[Frontispiece: A little tumble-down desolate cottage (p. 63).] BETTY AT ST. BENEDICK’S A SCHOOL STORY FOR GIRLS BY ETHEL TALBOT THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, LTD. LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK CONTENTS I. On the Way to School II. Are You a Daisy? III. At the Window Table IV. In the Big Oak Hall V. The Daisy Mascot VI. The Guide Cup VII. The Fairy Piper VIII. In Witch’s Wood IX. Betty Keeps a Secret X. Lost!--The Cup! XI. With Sybil, in the Wood XII. The Tracking Expedition XIII. Little Friend of all the World XIV. The Pioneer Picnic XV. Betty Shares the Secret XVI. Everything comes Right! BETTY AT ST. BENEDICK’S CHAPTER I ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL The whole family had come down to see Betty off. Dad was there, although Betty felt that really and truly he oughtn’t to spare the time. The twins were there, because nothing on earth would have kept them at home. Even baby was there; though he wasn’t to be called “baby” any longer, Aunt Frances had decided. Aunt Frances was holding his hand now, and telling him to wave good-bye to Betty. “Oh, _don’t_ trouble him, Auntie!” said Betty in a motherly tone. “He so very rarely gets the chance to see an engine really _start_!” “Dear old Bet,” said Auntie. Auntie was a darling. There was no doubt of that. If it hadn’t been that she was such a darling, Betty couldn’t possibly have brought herself to come away. But it had all been arranged so suddenly and unexpectedly, and almost without asking her at all. “You see, old lady,” Dad had said only a fortnight ago, speaking one evening a few days after Auntie’s arrival, in a voice which tried--though it couldn’t quite succeed--to be in an ordinary, everyday tone; “you see, you have looked after all of us so long, Auntie says, that I’ve quite forgotten that it’s I who ought to be looking after _you_!” “Oh, Dad!” Betty had said, staring. Auntie hadn’t said it in Dad’s way. She had come along that evening after Betty was in bed. She had sat on the edge too, and had hugged Betty just the same way that Betty hugged Jan, the twin. “Bet, pet,” said Auntie, “you see, you’ve got to go for Daddy’s sake!” “Oh, Auntie!” Betty had said again, but in a different tone of voice. “It worries him to see you growing up like this,” said Auntie. “We don’t want to have a Betty with white hair and worrying wrinkles before she’s twenty. And besides, I’m home now from India; and Dad and I used to get on well enough when we were children, you know. So----” So it was all arranged. That was only a fortnight ago, and now they were all down seeing her off. “St. Benedick’s, _Woodhurst_,” was written on her red labels. Betty was really going to school. “If the train’s late in starting I really and truly think that, Dad, you oughtn’t to stay,” said Betty, leaning out.