What a dreadful failure she has made of it all! She has fought and struggled all the week, only to meet defeat at the end. What would Grannie say? How rudely she spoke to mother just now—Grannie wouldn't approve of that.
"But I couldn't help it, and I can't do anything to make things better, or the house nicer. The harder I try, the worse it all gets. I don't see any way out of it at all, but earning my own living, and letting them all go on as they like. I wonder what Grannie would say to such a plan? Well, I can't ask her, she's too far away; and, Oh, dear, dear, she's forgotten my birthday!"
Worn out with crying and pain, presently Betty falls asleep.
When she has slept for about an hour, a loud "rat-tat" at the street door awakens her. She jumps up. The postman! Of course, she had forgotten the twelve o'clock post. She flies downstairs, still dizzy with sleep. Mother and Clara have not heard the knock, they are busy in the kitchen.
A letter and a parcel. Betty almost snatches them from the postman's hands, and scans them eagerly.
Yes, it is Grannie's well-known hand-writing. How could she think dear Grannie would forget her!
Betty hurries upstairs with her treasures. "A book—Grannie has sent me a book—that's just like Grannie; she knows I like reading better than anything."
She strips off the brown paper with eager fingers. The book looks quite delightful; it is prettily bound, and nicely illustrated. Betty turns over the leaves rapidly, and her eyes fall on a picture that attracts her attention directly.
By the open door of a rose-clad cottage stands a little maiden. She wears the quaint close cap and quilted petticoat of the olden time, and is eagerly looking at something which the dear old dame in front of her holds tightly clasped beneath the fingers of her right hand.
Somehow, the cottage reminds Betty of Grannie's cottage. The old dame is certainly rather like Grannie, and the girl is, Oh, just about her own age!