CHAPTER I

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: Betty came to a standstill, and Prince likewise, the

latter putting his tongue out and looking up inquiringly, as he panted

for breath.]

ODD

By

Amy Le Feuvre

The Religious Tract Society

4 Bouverie Street, London, E.C. 4

1919

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CAGED BIRDS

CHAPTER II

'MOTHER NATURE'

CHAPTER III

WAS IT AN ANGEL?

CHAPTER IV

ADVENTURES

CHAPTER V

PRINCE

CHAPTER VI

MADE INTO A COUPLE

CHAPTER VII

HAYMAKING

CHAPTER VIII

GOD'S PATCHWORK

CHAPTER IX

BETTY'S DISCOVERY

CHAPTER X

A LITTLE MESSENGER

CHAPTER XI

A DARING FEAT

CHAPTER XII

UNCLE HARRY'S FRIEND

CHAPTER XIII

'WHEN WE TWO MET'

CHAPTER XIV

A HERO'S DEATH

CHAPTER XV

COMFORTED

CHAPTER I

Caged Birds

It was just four o'clock on a dull grey winter afternoon. The little

Stuarts' nursery looked the picture of cosiness and comfort with the

blazing fire that threw flickering lights over the bright-coloured

pictures on the walls, the warm carpet under foot, and the fair fresh

faces of the children gathered there.

Five of them there were, and they were alone, for the old nurse who had

brought them all up from their infancy was at present absent from the

room.

By one of the large square windows stood one of the little girls; she

was gazing steadily out into the fast darkening street below, her chin

resting on one of the bars that were fastened across the lower part of

the window. How the children disliked those bars! Marks of little

teeth were plainly discernible along them, and no prisoners could have

tried more perseveringly to shake them from their sockets than they

did. Betty, who stood there now, had received great applause one

afternoon when, after sundry twists and turns, she had successfully

thrust her little dark curly head through, and was able to have a

delightfully clear view of all the passers-by.

But the sequel was not so pleasant, for somehow or other Betty's head

would not come in so easily as it went out, and when nurse came to the

rescue with an angry hand, the poor little head was very much bruised

in consequence, and Betty's reward for such dexterity was an aching

head and dry bread for tea. She was a slight, slim little figure, with

big blue eyes, and long, black curved lashes and eyebrows, which made

her eyes the most beautiful feature in her face. Very soft, fine curly

hair surrounded a rather pathetic-looking little face; but her

movements were like quicksilver, and though all the little Stuarts were

noted for their mischievous ways and daring escapades, Betty eclipsed

them all.

She turned from the window soon with a sigh of relief.

'He's coming,' she said, 'old Bags is coming, and it's my turn to-day.'

There was no response. Bobby and Billy, the twins, little lads only

just promoted from petticoats to knickerbockers, were deeply engrossed

in one corner of the room over their bricks. Perched on the top of a

low chest of drawers were Douglas and Molly, and their heads were in

that close proximity that told that secret business was going on.

Betty's heart sank a little.

'Old Bags is coming,' she repeated; 'don't you hear his bell?'

'We're busy,' said Douglas, looking up; 'we won't have Bags' story

to-day.'

'You promised yesterday when you put it off that you would hear it

to-day. It isn't fair. I always listen to you.'

'Tell it to the babies; they'll like to hear.'

This was adding insult to injury, and when the twins trotted up to the

window Betty turned a defiant back upon them, tears of disappointment

dimming the blue eyes.

'She's cwying,' announced Bobby, twisting his head round to look up

into her face.

Betty turned round furiously; a sharp push sent Bobby to the ground,

and in falling he struck his head against one of the feet of the

nursery table. There was a howl, general confusion, and nurse

appeared, to discover and chastise the offender. Betty was led off in

disgrace to a little room on the nursery landing, known by the children

as 'Cells.' Their uncle, a young captain in the Guards, had given it

that name, but in reality it was nurse's storeroom, and was heated with

hot pipes, to air the linen kept there. It was a small, square room,

containing a table and one chair; the window was high above the

children's reach, and locked cupboards were on every side. Nurse

invariably used it for punishing small offences, and being a woman of

stern principles, she generally set the little culprit a text to learn

whilst there. A Bible was on the table, and Betty was led up to it.

