Chapter 5

Becky tried to preserve a stern expression, but somehow there was a warmth at her heart which suddenly came to the surface in a smile and the two girls were friends again. That night Betty put down a black mark, but not without feeling that the day had ended well in spite of its dark shadows.

"I don't believe that we ought to keep the sin books secret," she told the members of the club one afternoon when the second week's trial was over and there had been four or five good days for encouragement. "I don't wish everybody to know, but now that we find how much good they do us, we ought to let somebody else try; only Becky and the Picknells and Nelly Foster."

But there was no expression of approval.

"Then I'm going to do this: not tell them about this club, but behave as if it was something new and start another club. I could belong to two as well as one, you know."

"I wouldn't be such a copy-cat," said Lizzie French quickly. "It's _our_ secret; we shall be provoked that we ever asked you," and with this verdict Betty was forced to be contented. She felt as if she had taken most inflexible vows, but there was a pleasing excitement in such dark mystery. The girls had to employ much stratagem in order to have their weekly meetings unsuspected, for Betty was determined not to make any more trouble among her friends. When she was first in Tideshead she often felt more enlightened than her neighbors, as if she had been beyond those bounds and experiences of every-day life known to the other girls, but she soon discovered herself to be single-handed and weak before their force of habit and prejudice. With all their friendliness and affection for Betty Leicester they held their own with great decision, and sometimes she found herself nothing but a despised minority. This was very good for her, especially when, as it sometimes happened, she was quite in the wrong, while if she were right she became more sure of it and was able to make her reasons clear.

There were several solemn evening meetings of the Sin Book Club after this; the favorite place of assemblage was a shady corner of Lizzie French's damp garden, where the records were sorrowfully inspected by the fleeting light of burnt matches, and gratified crowds of mosquitoes forced the sessions to be extremely brief. Whether it was that new interests took the place of the club, or whether the members thought best to keep their trials to themselves, no one can say, but by the middle of August the regular meetings had ceased. Yet sometimes the little books came accidentally out of pocket with a member's handkerchief, and were not without a good and lasting effect upon four quick young tongues; perhaps this will be seen as the story goes on.

VIII.

A CHAPTER OF LETTERS.

THE summer days flew by. Some letters came from Mr. Leicester on his rapid journey northward, and Betty said once that it seemed months since she left England instead of a few weeks, everybody was so friendly and pleasant. Tideshead was most delightful to a girl who had been used to seeing strange places and to knowing nobody but papa at first, and only getting acquainted by degrees with the lodgings people and the shops, and perhaps with some new or old friends of papa's who lived out of the town. Once or twice she had stayed for many weeks in rough places in the north of Scotland, going from village to village and finding many queer people, and sometimes being a little lonely when her father was away on his scientific quests. Mr. Leicester insisted that Betty learned more than she would from books in seeing the country and the people, and Betty herself liked it much better than if she had been kept steadily at her lessons. The most doleful time that she could remember was once when papa had gone to the south of Italy late in spring and had left her at a French convent school until his return. However, there were delightful things to remember, especially about some of the good sisters whom Betty learned to love dearly, and it may be imagined how brimful of stories she was, after all these queer and pleasant experiences, and how short she made the evenings to Aunt Barbara and Aunt Mary by recounting them. It was no use for the ladies to worry any more about Betty's being spoiled by such an erratic course of education, as they often used to worry while she was away. They had blamed Betty's father for letting her go about with him so much, but there did not seem to be any great harm wrought after all. She knew a great many things that she never would have known if she had stayed at school. Still, she had a great many things to learn, and the summer in Tideshead would help to teach her those. She was really a home-loving girl, our Betty Leicester, and the best part of any new town was always the familiar homelike place that she and papa at once made in it with their "kits," as Betty called their traveling array of books and a few little pictures, and papa's special kits and collections of the time being. Aunt Barbara could never know upon how many different rooms her little framed photograph had looked. She had grown older since it was taken, but when she said so Betty insisted that it was a picture of herself and would always look exactly like her. Betty had grown so attached to it that it was still displayed on the dressing-table of the east bedroom, even though the original was hourly to be seen.

