“I want Mona and Rene and Gerry to teach you the Guide promises, and to explain them, Betty. They will do so as well as they can, and you can all talk them over together. Then, on Saturday week, you may come and repeat them to me. That will be enough Guide work for you; though, if you like, you might begin practising some of the easy knots. Perhaps in the garden, you know.” “Sybil,” Gerry had piped up, “Betty was asking--you see, she wants to know if she may garden. She’s not taking dancing, nor music, nor singing, nor riding, nor----” “That will do, Gerry,” Sybil stopped her. Betty was taking none of the “extra subjects” at school. Auntie and Dad had explained the reason to her--it was because of “the expense”; and Betty had nodded a business-like head at the time. At St. Benedick’s, however, Miss Carey had put the matter to her in another way. “I am very glad, my dear, that you are to have a quiet term. You will have plenty of free time on your hands in which to learn to be happy in quiet ways.” Betty had found, so far, that her steps had always seemed to lead her gardenwards at those times. For there was generally a broken stalk to help, or a flower to water, or the progress of some bee to follow, or the gradual growth of some small seedling to wonder at. All the things in the garden were smaller than Betty. Defenceless, too. Somehow they seemed to need her a little bit in the way that the children had needed her at home. She had looked up eagerly to hear what Sybil would say in answer to Gerry’s suggestion. “Why, of course she may garden. Whenever she likes. I will go with you myself to-day, Betty, and show you what you may do.” In Betty’s first week, then, she had grown more and more in love with the Daisy garden. All the “quiet hours,” as Miss Carey had called them, had been spent there alone. It was not until the last day of the week that she suddenly began to wonder if she really were quite as alone as she had thought. For something had happened. Once before she had half-guessed at a “something.” And again, to-day, there was “something” going on which could not exactly be explained! She was trying to explain it to herself, sitting back on her heels on the grassy strip between the plots, when suddenly Gerry’s voice broke through the silence. “Betty,” called Gerry. “Bet-ty!” CHAPTER VII THE FAIRY PIPER “But there couldn’t be!” said Gerry, staring. “You see, nobody’s there.” “There was, though,” said Betty. “Listen, I truly believe I heard it again.” Both the girls sat back on the sunny patch of grass between the gardens and held their breath. “O-ver the hills and far a-wa-ay!” The air of the quaint old song could plainly be heard, growing fainter and more far-away even as they listened, but certainly there for all that.