been considered a foolish waste of time and money, and birthdays came
and went sometimes, without the children knowing that they had passed.

Davy was a queer little fellow. He tagged along after Betty, switching
at the grass with a whip he carried, never saying a word after that
first eager call for her to wait. The two never tired of each other. He
was content to follow and ask no questions, for he had learned long ago
to look twice before he spoke once. As he caught up with her at the
gate, he did not even ask where she was going, knowing that he would
find out in due time if he only followed far enough.

He did not have to follow far to-day. Betty led the way across the road
to a plain little wooden church, set back in a grove of cedar-trees.
Behind the church was a graveyard, where they often strolled on summer
afternoons, through the tangle of grass and weeds and myrtle vines, to
read the names on the tombstones and smell the pinks and lilies that
struggled up year after year above the neglected mounds. But that was
not their errand to-day. A little red bookcase inside the church was the
attraction. Betty had only lately discovered it, although it had stood
for years on a back bench in a cobwebby corner.

It held all that was left of a scattered Sunday-school library, that had
been in use two generations before. Queer little books they were,
time-yellowed and musty smelling, but to story-loving little Betty,
hungry for something new, they seemed a veritable gold-mine. She had
found that no key barred her way into this little red treasure-house of
a bookcase, and a board propped against the wall under the window
outside gave her an easy entrance into the church. Here she came day
after day, when her work was done, to pore over the musty old volumes of
tales forgotten long ago.