CHAPTER XIV
JOHN'S PLANS
On Monday morning Betty took the road to school with running feet. A fear was at her heart that John Brown had set out upon his expedition into the world this day. Had gone—and left her behind! Had begun "life" and left her at school!
And it must be confessed that she liked the thought of two waifs facing the world together, very much better than one.
She was not at all disturbed (when it was over) about the interview with her grandfather. It had not, like its predecessor, sent her to bed weeping and ashamed and resolved upon the expediency of "turning over a new leaf."
She had been vexed that her grandfather had had so short a sleep—and that John had not given her warning of his approach—as he had promised to do.
And she was very much distressed to find she had left her pink bonnet behind her. Her mother had discovered its loss when giving out the week's clean one, and had insisted upon her searching every corner in the house for it.
"It's was Dot's," said Mrs. Bruce. "Dot never lost a bonnet in her life. You will have done with bonnets soon, but yours will do for Nancy. I expect you left it at school, you tiresome child."
It certainly would have electrified Mrs. Bruce if her small daughter had confessed to her bonnet's whereabouts. But Betty's scrapes were many and various at this period of her life, and it never entered into her head to tell them to her mother, who was absorbed in her garden and her books, nor to her father, who was supposed to be always "thinking stories."
So Betty ran to school with her clean bonnet tucked under her arm, after promising that she would "try to bring the other one home with her."