"Godmother, most likely," said Betty. "Wouldn't it be lovely if she should? Suppose she'd find her about Christmas time, and she'd send word to Molly to hang up two stockings, because she was going to send her a present so big that it wouldn't go into one. And Christmas morning Molly would run down here to the chimney where she'd hung them, and there would be Dot standing in her stockings."
"Oh, don't!" said Molly, imploringly, with a little choke in her voice. "You make it seem so real that I can't bear to talk about it any more."
There was silence in the room for a little space, and only the shadows moved as the flames leaped and flickered on the old hearthstone. Then Lloyd, leaning forward, took hold of one of Betty's long brown curls.
"Tell us a story, Tusitala," she said, coaxingly. "It will be the last one before we go away."
"Why did you call her that?" asked the inquisitive Bradley.
"Tusitala? Oh, that means tale-teller, you know. That is the name the Samoan chiefs gave to Robert Louis Stevenson when he went to live on their island, and that is the name we gave Betty when we thought she was going blind, the time we all had the measles."
"Why?" asked Bradley again.
"Because mothah said Betty writes stories so well now, that she will be known as the children's Tusitala some day. Besides, she told us the tale about the Road of the Loving Heart, and Eugenia gave us each a ring to help us remembah it. See? They are just alike."
She laid her hand against Betty's a moment, to compare the little twists of gold, each tied in a lover's knot, and then slipped hers off, passing it around the circle, that each might see the name "Tusitala" engraved inside. "Tell them about it, Betty," she insisted.
"There isn't much to tell," began Betty, clasping her hands around her knees. "Only Stevenson was so good to those poor old Samoan chiefs, visiting them when they were put in prison, and treating them so kindly in every way he could think of, that they called him their white brother. They wanted to do something to show their appreciation, for they said, 'The day is not longer than his kindness.' They had heard him wish for a road across part of the island, so they banded together and began to dig. It was hard work, for the heat was terrible there in the tropics, and they were weak from being in prison so long; but they worked for days and days, almost fainting. When it was done, they set up an inscription over it, calling it the Road of the Loving Heart that they had built to last for ever."