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Page 68
"Who is it?" asked Betty, reaching out a wondering little hand,
"Eugenia's father?"
"Lloyd calls me Cousin Carl," answered Mr. Forbes, taking the groping
fingers in his, "and I think that the little Betty that everybody is so
fond of might call me that, too."
"I'll be glad to--Cousin Carl," said the child, bashfully, and that was
the beginning of a warm and steadfast friendship.
Eugenia waited until later, when her father and Mrs. Sherman had left
the room, before she opened her packages.
"Hold fast all I give you!" she exclaimed, gaily, tossing a tiny white
box into Joyce's lap and another into Lloyd's. But the third one she
opened, and, taking out the ring it held, slipped it on Betty's finger.
"They are all like the one papa gave me," she said, "and have Tusitala's
name inside to help me remember the Memory roads that Betty told us
about."
"It will remind me of more than that," said Betty gratefully, when she
and the girls had expressed their thanks in a chorus of delighted
exclamations. "It will remind me of the happiest day in my life. This is
the first ring I ever owned," she added, turning it proudly on her
finger. "I wish I could see it." Then, with a gladness in her voice that
thrilled her listeners,--"But I _shall_ see it some day! Oh, girls, you
couldn't know, you couldn't possibly imagine how much that means to me,
unless you'd been shut up as I have in this awful darkness."
There was silence for a moment, and then Eugenia stooped over and gave
her a quick, impulsive kiss. "Well, your blindness did some good,
Betty," she said, speaking hurriedly and with very red cheeks. "It made
me see how hateful and selfish I've always been, and I'm never going to
be so mean again to anybody as I was to you. I'm trying to dig a road
like Tusitala's and I never would have thought of it, if it hadn't been
for you."
With that she turned hastily, and, running across the hall to her own
room, shut the door behind her with a bang.
CHAPTER XVI.
A FEAST OF LANTERNS.
The first week of July had come to an end, and with it came the end of
the house party.
"Oh, deah," croaked the Little Colonel like a dismal raven, as she
waited at the head of the stairs for the girls to finish dressing. "This
is the la-st mawnin' well all go racin' down to breakfast togethah! I'm
glad that Betty isn't goin' away for a while longah. If you all had to
leave at the same time, it would be so lonesome that I couldn't stand
it."
"I am glad, too," said Betty, groping her way slowly out of her room
with a green shade over her eyes. Her long night was nearly over now,
although it would be several months before she would be allowed to read.
Her godmother had written to Mrs. Appleton, saying that she wanted to
keep Betty with her until her eyes were stronger, and the child had
clapped her hands with delight when she received permission to stay,
never dreaming how long it would be before she ever saw the Cuckoo's
Nest again.
"This is the la-st time we'll ever ride together," sighed Joyce, as she
mounted Calico after breakfast. "Oh, it has been such fun, Lloyd, and
I've enjoyed this little clown pony more than I can ever tell. He is the
dearest, ugliest little beast that ever wore a halter, and I'll never
forget him as long as I live."
"And this is the last time we can go galloping out of this gate
together, and see the boys coming up the road to meet us," cried
Eugenia. "There they are, all three of them. Oh, they haven't heard the
news yet! I'm going to dash on ahead and tell them."
Eugenia's news was that she was going abroad with her father in the
fall. It had all been arranged since he came to Locust. Finding that
business required one of the members of his firm to spend a month in
England, he telegraphed back to the office that he would go.
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