“I wish you were coming. I don’t know her, and I don’t want to be there all day alone with her,” grumbled Betty. “What will there be to do?”
“You’ll find she’ll provide plenty to do,” laughed her father. “Mind you don’t tell her though, how much you dislike London!” he added in his teasing voice.
“Why?” asked Betty.
“Because your godmother loves it. She’s a great authority on London. What she doesn’t know about it, isn’t worth knowing. It’s quite uncanny. I wish she’d write a book about it.”
“I can’t think how any one can love London,” Betty declared. “Such a horrid, big, ugly, dull place. I shall never, never like it!”
Godmother’s little car duly came round next morning, and after a drive, Betty found herself in a tiny room, in a tiny house, in a tiny street close to Westminster Abbey, seated opposite to a very handsome old lady.
“I’m sorry my godchild doesn’t like London,” this old lady remarked suddenly, in the midst of a conversation about something else.
Betty blushed and looked uncomfortable. She felt shy of her godmother who, as she had always heard, was very clever but “eccentric”—a word she thought meant different from other people.
“It’s all so confusing and noisy and there are such lots of ugly houses,” she began apologetically. “And I do miss the lovely country and our beautiful garden,” she added with tears in her voice.