"What in the world shall we do with her?" worried Aunt Mary, while Betty was gone. "I had no idea she would seem so well grown. She used to be small for her age, you know, sister." "Do? do?" answered Miss Barbara Leicester sternly. "If she can't take care of herself by this time, she never will know how. Tom Leicester should have let her stay here altogether, instead of roaming about the world with him, or else have settled himself down in respectable fashion. I can't get on with teasing children at my age. I'm sure I'm glad she's well grown. She mustn't expect us to turn out of our ways," grumbled Aunt Barbara, who had the kindest heart in the world, and was listening anxiously every minute for Betty's footsteps. It was very pleasant to be safe in the old house at last. The young guest did not feel any sense of strangeness. She used to be afraid of Aunt Barbara when she was a child, but she was not a bit afraid now; and Aunt Mary, who seemed a very lovely person then, was now a little bit tiresome,--or else Betty herself was tired and did not find it easy to listen. After supper; and it was such a too-good supper, with pound-cakes, and peach jam, and crisp shortcakes, and four tall silver candlesticks, and Betty being asked to her great astonishment if she would take tea and meekly preferring some milk instead; they came back to the doorway. The moon had come up, and the wide lawn in front of the house (which the ladies always called the yard) was almost as light as day. The syringa bushes were in full bloom and fragrance, and other sweet odors filled the air beside. There were two irreverent little dogs playing and chasing each other on the wide front walk and bustling among the box and borders. Betty could hear the voices of people who drove by, or walked along the sidewalk, but Tideshead village was almost as still as the fields outside the town. She answered all the questions that the aunts kindly asked her for conversation's sake, and she tried to think of ways of seeming interested in return. "Can I climb the cherry-tree this summer, Aunt Barbara?" she asked once. "Don't you remember the day when there was a tea company of ladies here, and Mary Beck and I got some of the company's bonnets and shawls off the best bed and dressed up in them and climbed up in the trees?" "You looked like two fat black crows," laughed Aunt Barbara, though she had been very angry at the time. "All the fringes of those thin best shawls were catching and snapping as you came down. Oh, dear me, I couldn't think what the old ladies would say. None of your mischief now, Miss Betty!" and she held up a warning forefinger. "Mary Beck is coming to see you to-morrow; you will find some pleasant girls here." "Tideshead has always been celebrated for its cultivated society, you know, dear," added Aunt Mary.