She slipped under the fence, and into the little belt of bush that bounded the emu run, and where she, as a ghost, had waited.
John's signal came very soon, and Betty immediately took off her bonnet and rolled it up under her arm--the better to hear--and marched boldly across the gravel paths to the library window where John stood.
"Asleep on the little verandah," said John; "he always sleeps a long time after dinner."
Betty stepped into the room and looked around her curiously.
It was such a room as she had never seen yet, and it pleased her greatly. Two enormous bookcases full of books stood side by side against one wall. Another wall was book-lined for about eight feet of its height and ten of its length. The centre-table had a dark blue cloth upon it and bore magazines, books and newspapers and writing materials.
Betty's feet rested pleasurably on the thick rich carpet and her eyes went from easy chair to easy chair.
"My father ought to have this room," she said, "he writes the most beautiful books, and I know he'd write ever so many more if he lived here."
"Here's the book I got myself from," said John, advancing to a bookcase.
But Betty was oblivious of her errand. She lingered by the table, turning over the covers of the magazines, and picture after picture caught her eye.
One in particular she lingered over. It represented a bric-a-brac strewn room.
"Oh!" exclaimed Betty, and dropped her sun-bonnet into her grandfather's chair. "Oh, John, when I've made myself, I'll have a room like _this_!"
She began to read and her eyes smiled. Then she sank down on the floor, carrying the book with her, and leaning her back against a table-leg she lost herself in an interview with Madam S----.
Madam replied to several searching questions blithely. She told a little story about her large family of brothers and sisters, their extreme poverty and her own inordinate love of music. Then there was a pathetic touch when sickness, poverty and hunger darkened the poor little home, and she, a mite of eight, had stood at a street corner in a foreign city and sung a simple song. A crowd had soon collected, and a keen-eyed, bent-shouldered man had been passing by hurriedly, and had stopped, caught by a "something" in the little singer's voice, and face, and attitude. He had finally pushed his way through the crowd and stood beside the little girl in the tattered frock.