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Page 21
Once she got up and pattered across the room in her nightgown to sit a
moment before the little writing-desk in the corner, and handle all its
dainty furnishings of gold and mother-of-pearl. There were thin white
curtains at the windows, held back by broad bands of yellow ribbon. They
stirred softly with every passing breeze, and fluttered and fluttered,
until by and by, watching them, Betty's eyelids fluttered, too, and she
closed them drowsily.
While she slept she dreamed that she was back in the cuckoo's nest
again, in her bare little room in the gable, and that a great white and
yellow daisy stood over her, shaking her by the shoulder and telling her
that it was time to go down and wash the breakfast dishes. Then the
broad white petals began to fall off one by one, and it was Davy's face
in the centre. No, whose was it? She rubbed her eyes and looked again,
to find her godmother standing in the door.
"It is time to dress for dinner, little girl," she called, gaily. "Do
you need any help?"
"No, thank you," answered Betty, sitting up and catching a glimpse of
Lloyd going past the door in a fresh white muslin and pink ribbons.
"Shall I wear my best dress, godmother?" asked Betty, "or would it be
better to save it for Sunday?"
"Let me see it," said Mrs. Sherman, helping her to take it out of the
little half-filled trunk. "Oh, you'd better wear it, I think. We may
have company." What she saw in that trunk set her to thinking her most
godmotherly thoughts.
The wax tapers were all lighted in each silver candelabra when Betty
went down the stairs, looking fresh and sweet as a wildflower in her
dress and ribbons of robin's-egg blue. When she slipped into the long
drawing-room, Lloyd was playing on the harp. Over her hung the portrait
of a beautiful young girl, also standing beside a harp. She was dressed
in white, and she wore a June rose in her hair and another at her
throat. Betty walked over and looked up at the picture long and
earnestly.
"That's my grandmothah, Amanthis," said Lloyd, pausing in her song, "and
that's the way she looked the first time grandfathah evah saw her. And
heah's Uncle Tom in his soldier clothes, and this is mothah's
great-great-aunt that was such a belle in the days of Clay and Webstah."
She led the way around the room, introducing Betty to all the old family
portraits, with interesting tales about each one. Then she went back to
her harp, and Betty sat down in front of the first picture again. "You
belong to me, too, in a way," thought Betty, looking up at it. "If you
are my godmother's mother, then you are my great-godmother, Amanthis,
and I love you because you are so beautiful."
The harp thrilled on, the fair face of the portrait seemed to smile back
at her, and in some vague, sweet way Betty felt that she had come back
to her own and had been welcomed home to the House Beautiful.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ENCHANTED NECKLACE.
Several days after Betty's arrival, the Little Colonel went into her
mother's room with a troubled face.
"Mothah," she said, anxiously, "what are we goin' to do about the lawn
f�te at Anna Moore's this afternoon? Elizabeth hasn't a thing to weah
but that lawn dress that she has put on every evenin' since she came,
and it isn't fresh enough. I can't lend her anything because I'm not
quite as tall as she is, and my clothes would be too short. What is she
goin' to do?"
"Ah, that is my secret, little daughter," answered Mrs. Sherman, with a
smile. "What do you suppose I spent that hot morning in town for, the
day after she came, and why, do you think, have I driven over so many
times to see Miss Dean? I have made at least six trips there."
"Was it to get some clothes made for Elizabeth?" asked Lloyd. A little
expression of doubt showed in the anxious pucker of her forehead. "But,
mothah, she is awfully proud if she is poah. Aren't you afraid of
hurtin' her feelin's?"
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