She hid her face in the pillow when Treesa came in, that her tears might not be seen.
“Good-night, Miss Betsy. Do you want a light left in your room?”
“No’m. I allers go to sleep in the dark,” said Betsy, bravely. She watched between her fingers as Treesa pulled a little chain, and snap! out went the light. At home they blew it out, and there was a smell of kerosene or tallow afterwards. This interested Betsy so much, wondering how it was done, that she forgot to stay awake and grieve through the dark hours, and before she could have counted a hundred, the wings of childish sleep were around her.
CHAPTER II
THE NEW SURROUNDINGS
“She sat up and looked out of the window.”
BETSY awoke with a strange feeling of being still in a dream. Instead of opening her eyes on the little attic room of the red house in the Hollow, she was greeted by what seemed to her a palace in a fairy tale. She rubbed her eyes, sat up, and looked out of the window.
Yes, it was true; instead of being in a hollow she was on a hilltop. Stretched out below her lay a green valley, and through the trees peeped many, many houses, more than Betsy had ever dreamed of in all her life. It must be a city, she thought, but the pictures in her geography had not prepared her for anything like this. The city seemed to be sitting on a hillside, with its feet dipping in the waters of a broad blue river. She was quite awake now, and beginning to realize what had happened.
Bang, bang, bang! There came a terrifying sound. It might have been a church bell, but it was too near; it might have been somebody pounding on the brass soap-kettle at home, but it was too musical. Betsy was out of bed like a shot, just as Aunt Kate showed her smiling face through a crack in the door.
“My goodness! What was that noise?” cried Betsy.