She hesitated, tempted to run back. Had she done so she would have been in
time to see Ida pick up the little locket that Uncle Dick had given Betty
that very Christmas and which she carried in her bag because it seemed the
safest place to treasure it while she was visiting. Her trunk was at
Shadyside.

So it is that the very strangest threads of romance are woven in this
world. And Betty Gordon had found before this that her life, at least, was
patterned in a very wonderful way. Since she had been left an orphan and
had found her only living relative, Mr. Richard Gordon, her father's
brother, such a really delightful guardian the girl had been to so many
places and her adventures had been so exciting that her head was
sometimes quite in a whirl when she tried to think of all the happenings.

Uncle Dick's contracts with certain oil promotion companies made it
impossible as yet for him to have what Betty thought of as "a real,
sure-enough home." He traveled here, there and everywhere. Betty loved to
travel too; but Uncle Dick was forced to go to such rough and wild places
that at first he could not see how Betty, a twelve year old, gently bred
girl, could go with him.

Therefore he had to find a home for his little ward for a few months, and
remembering that an old school friend of his was married to the owner of a
big and beautiful farm, he arranged for Betty to stay with the Peabodys at
Bramble Farm. Her adventures as a "paying guest" in the Peabody household
are fully related in the first book of the series, entitled "Betty Gordon
at Bramble Farm," and a very exciting experience it was.

In spite, however, of the disagreeable and miserly Joseph Peabody, Betty
would not have missed her adventures at the farm for anything. In the