In this summer quiet of the old town it seemed impossible that papa should not come hurrying home, as he used in their long London winters, to demand an instant start for some distant place. When the traveling kit was first bestowed in the lower drawer of one of the deep bureaus, Betty felt as if it might have to come out again next day, but there it stayed, and was abandoned to neglect unless its owner needed the tumbler in its stiff leather box for a picnic, or thought of a particular spool that might be found in the traveling work-bag. But with all the quiet and security of her surroundings, sometimes her thoughts followed papa most wistfully, or she wondered what her friends were doing on the other side of the sea. It was very queer to be obliged to talk about entirely new and different things, and Tideshead affairs alone, and not to have anybody near who knew the same every-day life that had stopped when she came to Tideshead, and so letters were most welcome. Indeed, they made a great part of the summer's pleasure. Suppose we read a handful as if we had picked them from Betty's pocket:--

INTERLAKEN, _July 2._

MY DEAR BETTY,--It was very good of you to write me so soon. You would be sure that I was eager to hear from you, and to know whether you had a good voyage and found yourself contented in Tideshead. I am sure that your grandaunts are even more glad to have you than I was sorry to let you go. But we must have a summer here together one of these days; you would be sure to like Interlaken. It seems to me pleasanter and quainter than ever; that is, if one takes the trouble to step a little one side of the torrent of tourists. Our rooms in the old _pension_ are well lighted and aired, and two of my windows give on the valley toward the Jungfrau and the high green mountain slopes. Every morning since we have been here I have looked out to see a fresh dazzling whiteness of new snow that has covered the Jungfrau in the night, and we always say with a sigh every evening, as we look up out of the shadowy valley and see the high peak still flushed with red sunset light, that such clear weather cannot possibly last another day. There are some old Swiss chalets across the green, and we hear pleasant sounds of every-day life now and then; last night there was a festival of some sort, and the young people sang very loud and very late, jodeling famously and as if breath never failed them. I suppose that the girls have already written to you, and that you will have two full descriptions of our scramble up to one of the highest chalets which I can see now as I look up from my writing-table, like a toy from a Nuernberg box with a tiny patch of greenest grass beside it and two or three tufts of trees. In truth it is a good-sized, very old house, and the green square is a large field. It is so steep that I wonder all the small children have not rolled out of the door and down to the valley one after the other, which is indeed a foolish remark to have made.

I take great pleasure in my early morning walks, in which you have so often kept me company, dear child. I meet the little peasants coming down from the hillsides to eight o'clock school in their quaint long frocks like little old fairies, they look so wise and sedate. Often I go to the village of Unterseen, just beyond the great modern hotels, but looking as if it belonged to another century than ours. We have some friends, artists, who have lodgings in one of the old houses, and when I go to see them I envy them heartily. Here it is very comfortable, but some of the people at _table d'hote_ are very tiresome to see, noisy strangers, who eat their dinners in most unpleasant fashion; but I should not forget two delightful German ladies from Hanover, who are taking their first journey after many years, and are most simple and enviable in their deep enjoyment of the Kursaal and other pleasures easily to be had. But I must not write too long about familiar pictures of travel. I will not even tell you our enthusiastic plan for a long journey afoot which will take nine days even with the best of weather. Ada and Bessie will be sure to keep a journal for your benefit and their own. Are you really well, my dear Betty, and busy, and do you find yourself making new friends with your old friends and playmates? It goes without saying that you are missing your papa, but before one knows we shall all be at home in London, as hurried and surprised as ever with the interesting people and events that pass by. Mr. Duncan is to join us for the walking tour, and has planned at least one daring ascent with the Alpine Club. I came upon his terrible shoes this morning in one of his boxes and they made me quite gloomy. Pray give my best regards to Miss Leicester, and Miss Mary Leicester; they seem very dear friends to me already, and when I come to America I shall be seeing old friends for the first time, which is always charming. I leave the girls to write their own words to you, but Standish desires her duty to Miss Betty, and says that her winter coat is to be new-lined, if she would kindly bear it in mind; the silk is badly frayed, if Standish may say so! I do not think from what I know of the American climate that you will be needing it yet, but dear old Standish is very thoughtful of all her charges. We had only a flying note from your papa, written on his way north, and shall be glad when you can send us news of him. God bless you, my dear child, and make you a blessing! I hope that you will do good and get good in this quiet summer. Write to me often; I feel as if you were almost my own girl. Yours most tenderly,

MARY DUNCAN.

