'I'll ask nurse. All by myself?'
'All by yourself—at least with your dog. Where is your nurse? Would she come out here to speak to me?'
Nurse was only in the next field, so was easily fetched, and though demurring somewhat at first, was soon reassured by Mr. Russell, who promised to keep her only about an hour.
'I will see she returns to you safely, my good woman; and when you find that she has come to no harm, perhaps you will allow her to come again. I want to make a little sketch of her, for a subject I have in view.'
And it was settled that Betty should go to him the next day at two o'clock.
'I don't quite like it,' said nurse afterwards, when talking it over with Mrs. Giles; 'but he seemed rather a high-handed gentleman, as if he wouldn't take no. I don't know whether the mistress would like it, most children would be shy of it, but none of these seem to know what shyness is; and Miss Betty seems to make friends wherever she goes. I can't understand it; Miss Molly, to my eyes, is much the most taking!'
'Mr. Russell is our landlord,' responded Mrs. Giles; 'he's a proper sort o' gentleman, and he won't hurt the child by a-paintin' of her. He lives all alone since his little girl died, and maybe she'll cheer him up; he's very downhearted, folks say.'
'Why should you go and not us?' said Molly, when Betty ran off to tell them all about it; 'it's too bad; you're getting all the nice things, and I'm the eldest.'
'I don't expect you'll like it,' said Douglas, rolling over on the grass and tickling Bobby's bare legs with a bunch of grass; 'I know the man, and he has an awful temper! Sam told me he thrashed a boy who was taking a bird's nest out of his orchard; and he has a large glass room with skeletons and bits of people's bodies lying all about. I think he likes to get children in there, and then he keeps them prisoners, and never lets them out again.'
Betty stood still, eyeing her brother doubtfully.