'You will stay here till tea-time, and will not come out until you have

learnt a text, and said you are sorry for knocking down your little

brother in a fit of wicked temper. This is the fourth time I have had

to bring you here this week, and it is now only Tuesday. I have more

trouble with you than all the others put together, and you ought to be

ashamed of yourself.'

Betty was sobbing bitterly, and when nurse left the room and turned the

key behind her, the child flung herself down on the floor.

'It's a shame! It's all Douglas and Molly: they make promises and

don't keep them; and it was ever so much nicer a story than Molly's. I

know they'd have liked it if they'd heard it; they never think I can do

anything!'

To explain the cause of Betty's grievance, I must tell you that it was

a custom of the little Stuarts to await the muffin man's approach on

his rounds, and as his bell would sound, they would take it in turns

each day to relate to the others an account of the different houses he

had gone to, and who had been the fortunate individuals to receive the

muffins that had already disappeared from his tray. It was an idle

hour in the nursery from four to five, and if the gathering dusk kept

the active eyes still, the fertile brains were brought into

requisition. Telling stories was a constant delight, and the wonderful

adventures that befell the muffins on their daily rounds kept the

little gathering quiet and happy till tea appeared.

Betty's stories were not inferior to her elders, and it was her

childish sense of justice and consideration that was outraged. But

tears will come to an end, and soon the little maiden was perched up at

the table to learn the task before her. She turned over the pages till

she reached Revelation, that mysterious and mystical book that so

fascinates and contents a child's soul, though the wisest on earth read

it with perplexity and awe. And after a moment or two Betty had found

a text to learn, and when nurse appeared later on she repeated

unfalteringly with shining eyes and with a note of triumph in her tone

'And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are

they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes,

and made them white in the blood of the Lamb' (Rev. vii. 14).

'That's a good child; are you sorry?'

'Yes,' was the reply, rather absently given, for Betty's mind was on

the white-robed throng; and how could she let nurse know all the

workings of her busy brain over the verse she had been taking into her

heart and soul?

'And remember,' said nurse gravely, 'that no naughty children who

quarrel and fight will ever be in heaven.'

'Not even if they've been through great tribulation?' quickly demanded

Betty.

But nurse did not hear, and Betty was received into the well-lighted

nursery with acclamation from the others, already seated at the round

table for tea.

'We've made a new game, Molly and I,' announced Douglas.

He was a fair, curly-headed boy with an innocent baby face, and a

talent for inventing the most mischievous plans that could ever be

concocted, with a will that made all the others bow before him. Molly

was also fair, with long golden hair that reached to her waist; extreme

self-possession and absence of all shyness were perhaps her chief

characteristics. 'I am the eldest of the family,' she was fond of

asserting, and she certainly claimed the eldest's privileges. Yet her

temper was sweet and obliging, and she could easily be swayed and led

by those around her.

'Is it one for outdoors or indoors?' asked Betty with interest.

'Indoors, of course; we'll tell you after tea.'

'Your mother wants you in the drawing-room after ten,' put in nurse;

'you and Miss Molly are to go down.'

Molly looked pleased, not so Douglas. At last, putting down his piece

of bread and butter, he looked up into nurse's face with one of his

sweetest looks.

'Why are grown-up people so very dull, nurse? They all are just the

same, except Uncle Harry. They are dreadfully heavy and dull.'

'They have so little to amuse them,' Molly said reflectively: 'no games

or toys; they never make believe, or pretend the lovely things we do.'

'And their legs get stiff, and their dresses trip them up if they try

to run.'

'But they never get punished, and they're never scolded, and they're

never wicked.'

This from Betty.

'It's their talk that is so stupid,' went on Douglas; 'they look nice

until they begin to talk; they make me dreadfully sleepy to listen to

them.'