From papa, these:--

DEAREST BETTY,--This morning it is a wild country all along the way, untamed and unhumanized for the most part, and we go flying along through dark forests and forlorn burnt lands from tiny station to station. I am getting a good bit of writing done with the only decent stylographic pen I ever saw. I thought I had brought plenty of pencils, but they were not in my small portmanteau, and after going to the baggage-car and putting everybody to great trouble to get out my large one, they were not there either. Can any one explain? I found the dear small copy of Florio's "Montaigne" which you must have tucked in at the last moment. I like to have it with me more than I can say. You must have bought it that last morning when I had to leave you to go to Cambridge. I do so like to own such a Betty! Why do you still wish that you had come with me? Tideshead is much the best place in the world. I send my dear love to the best of aunts, and you must assure Serena and Jonathan and all my old friends of my kind remembrance. I wish every day that our friend Mr. Duncan could have come with me. The country seems more and more wide and wonderful, and I am quite unconscious now of the motion of the cars and feel as fresh every morning and as sleepy every night as possible; so don't worry about me, but pick me a sprig of Aunt Barbara's sweetbrier roses now and then, and try not to be displeasing to any one, dear little girl. Your fond father,

THOMAS LEICESTER.

CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY, _18th June._

DEAR BETTY,--The pencils all tumbled on the car-floor out of my light overcoat pocket. I then recalled somebody's command that I should put them into the portmanteau at once, the day they came home from the stationer's. I have found a fortune-telling, second-sighted person in the car. She has the section next to mine and has been directed by a familiar spirit to go to Seattle. She has a parrot with her, and they are both very excitable and communicative. She just told me that it is revealed to her that my youngest boy will have a genius for sculpture. I miss you more than usual to-day. You could help me with some copying, and there is positively nothing interesting to see out of the window; what there is of uninteresting twirls itself about. We shall soon be reaching the mountains, in fact, I have just caught my first glimpse of them beyond these great plains. I must really have some one to write for me next year, but this winter we keep holiday, you and I, if we get in for nothing new. It pleases me to write to you and takes up the long day. You will have finished "L'Allegro" by this time; suppose you learn two of the "Sonnets" next. I wish you to know your Milton as well as possible, but I am sorry to have you take it while I am away. Take Lowell's "Biglow Papers" and learn the Spring poem. You will find nothing better to have in your mind in the Tideshead June weather. And so good-by for this day.

T. LEICESTER.

MR DEAR BETTY,--Your letter is very good, and I am more glad than ever that you chose to go to Tideshead. You will learn so much from Aunt Barbara that I wish my girl to know and to be. And you must remember, in Aunt Mary's self-pitying moments, all her sympathy and her true love for us both, and remember that she has in her character something that makes her the dearest being in the world to such a woman as Aunt Barbara. She is a person, in fact they both are, to be liked and appreciated more and more. You and your Mary Beck interest me very much, Are you sure that it is wise to call her Becky? I thought that she was a new girl, but a nickname is indeed hard to drop. I remember her, a good little red-cheeked child. Let me say this: You have indeed lived a wider sort of life, but I fear that I have made you spread your young self over too great a space, while your Becky has stepped patiently to and fro in a smaller one. You each have your advantages and disadvantages, so be "very observant and respectful of your neighbor," as that good old Scottish preacher prayed for us in Kelso. Be sure that you don't "feel superior," as your Miss Murdon used to say. It is a great thing to know Tideshead well. Remember Selborne and how famous that town came to be!

Yours fondly, T. L.

