"Girl!" whispered John in scorn.

The trouble at Betty's heart stirred and hurt her. Was it not enough _to be_ a girl, without being _called_ one--and in such a whisper. She sat still, and, to save herself from tears, bit her lips and pressed them together, and pinched her left arm with her right hand, as she sat there with her arms folded behind her.

And John thought she didn't care!

He looked at her out of an eye-corner and added, "I'm done with you," as a final stab.

Betty said, "Oh no, John," imploringly, and Miss Sharman caught her whisper and saw her lips move, and said--

"Elizabeth Bruce--don't let me have to look at you again this morning.

You are very troublesome. Why can you not take a leaf out of your brother's book, I wonder?"

The morning wore on, and tenses and moods gave place to drill. Then they all went into the playground, and armed themselves with poles, and formed into lines.

John, as the tallest and straightest-backed and st.u.r.diest-limbed pupil in the school, was always at the head of one line. While Nellie Underwood and Betty Bruce, being of a height and age, headed a line alternately.

It fell to Betty's lot to be head of a line to-day, and though she had to "right wheel and march," with John for a partner, down the middle and up again, and "left wheel and march" from John to meet again, and "right wheel and march," and all of it over and over and over again, John's eyes only ignored the little distressed face in the cotton bonnet, or told her contemptuously that she was a "girl."

At eleven o'clock recess he was skirmishing with four smaller boys (using only one hand to their eight) and Betty walked up and down under the gum trees arm in arm with two other girls in sun-bonnets.

At dinner-time John scampered home to roast fowl and bread sauce, and Betty and Cyril and Nancy carried their lunch bag to a shady corner and ate bread and jam sandwiches with relish, finishing up with a banana each.

It was not until afternoon school was well over that Betty found John in any way approachable. He was skimming stones along the dusty road with practised skill, and Betty, alone and hurrying, caught him up.

She artfully admired a stone that sped for a couple of hundred yards an inch or so above the earth, without, to all seeming, ever touching it.

And John condescended to be pleased at her praise.

When she had at his command tried her hand at throwing and been condemned by him, she put her question again.

"Why aren't you speaking to me, John? What have I done?"

"I'm speaking!" quoth John. "But I'm done with you."

"But what have I done?"

"Done! Only got me into a row with my grandfather. Only got me to bed at six o'clock without any tea for speaking to you. That's all."

"And shan't you speak to me any more?" asked Betty.

"Only just speak," said John.

"And--and----" Betty's voice quavered with anxiety--"shan't you run away with me?"

"Mightn't" said John. He sent another stone speeding down the road, and Betty watched it with misty eyes, as she trudged along behind him. She did not speak.

"You should have cleared when I coughed," said John. "I told you I'd cough, but you sat there reading and wouldn't look up."

Still Betty was silent.

"You'd give the whole blessed show away," said John. "What's the good of running away and being brought back to school. That comes of being a girl."

And then he looked at her and saw the tears were running down her cheeks and her lips quivering.

"You're crying!" he said, turning round to her sharply.

"Oh, I'm not," said Betty, and dragged her bonnet further over her face.

"That horrid stone of yours made a d-dust, and its--it's got in my eyes."

John laughed. "If you do run away," he said, "what shall you do?"

Betty's ambition leapt to life, and her tears dried themselves on her cheeks and in her eyes.

"I'm going to sing," she said. "I'm going to stand at a street corner and sing, and I'm going to wear a tattered old dress and no boots and stockings. And then an old gentleman will pa.s.s by and he'll hear me and stand still, and he'll take me away to make a singer of me; and even lords will come to hear me sing, and kings and queens."

John was stirred.

"I'm going without boots, too," he said, "and I shall be in tattered things. I shall get a place as errand boy first, and----"

"When are you going?" asked Betty artfully.

"To-morrow," said John.

"Why, so am I," said Betty. "How funny."

"If you like," said John, "I'll see you to some street corner. I'm going at five o'clock in the morning."

"Why, so am I," said Betty. "Oh, yes; let's go together."

"You can be down at the store by half-past five," said John. "That'll give us time to get a bit of breakfast. And we'll be in Sydney early, before they find out we've gone."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "She went back to her bedroom, to place by Nancy's side her only remaining doll."]

CHAPTER XV

ON THE ROAD

Needless to say Betty did not "waste" any time that night over home-lessons. How can the beginner of a great singer be expected to care whether the p.r.o.noun "that" in "I dare do all 'that' may become a man,"

is relative or possessive? or whether Smyrna is the capital of Turkey or j.a.pan? or even whether the Red Sea has to do with Africa or China.

Betty did not even open her school satchel, or peep at the cover of her books. Instead, she copied out the words of her song and learnt them sitting there at the table with Cyril.

Neither was Cyril doing home-lessons. He certainly had his books spread out before him, but the contents of his pockets were strewn upon his open books, and he was examining them and grumbling now and again at the rapacity of certain school-mates who had caused him to lose certain treasures, or accept less valuable ones, on the school system of "I'll give you this for that."

He turned over three coloured marbles in disgust. For them he had bartered away a catapult, and now his heart was heavy over the exchange.