Page:The Strand (Volume 73).pdf/50

30 ''Illustrated by F.W. Purvis

Betsy cocked her pretty head on one side and looked at the hat. Yes, it was shaping rather well. When it was finished it would radiate Bond Street. Cecily would be feverish with joy at getting such a birthday present. "Not much I can do with a needle," thought Betsy, "but I can turn out a hat." She tucked in a scrap of leaf; on second thoughts she broke it off. She bent the brim of the hat this wat and that: with each twist of her fingers it became more subtly attractive.

"I say, you there?" shouted Cecily from the flat above. "Come up here and explore the roof. No end of a rag. And you ought to know how to do it in case of fire."

"Bother fire," said Betsy. She stuck a pin in her mouth and, slanting her bright eyes, stared at the hat sideways.

"What's that you say?" called Cecily. "Don't you be so uppish. Everyone ought to know how to slip up a steep ladder in a hurry. I'm on. Come along - you."

"Oh, all right, I'm just coming," mumbled Betsy. She took the pin out of her mouth and stuck it through a scarlet petal. She would just sew this flower down neatly and tightly, so that it would look as if it were splashed on the hat with paint, then she would mount aloft.

That she might not be distracted by any more shouts from Cecily or surprised by a visit from that bright girl she ran and closed the door of the room. Then, casting herself into her chair, she sewed.

"There - that's that," said Betsy with satisfaction. The hat wasn't finished, but all the touches that mattered had been put. She adored the result for a moment, then she hid the hat away. Joyously she cast her workbasket upon a shelf. She mounted the two short flights of stairs that led to the upper flat, the top flat, the flat that was occupied by Cecily.

The trap-door above the landing was open, and the ladder, which was usually laced to a wall in readiness for an emergency, was set against the trap-door. Betsy's hazel eye lighted; not so very long ago she has been climbing every tree in the family orchard. She was up the ladder like a streak, and through the trap-door as if that were the kind of door she was best acquainted with.

"Couldn't have done that better if a fire had been after me," she thought gleefully. Round about the trap-door was rather dirty. She scrambled a few steps, then sat down, blinked at the blue sky above, then looked about her.

The roof had red tiles of rather an off shape. It seemed to consist of a series of inverted V's, so that one would always be scrambling up or slithering down; perhaps swarming would be the safest method of getting about in these regions. There was no sign of Cecily; no doubt she was on the far side of one of those slopes.

"And if she's wearing that tophole green frock of hers I'm sorry for her," Betsy thought grimly. She regarded with coldness a somewhat naive decorative design upon her stockings; this roof was simply filthy. She would tell Cecily so.

But Cecily wasn't on the other side of the slope. Betsy clambered to the top of a ridge, adjusted herself there, and looked about. No sign of Cecily. Obviously she had quickly tired of her exploration, or had tired of waiting for Betsy, and had gone back to her domain.

"And I was only a minute, anyway," grumbled Betsy.

She shouted "Cecily!" but knew she could not be heard.

Then, in a casual way, pausing once or twice to look about her, she made her way back to the trap-door to call her pal.