Page:Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920).djvu/233

Rh and I began to fear that I had outlived my usefulness. Life seemed flat, stale and unprofitable. Betty’s weekly letters were all that lent it any savor. They were spicy and piquant enough. Betty was discovered to have unsuspected talents in the epistolary line. At first she was dolefully homesick, and begged me to let her come home. When I refused — it was amazingly hard to refuse — she sulked through three letters, then cheered up and began to enjoy herself. But it was nearly the end of the year when she wrote:

“I’ve found out why you sent me here, Stephen — and I’m glad you did.”

I had to be away from home on unavoidable business the day Betty returned to Glenby. But the next afternoon I went over. I found Betty out and Sara in. The latter was beaming. Betty was so much improved, she declared delightedly. I would hardly know “the dear child.”

This alarmed me terribly. What on earth had they done to Betty? I found that she had gone up to the pineland for a walk, and thither I betook myself speedily. When I saw her coming down a long, golden-brown alley I stepped behind a tree to watch her — I wished to see her, myself unseen. As she drew near I gazed at her with pride, and admiration and amazement — and, under it all, a strange, dreadful, heart-sinking, which I could not