INTERLAKEN, _July 11th._

DEAR BETTY,--Ada and I mean to take turns in writing to you,--one letter on Sunday and one in the middle of the week; for if we write together we shall tell you exactly the same things. So, you see, this is my turn. We do so wish for you and think that you cannot possibly be having so much fun in Tideshead as if you had come with us. We see such droll people in traveling; they do not look as if they were going anywhere, but as if they were lost and trying hard to find their way back, poor dears! There was an old woman sitting near us on a bench with a stupid-looking young man, to hear the band play, and when it stopped she said to him: "Now we've only got three tunes more, and _they_ will soon be done." We wondered why she couldn't go and do something else if she hated them so much. Ada and I play a game every morning when we walk in the town: We take sides and one has the Germans and one the English, and then see which of us can count the most. Of course we don't always know them apart, and then we squabble for little families that pass by, and Ada is _sure_ they are Germans,--you know how sure Ada always is if she feels a little doubtful!--but yesterday there were Cook's tourists as thick as ants and so she had no chance at all. Miss Winter writes that she will be ready to join us the first of August, which will be delightful, and mamma won't have us to worry about. She said yesterday that we were much less wild without you and Miss Winter, and we told her that it was because life was quite _triste_. She wishes to go to some far little villages quite off the usual line of travel, with papa, and does not yet know whether to go now and take us, or wait and leave us with Miss Winter. I promised to be _triste_ if she would let us go. _Triste_ is my word for everything. Do you still wear out two or three dozen _hates_ a day? Ada said this morning that you would _hate_ so many hard little green pears for breakfast; but we are coming to plum-time now, and they are so good and sweet. Every morning such a nice Swiss maiden called Marie (they are all Maries, I believe) comes and bumps the corner of her tray against our door and smiles a very wide smile and says "Das fruehstueck" in exactly the same tone as she comes in, and we have such delectable breakfasts of crisp little rolls and Swiss honey and very weak and hot-milky _cafe au lait_. I don't believe Miss Winter will let us have honey every day, but mamma doesn't mind. I think she gives orders for a very small dish of it, because Ada and I have requested more until we are disheartened. Mamma says that while we run up so many hillsides here we may eat what we please. Oh, and one thing more: no end of dry little mountain strawberries, sometimes they taste like strawberries and sometimes they don't; but this is enough about what one eats in Interlaken. I have filled my four pages and Ada is calling me to walk. We are going on with our botany. Are you? I send a better edelweiss which I plucked myself. I must let Ada tell you next time about that day. She is the best at a description, but I love you more than ever and I am always your fond and faithful

BESSIE DUNCAN.

P. S. I forgot to say that Ada has made such clever sketches. Papa says that they quite surprise him, and we just long to show them to Miss Winter. There is one of a little girl whom we saw making lace at Lauterbrunnen. The Drummonds of Park Lane drove by us yesterday; we couldn't hear the name of their hotel, though they called it out, but we are sure to find them. They looked, however, as if they were on a journey, the carriage was so dusty. It was so nice to see the girls again.

IX.

BETTY'S REFLECTIONS.

AS Betty shut the gate behind her one day and walked down the main street of Tideshead she felt more than ever as if the past four years had been a dream, and as if she were exactly the same girl who had paid that last visit when she was eleven years old. Yet she seemed to herself to have clearer eyes than before; her years of travel had taught her to observe, the best gift that traveling can bestow. She saw new beauties in the gardens and the queer-shaped porches over the front doors, and noticed particularly the cupolas of one or two barns that were clear and sharp in their good outlines. More than all, she was astonished at the beauty of the old trees. Tideshead was not a forest of maples, like many other New England towns, but there were oaks along the village streets, and ash-trees, and willows, beside great elms in stately rows, and silver poplars, and mountain ashes, and even some fruit-trees along the roadsides outside the village. Betty remembered a story that she had often heard with great interest about one of the old Tideshead ministers who had been much beloved, and whose influence was still felt. Every year he had brought ten trees from the woods and planted them either on the streets or in his neighbor's yards; one year he chose one sort of tree and the next another, and at last, when he grew older and could not go far afield in his search he asked his friends for fruit-trees and planted them for the benefit of wayfarers. These had made a delightful memorial of the good old man, but many of the trees had fallen by this time, and though everybody said that they ought to be replaced, and complained of such shiftless neglect, as usual what was everybody's business was nobody's business, and Tideshead looked as if it were sorry to be forgotten. Betty had been used to the thrifty English and French care of woodlands, and felt as if it were a great pity not to take better care of the precious legacy. Aunt Barbara sometimes sent Jonathan and Seth Pond to care for the trees that needed pruning or covering at the roots, but hardly any one else in Tideshead did anything but chop them up and clear them away when they blew down.