"Who is she?" Kit's voice was hardly more than a whisper, she acted as if she had suddenly been brought back to earth after a flight in the clouds.
"It's our Lady of the Manor, Lady Betty Merriweather!"
"O—oh!" gasped Kit, without taking her eyes from the smiling eyes in the picture.
"Come along upstairs, Kit," called Joy as she took the steps two at a time. But the stranger felt that she was on sacred ground and could not have romped as Joy did. She lingered, looking up into the beautiful face.
"I feel just as if she wanted to say something to me," Kit said, as she reluctantly followed Bet.
"I think she does, probably. I know she tells me things sometimes," replied Bet seriously. "I love to lie on that divan in the hall and watch her. And she tells me all about the good times they used to have in these very rooms." Bet had dreamed so often beneath the vivacious, smiling face that she had come to believe that Lady Betty really did talk to her.
"It almost seems wicked to live in these rooms after her," murmured Kit, as the two girls went up the stairs slowly, their arms around each others' waists.
"I used to think that, too, until she laughed at me and said, 'Don't be silly, Bet.'"
Shirley and Joy's laughter floated down the stairway. "She really believes all that, Kit. She thinks that Lady Betty comes alive and talks to her."
"Well, I used to think that when I was a little, little girl," laughed Bet.