It was good to have something to do beside growing crosser and crosser, and Betty gladly hurried away. She hoped that she should meet Becky, and yet she did not mean to make up too easily, and when she saw Mrs. Beck watching her out of a front window she felt certain that Mrs. Beck was cross too. "Let them get pleased again!" grumbled Miss Betty Leicester, and Mary Beck herself had not borne a more forbidding expression. She lingered a moment at Nelly Foster's gate, hoping to find Nelly free, but the noise of the sewing-machine was plainly to be heard, and Nelly said wistfully that she could not go out until after tea; then she would come down to the house for a little while if Betty would like it, and Betty gladly said yes. Her heart was shaken as she walked on alone and came to the oak-tree on the high ridge where Becky had taken her to see the view and told her that she always called it their tree, in that first afternoon's walk. What could make poor old Becky so untrustful and unkind? Perhaps after all everything would be right when they met again; it might be one of Becky's freaks, only a little worse than usual. Alas, Mary with Julia Picknell, who happened to be in the village that afternoon, came out of one of the stores as the returning Betty was passing, and Becky looked another way and pushed by, though Betty had spoken pleasantly and tried to stop her.
"I don't care one bit; you're rude and hateful, Mary Beck!" said Betty hotly, at which Julia, mild little friend that she was, looked frightened and amazed. She had thought many times how lovely it must be to live in town and have friendships of a close and intimate kind with the girls. She pitied Betty Leicester, who looked as if she could hardly keep from crying; but the grievous Becky was more grumpy than before.
Serena was walking in the side yard in her nice plain afternoon dress, and somehow Betty felt more like seeking comfort from her than from Aunt Barbara, and was glad to go in at the little gate and join her kind old friend.
"What's fell upon you?" asked Serena, with sincere compassion.
"Mary Beck's just as disagreeable as she can be to-day," responded Betty, regardless of her sin book. "Serena! I just hate her, and I hate that horrid best hat of hers with the feather in it."
"Oh, no you don't, sweetin's;" Serena protested peacefully. "You'll be keepin' company same's ever to-morrow. Now I think of 't, you've been off a good deal with the Grants and that French girl" (not a favorite of Serena's); "I wonder if that's all?"
"Yes—no"—wavered Betty. "Don't you tell anybody, but I do belong to a little club, but Becky doesn't really understand, for we've kept it very secret indeed."
"I want to know," exclaimed Serena.
"Yes, and it's for such a good object. I'll tell you some time, perhaps, but we want to cure ourselves of a fault." It seemed no harm to tell good old Serena; the compact had only been that none of the other girls should know. "We keep a little book, and we can have a good mark at night if we haven't said anything against anybody, but to-day I shall have such a black one! It makes us careful how we speak; truly, Serena; but Becky doesn't know, and she's making me feel so badly just because she suspects something."