the subject that had been interrupted. "You could drive to the meetings and be head-member, Aunt Mary." But Aunt Mary was tired that day, and wished to have no demands made upon her. There were days when Betty had a plan for every half-hour, remarked Aunt Barbara indulgently.

"Suppose you come out to the garden with me to pick some raspberries?" and Betty was quietly removed from the weak nerves of Aunt Mary, who plaintively said that Betty had almost too much life.

"Too much life! Not a bit of it," said Serena, who was the grandniece's chief upholder and champion. "We did need waking up, 't was a fact, Miss Leicester; now, wa'n't it? It seemed just like old times, that night of the tea-party. Trouble is, we've all got to bein' too master comfortable, and thought we couldn't step one foot out o' the beaten rut. 'T is the misfortune o' livin' in a little place."