"Oh my lady, it be cruel hard to have to go and leave it all, when I du love it so and——" she paused and sobbed aloud with many a catch of the breath, as a child does.
Yet Kathleen felt as she kissed and comforted the girl that tears so easily shed might be just as easily dried, and to prove that she was right, in a little while Betty began to dry her eyes and shew interest in her destination.
"To think that I be actually going to London, my lady, a terribul long way it be and I always wishful of seeing it, though I never—never——" and then a fresh torrent of tears and sighs and cries, tears which Kathleen wiped away.
"You will be very happy, Betty, and life will be full of interest for you. London is a wonderful place, you cannot think how marvellous the shops are. Streets and streets of them, Betty—and the people and the cars and carriages——"
Betty listened, wide eyed, forgetting her grief again.
"And there be theayters, my lady."
"Many of them and you shall go and see them, Betty."
The girl was actually smiling now and then suddenly, remembering her sorrow, she began to cry again. But Kathleen felt no fears. The girl was genuine and sincere enough, transparently honest, but she was not of those who die of broken hearts.
"Now you will be a good brave girl, you know dear that you must go because it will be kinder to—to him—to me and to yourself. You are going to someone whom I love very much and who will be kind to you, not only because I have asked him to be and for your own sake too, but because he is kindness itself. You know, Betty, that you must go, don't you? You know, child, that it is not possible that you could stay on here, and—and Betty, you are going somewhere where you will never see Abram Lestwick, you will be safe from him."
Betty nodded, she even smiled. "Terribul put about and angry will Abram be when he finds I be gone and grandmother, her too."