'When are you going to be married?'
'Soon; but we shall have a very quiet wedding, or I would have you as a little bridesmaid.'
Betty shook her curly head mournfully. 'It's no good, my heart is broken; and I don't want to stay with anybody or do anything.'
She had the same answer to any one who tried to comfort her. And then one afternoon Mr. Russell appeared on the scene. When he heard from nurse how matters lay, he proposed that Betty should come and stay with him for a week. 'It is change of scene and atmosphere that she wants. Let me take her back with me at once; my housekeeper will take good care of her.' And this was managed, and Betty walked away with him quietly and contentedly.
She was certainly happier roaming through his big house than she had been at the farm; but there seemed to be some extra weight on her mind that she would not reveal, and it was not until the first Sunday after her arrival there that he discovered the cause.
They had been to church together, had waited until the congregation had dispersed, and stood by Violet's monument. Betty had placed some fresh roses on it, and as they were leaving the church she said, looking back wistfully,—
'I wish Prince had been buried in church; no one cares about his grave! I put flowers on it, but the chickens run through the orchard and scratch them off; and one day the horrid black pig was grunting with his nose, and making a great hole in it! I wish he could have a tombstone; no one cares a bit, and they almost laugh if I say anything about it.'
'Is that what is troubling you?' asked Mr. Russell kindly.
'That's one of the things, but not the big thing.'
'And what is the big thing?'