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Betty had to run all the way home, and then she was late for dinner Her step-father's dry face and dusty clothes, the solid co room, the et scent of mutton,--these seemed needed to wake her from hen she had awakened, a dream--the open sky, the sweet air of the May fields and Hier was Him to Betty But, then, she did not know his na white dining table, a table built to serve a dozen guests, and where no guests ever sat, save rarely a curate or two, and ain, Lizzie," said her step-father

"Yes, Father," said she, trying to hide her hands and the fact that she had not had tier, and her nails had little slices of various colours in them Her paint-box was always hard to open

Usually Mr Underwood saw nothing But when he saw anything he saw everything His eye was caught by the green se on her pink sleeve

"I wish you would contrive to keep yourself clean, or else wear a pinafore," he said

Betty flushed scarlet

"I'm very sorry," she said, "but it's only water colour It ash out"

"You are nearly twenty, are you not?" the Vicar inquired with the dry shter Hoas she to know that it was the only srown difficult to hian to think about being a lady"

This was badinage No failures had taught the Reverend Cecil that his step-daughter had an ideal of hie had no place She reeable

She kept a hed It is one's duty to correct the faults of one's child, but it is not pleasant The Reverend Cecil had not the habit of shirking any duty because he happened to dislike it

The ured by the e, stirred the stewed rhubarb on her plate She felt rising in her a sort of wild forlorn courage Why shouldn't she speak out? Her step-father couldn't hate her lad to be rid of her She spoke suddenly and rather loudly before she knew that she had meant to speak at all