The little girl by the roadside grasped her unbuttoned boot in one hand, her bonnet and newspaper parcel in the other, and in a trice had squeezed herself under her grandfather's fence, just at a point where two or three panels were broken down.
Then she peeped out to see if they were looking. But no—they had not seen her. Betty gave a great sigh of relief as she watched them. How beautiful they were. How dainty! Betty looked down at her own old boots, old stockings, old dress. She turned her bonnet over disdainfully and thought of their lace-trimmed hats—their golden hair!
"Oh, I am glad they didn't see me!" she said aloud fervently.
Just then a voice shouted, a rough word to her from the path, and Betty awoke to two alarming facts. The one, that she was in the emu's enclosure and that one great bird was bearing curiously towards her already; the other, that her grandfather was the one who had called to her, and that John Brown, who was careering down the path on his bicycle, had stopped and was evidently giving information about her.
Her grandfather waved an angry hand.
"Out you go!" he shouted. "If you come here again, I'll set the dogs loose!"
Betty squeezed herself under the fence just before the emu reached her, and once more faced a very crumpled Monday morning.