Presently he put something from his pocket into the hole, and then covering it with the soft soil, he returned to the house.
What did it all mean? Poor Bet felt something was wrong, and yet how could she help it?
"I wish there was any one I could tell," she thought; "but there is nobody. Little Miss Joy wouldn't care to hear, and nobody else would listen to me if I did tell them. And I suppose Uncle Joe has a right to bury his things if he likes; but it's very odd."
Then she crept back to her bed, and was soon asleep.
Bet went off to school the next morning with a lighter heart than usual, for she had received a convincing proof of little Joy's friendship, by her invitation to tea at the row.
The midsummer holidays were approaching, and she was determined to bear all the rebuffs she met with from her school-fellows with fortitude. What did anything matter if Joy loved her!
When Bet reached the gates of the garden before Miss Bayliff's school, she saw a knot of girls standing there. She came slowly towards them, shuffling her feet as usual in an awkward fashion, and not daring to draw too near the charmed circle, for her defender was not there.
"Little Joy is late this morning," one of the girls said. "But we must go indoors; Miss Bayliff is in a rage if we crowd outside. Here, Bet, do you know where little Miss Joy is?"
"How should she?" said another voice. "Here comes May Owen; let us ask her: she lives in Broad Row."
May Owen was the daughter of an ironmonger, whose premises were at the corner of the row, just above Uncle Bobo's shop.