“It’s too bad you can’t enjoy it like the rest of us,” he said, sympathetically.

“I am enjoying it with all my heart, Cousin Carl,” protested Betty.  “I have raised my shade half a dozen times and taken a quick glance around, and the music is so sweet, and everybody comes up and says nice things to me.  I would be perfectly happy if I didn’t keep thinking that this is the last of our good times together, and in a little while I shall have to say good-bye to Eugenia and Joyce.  You know I never knew any girls before,” she added, confidentially, “and you can’t imagine how much I have enjoyed them.”

“Come, walk down to the gate with me,” said Mr. Forbes, presently; “I have something to tell you.”  She lifted her shade an instant as they started down the long arch of light, and gave one quick glance down the entire way.  “Isn’t it glorious!” she exclaimed.  “It looks as if it might be the road to the City of the Shining Ones!”

Then with a sigh she dropped her shade, and, slipping her hand into his, let him lead her, as she walked along with closed eyes.

“You are an appreciative little puss,” he said, smiling.

As they walked on under the glowing arch, hand in hand, he told her that he was coming back for her in the fall; that Eugenia wanted her to go abroad with them, and that he thought such an arrangement would be good for both the girls.  Good for Eugenia, because otherwise she would often be left for days at a time with only Eliot for a companion, when he was away on business.  Good for Betty, since she could be enjoying the advantages of travel at a time when she could not be using her eyes to study.

“You shall see Abbotsford,” he said, “and Burns’s country, and go to Shakespeare’s home.  And you shall coach among the English lakes where Wordsworth learned to write.  Then there is Rome, on her seven hills, you know, and the canals of Venice and the Dutch windmills and the Black Forest.  You shall hear the legends of all the historic rivers you cross and mountains you climb, and listen to the music of the Norwegian waterfalls.  Don’t you think it will help you to be a better tale-teller for the children, some day, my little ‘Tusitala?’

“You see your godmother has been telling me some of your secrets and showing me some of your poems and stories.  What do you say, Betty?  Will you go?”

“Will I go?” cried Betty, joyfully, holding his hand tight in both her own and pressing it lovingly to her cheek.  “Oh, Cousin Carl!  You might as well ask me if I would go to heaven if a big strong angel had come down on purpose to carry me up!  Oh, why is everybody so good to me?  I can’t understand it.”

They had reached the gate, and were turning to walk back to the house.  Mr. Forbes laid his hand on the brown curly head with a fatherly touch.

“I’ll tell you some day,” he said, “when there is more time.  It is all because of that road you discovered, little one, that Road of the Loving Heart.  I don’t wear a ring as Eugenia does, to remind me of it, but I’ve been carrying the inspiration of it in my memory, ever since she wrote me all that you had taught her about it.”