Betty Leicester: A Story For Girls. Sarah Orne Jewett

with great spirit. "I knew that point, and those oak-trees, long before either of you were born. It was very polite of Harry to think of my coming with the young folks. Yes, we'll think about the picnic, certainly, but you must go to sleep now, Betty."

      "Aunt Barbara must have been such a nice girl," thinks Betty, as the door shuts. "And if we go, Harry must take her in his boat. It is strange that Mary Beck should not like the Fosters, just because their father was a scamp."

      But the room was still and dark, and sleepiness got the better of Betty's thoughts that night.

      VII.

      THE SIN BOOKS

      One morning Betty was hurrying down Tideshead street to the post-office, and happened to meet the minister's girls and Lizzie French, who were great friends with each other. They seemed to be unusually confidential and interested about something.

      "We've got a secret club and we're going to let you belong," said Lizzie French. "Where can we go to tell you about it, and make you take the oath?"

      "Come home with me just as soon as I post this letter," responded Betty with great pleasure. "Do you think my front steps would be a good place?"

      "It would be too hot; beside, we don't want Mary Beck to see us," objected Ellen Grant, who was the most pale and quiet of the two sisters. They were both pleasant, persistent, mild-faced girls, who never seemed tired or confused, and never liked to change their minds or to go out of their own way. Usually all the other girls liked to do as they said, and they were accordingly very much pleased with Betty, apparently because she hardly ever agreed with them.