Even at that moment Betty lay in her little cot bed under the roof thinking about the minister's wife and what she had said about Christ being always near, ready to show what to do, if one had the listening heart and the ready spirit. Would Christ tell her what to do, she wondered, now right here, if she were to ask him? Would He show her whether to stay in this place or seek further to hide herself from the world? Would He show her how to earn her living and make her life right and sweet as it ought to be.
Then she closed her eyes and whispered softly under the sheltering bedclothes, "O Christ, if you are here, please show me somehow and teach me to understand."
CHAPTER IX
When Betty had been in Tinsdale about a month it was discovered that she could play the piano. It happened on a rainy Sunday in Sunday school, and the regular pianist was late. The superintendent looked about helplessly and asked if there was anybody present who could play, although he knew the musical ability of everybody in the village. The minister's wife had already pleaded a cut finger which was well wrapped up in a bandage, and he was about to ask some one to start the tune without the piano when Mrs. Thornton leaned over with a sudden inspiration to Betty and asked:
"My dear, you couldn't play for us, could you?"
Betty smiled assent, and without any ado went to the instrument, not realizing until after she had done so that it would have been better policy for her to have remained as much in the background as possible, and not to have shown any accomplishments lest people should suspect her position. However, she was too new at acting a part to always think of these little things, and she played the hymns so well that they gathered about her after the hour was over and openly rejoiced that there was another pianist in town. The leader of Christian Endeavor asked her to play in their meeting sometimes, and Betty found herself quite popular. The tallest girl in their class, who had not noticed her before, smiled at her and patronized her after she came back from playing the first hymn, and asked her where she learned to play so well.
"Oh, I used to take lessons before my father died," she said, realizing that she must be careful.
Emily and Bob came home in high feather and told their mother, who had not been able to get out that morning, and she beamed on Betty with as warm a smile as if she had been her own daughter: