MISS LEICESTER and her nephew, Betty's father, were sitting together in the library. Betty had gone to bed. It was her last night in Tideshead, and the summer which had been so long to look forward to was spent and gone. She had felt very sorry before she went to sleep, and thought of many things which might have been better, but after all one could not help being very rich and happy with so many pleasures to remember. When she thought how many new friends she had made, and how dear all the old ones had been, and that she had become very friendly even with Mrs. Beck, it was a great satisfaction. And now in less than a fortnight she was to be with Ada and Bessie Duncan and their delightful mother in London again. She certainly had a great deal to look forward to; still there was a wistful feeling in her heart at leaving Tideshead. There had been a fire in the library fireplace, for the evening was cool, and papa and Aunt Barbara sat opposite each other. Papa was smoking, as he always did before he went to bed; and happily Miss Leicester liked the odor of tobacco, so that they were comfortable together. They were talking most affectionately about Betty. "I think you have done wonderfully with her, Tom," said the aunt. "Nobody knows how anxious your Aunt Mary and I have felt at the thought of your carrying her hither and yon, and spoiling her because she couldn't settle down to regular habits of life." "The only way is not to let one's habits become irregular," answered Betty's papa. "I found out long ago that I could have my hours for work and for exercise, and could go on with my reading as well in one place as in another. I have tried not to let Betty see too many people in town life, yet pretty soon she will be sixteen. She has always seemed to look at life from a child's point of view until last spring. I don't mean that she doesn't still have many days when she only considers the world's relation to herself; but on the whole she begins to be very serious about her own relation to the world, and is constantly made to think more of what she can give than of what she can get. This is a very trying season in many ways, the first really hard time that comes into a boy's or a girl's life." "Yes, and one is constantly learning those lessons in one way and another during all the rest of one's life," sighed Aunt Barbara. Then her face lighted up, and she added, "Just in proportion as she thinks that she does things for other people she is making steps upward for herself." "I always think that Betty looks like Bewick's picture of the robin redbreast; you remember it? There is an expression to its little beak which always reminds me of my girl."