“Betty!  Betty!” called Lloyd, under her window.  “Come and take a run over the place.  I want to show Hero his new home.”

Tired of sitting still so long on the cars, Betty was glad to join in the race over the smooth lawn and green meadows.  Out in the pasture, Tarbaby waited by the bars.  The grapevine swing in the mulberry-tree, every nook and corner where the guests of the house party had romped and played the summer before, seemed to hold a special greeting for them, and every foot of ground in old Locust seemed dearer for their long absence.

The next morning, when Tarbaby was led around for Lloyd to take her usual ride, both girls gave a cry of delight, for another pony followed close at his heels.  It was the one that had been kept for Betty’s use during the house party.

“It is Lad!” called the Little Colonel, excitedly.  “Oh, Papa Jack!  Is he goin’ to stay heah all the time?”

“Yes, he belongs here now,” answered Mr. Sherman.  “I want both my little girls to be well mounted, and to ride every day.”

He motioned to a card hanging from Lad’s bridle, and, leaning over, Lloyd read aloud, “For Betty from Papa Jack.”

Betty could hardly realise her good fortune.

“Is he really mine?” she insisted, “the same as Tarbaby is Lloyd’s?”

“Really yours, and just the same,” answered Mr. Sherman, holding out his hand to help her mount.

She tried to thank him, tried to tell him how happy the gift had made her, but words could not measure either her gratitude or her pleasure.  He read them both, however, in her happy face.  As he swung her into the saddle, she leaned forward, saying, “I want to whisper something in your ear, Mr. Sherman.”  As he bent his head she whispered, “Thank you for writing Papa Jack on the card.  That made me happier than anything else.”

“That is what I want you to call me always now, my little daughter,” he answered, kissing her lightly on the cheek.  “Locust is your home now, and you belong to all of us.  Your godmother, the Little Colonel, and I each claim a share.”

“What makes you so quiet?” asked Lloyd, as they rode on down the avenue.

“I was thinking of the way Joyce’s fairy tale ended,” said Betty. “’So the prince came into his kingdom, the kingdom of loving hearts and gentle hands.’  Only this time it’s the princess who’s come into her kingdom.”

“What do you mean?” asked Lloyd, with a puzzled look.

“Oh, it’s only some of my foolishness,” said Betty, looking back over her shoulder with a laugh.  “I’m just so glad that I’m alive, and so glad that I am me, and so happy because everybody is so heavenly kind to me, that I wouldn’t change places with the proudest princess that ever sat on a throne.”

“Then come on, and let’s race to the post-office,” cried Lloyd, dashing off, with Hero bounding along beside her.

From the post-office they rode to The Beeches, where Allison was cooking something over the camp-fire, beside the tent on the lawn.