Left to herself, Betty undressed and lay down as she had been bidden.  Her eyes were tired and she closed them sleepily, but they would not stay shut.  She was obliged to open them for another peep at the dear little white dressing-table with its crystal candlesticks, that looked like twisted icicles.  And she must see that darling little heart-shaped pin-cushion again, and all the dainty toilet articles of gold and ivory.  Then she could not resist another glance at the white Angora rugs lying on the dark, polished floor, and the white screen before her wash-stand with sprays of goldenrod painted across it, looking as natural as if they had grown there.

Once she got up and pattered across the room in her nightgown to sit a moment before the little writing-desk in the corner, and handle all its dainty furnishings of gold and mother-of-pearl.  There were thin white curtains at the windows, held back by broad bands of yellow ribbon.  They stirred softly with every passing breeze, and fluttered and fluttered, until by and by, watching them, Betty’s eyelids fluttered, too, and she closed them drowsily.

While she slept she dreamed that she was back in the cuckoo’s nest again, in her bare little room in the gable, and that a great white and yellow daisy stood over her, shaking her by the shoulder and telling her that it was time to go down and wash the breakfast dishes.  Then the broad white petals began to fall off one by one, and it was Davy’s face in the centre.  No, whose was it?  She rubbed her eyes and looked again, to find her godmother standing in the door.

“It is time to dress for dinner, little girl,” she called, gaily.  “Do you need any help?”

“No, thank you,” answered Betty, sitting up and catching a glimpse of Lloyd going past the door in a fresh white muslin and pink ribbons.

“Shall I wear my best dress, godmother?” asked Betty, “or would it be better to save it for Sunday?”

“Let me see it,” said Mrs. Sherman, helping her to take it out of the little half-filled trunk.  “Oh, you’d better wear it, I think.  We may have company.”  What she saw in that trunk set her to thinking her most godmotherly thoughts.

The wax tapers were all lighted in each silver candelabra when Betty went down the stairs, looking fresh and sweet as a wildflower in her dress and ribbons of robin’s-egg blue.  When she slipped into the long drawing-room, Lloyd was playing on the harp.  Over her hung the portrait of a beautiful young girl, also standing beside a harp.  She was dressed in white, and she wore a June rose in her hair and another at her throat.  Betty walked over and looked up at the picture long and earnestly.

“That’s my grandmothah, Amanthis,” said Lloyd, pausing in her song, “and that’s the way she looked the first time grandfathah evah saw her.  And heah’s Uncle Tom in his soldier clothes, and this is mothah’s great-great-aunt that was such a belle in the days of Clay and Webstah.”