Betty shook her head gravely.  “But I am not,” she said.  “I can’t be sure I am going to be happy, but I can be that I am going to be unhappy, and sometimes it lasts for ever so long.”

“You poor little suffering martyr,” said Dr. Trenire, “what is wrong now?”

“It’s my stockings,” said Betty solemnly.

“Whatever is wrong with your stockings?  Stand still, child, can’t you, and tell me.”

“No,” said Betty, “I can’t, my legs itch so.  I am sure I shall be crazy before long.  I almost wish I’d been sent away to school too, then I could give them away, as Kitty has.”

“Given away what?—­her legs?  What made Kitty do it, and what is wrong with the stockings?  Are they new, that they have only just begun to irritate you?”

“No, they aren’t new, but—­well, you see, I’ve only just been found out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you see, Aunt Pike would make us wear these ugly, woolly, itchy things, and “—­Betty’s voice waxed indignant—­“she wouldn’t believe us when we said we couldn’t, and so—­well, I thought of it first—­we wore our black cotton ones under these, and then we didn’t feel them.”

“I see,” said Dr. Trenire, a smile beginning to twinkle in his eyes.  “And you were not found out?”

“Not till to-day,” with a triumphant air; “but to-day there was a hole in the gray ones, and I didn’t know it; but Aunt Pike saw the black showing through, and she screamed out, ’Elizabeth, what has happened to your leg?’ And oh!  I did jump so; and then I looked, and there was a great black spot, and everybody was looking and laughing.  It was—­oh, it was dretful, and Aunt Pike was so angry, she made me go home and take off the black ones; and now she has taken all my cotton ones away, and—­and I’ve got to wear these, and it’s—­it’s awful, it really is, daddy,” and poor Betty’s eyes grew pink with tears.

“I know,” said her father sympathetically.  “I suffer in the same way myself.  Don’t cry, child; it will be all right.  I will explain to your aunt.”

But Betty had borne much that day, and the tears, at least a few, had to come.  “She said if Tony can bear it, I can; but Tony doesn’t mind, he doesn’t feel it; he says, though, he would never have said he didn’t if he had known it would make it harder for me and Kitty.”

“Loyal Tony!” laughed Dr. Trenire.  “I like his spirit.  Well, don’t fret about it any more; you shall have some others.  I think, though, that we will have some other colour; they aren’t very pretty, are they?”

“Pretty!” cried Betty; “they are ’trocious.  No one else would have worn them.  I’ll take them off now; shall I, father?”

“Hadn’t you better wait till you have some others to put on?”

“Oh no, thank you.  Fanny wouldn’t take long getting me some.  If you will give her some money, she won’t be more than a few minutes.  I’ll wrap my feet up in two shawls for the time.”