'Shall I go down instead of you to-night?' asked Betty eagerly.

'Don't chatter such nonsense; it's strange times when children begin to

pick their elders to pieces. You weren't asked for, Miss Betty; and

Master Douglas is to go down and behave himself.'

'The three B's aren't big enough yet to leave the nursery.'

Douglas said this with a sparkle of mischief in his eye. It was a sore

point with Betty to be ranked with the twins, for she was only a year

behind Douglas. Long ago he had seized hold of a laughing joke of his

father's, alluding to the names by which the three youngest children

were called, and had twitted her with it ever since.

'B for Baby--Baby Betty, Baby Bobby, and Baby Billy; babies must go to

bed,' he explained.

Betty gave an angry kick under the table, but did not speak.

She was very silent for the rest of that evening; but when she and

Molly were safely in bed, and the room was very quiet, she asked,--

'Molly, do you know what tribulation means?'

'I'm not sure that I do,' was the hesitating reply; 'I think it's

something dreadful. Why do you want to know?'

'Is it like the dark valley Christian went through in the _Pilgrim's

Progress_, or the goblin's cave we make up about?'

'I expect it is something like. Why?'

'It's on the way to heaven,' whispered Betty, in an awestruck tone;

'the Bible says so.'

There was silence, then Molly said,--

'There's a book in father's library will tell you about it. It tells

the meaning of every word; father said so. A dick something it is.'

'I'll ask Mr. Roper to get it for me.'

And Betty turned over on her pillow comforted by this thought, and fell

fast asleep.

Mr. Stuart was a Member of Parliament, and being a man who threw his

whole soul into everything he did, was too much engrossed with business

when in town to have much to do with his children. He spent a great

part of his day in the library with his secretary, a quiet young

fellow, who was looked upon by the children as an embodiment of wisdom

and learning. Mrs. Stuart saw as little of her children as her

husband; her time was fully occupied in attending committee meetings,

opening bazaars, and superintending numerous pet projects for ennobling

and raising the standard of social morality amongst the masses. She

was not an indifferent mother; she was only an active, busy woman, who,

after carefully selecting a thoroughly good and trustworthy woman as

her nurse, left the children's training with perfect confidence to her.

And between her social and charitable claims there was not much time

for having her little ones about her. A young governess came every day

for two hours to teach the three eldest ones, but their life was

essentially a nursery one. And when the House was closed, and the

husband and wife would go off to the Continent or to the Highlands, the

children would be sent to a quiet seaside town with their nurse and the

nursery maid.

The following afternoon a little figure stole quietly down to the

library door. Betty knew her father was out, and Mr. Roper never

repulsed any of the children. After a timid knock she passed in, and

made a little picture as she stood in the firelight, in her brown

velveteen frock and large white-frilled pinafore.

'Well,' said Mr. Roper, wheeling round from his writing-desk, 'what do

you want, Betty?'

'I want one of father's books,' the child said earnestly, 'one that

Dick Somebody wrote--a book that tells the meaning of everything.'

'I wish there was such a one in existence,' said the young man, smiling

a little sadly. 'Now what is in your little head, I wonder?'

'It's a word I want to find, please.'

'Oh, a word! Bless the child, she means a dictionary!' and Mr. Roper

laughed as he drew a fat volume out of a shelf, and placed it on a

table by the little girl.

'May I help you to find it?'

'It's tribulation. I don't know how it's spelt.'

He did not ask questions; that was one thing that attracted Betty

towards him. She was a curious mixture of frankness and reserve. She

would confide freely of her own free will, but if pressed by questions

would relapse at once into silence. He found the word for her, and she

read with difficulty, 'Trouble, distress, great affliction.'

'Do they all mean tribulation?' she asked.

'Tribulation means all of them,' was the answer.

'And can children have tribulation, Mr. Roper?'

'What do you think?'

'I must have it if I'm to get to heaven,' she said emphatically; and

then she left him, and the young man repeated her words to himself with

a sigh and a smile, as he replaced the book in its resting-place.