“You had better not cross her now,” said Sylvia.
Margaret started when Sylvia addressed her in this tone.
Betty’s face was painfully white, except where two spots of color blazed in each cheek. As her sisters stooped obediently to pull up their heather, Betty bent and wrenched hers from the ground by which it was surrounded, which ground was already dry and hard. “Let’s make a bonfire,” she said. “I sometimes think,” she added, “that in each little bell of heather there lives the wee-est of all the fairies; and perhaps, if we burn this poor, dear thing, the little, wee fairies may go back to their ain countree.”
“It all seems quite dreadful to me,” said Margaret.
“It is right,” replied Betty; “and I have a box of matches in my pocket.”
“Oh, have you?” exclaimed Olive. “If—if Mrs. Haddo knew——”
But Betty made no response. She set her sisters to collect some dry leaves and bits of broken twigs; and presently the bonfire was erected and kindled, and the poor heather from the north country had ceased to exist.
“Now, you must see our gardens,” said Margaret, “for you must have gardens, you know. Olive and I will show you the sort of things that grow in the south, that flourish here, and look beautiful.”
“I cannot see them now,” replied Betty. She brushed past Margaret, and walked rapidly across the common.
Sylvia’s face turned very white, and she clutched Hetty’s hand still more tightly.