“How pleased the kitten must have been to see you again!” she remarked.
“You’re just as wrong as you can be about that,” said Philippa decidedly. “She wasn’t a bit pleased, and I believe she’d rather go back to the stable.”
“Well, to be sure, it is the proper place for her, isn’t it?” agreed Miss Mervyn, with a look of relief; “and I daresay she’s really happier there.”
“But, all the same, I don’t mean to let her go,” added Philippa; “I shall keep her with me more than ever, and teach her to be very fond of me.”
“Where are you going, my dear? it is just tea-time,” asked Miss Mervyn, as Philippa left the room hurriedly after this remark.
“Into the garden,” Philippa called back. “You needn’t come,” and she ran down-stairs as fast as she could. Her mind was so set upon doing good to the poor boy in the garden, that it did not once strike her that there was some one nearer home to whom she ought to be kind. Poor Miss Mervyn! How often Philippa worried her with her whims and naughtiness, and yet how patient and good she was! But that seemed natural to Philippa. It would have been quite as strange for Miss Mervyn to be cross and selfish, as for Blanche the kitten to be meek and well-behaved.
When Philippa reached the spot where the boy knelt, hard at work, she came to a standstill, and hardly knew how to begin the conversation. It would have been easier if he had looked up, or seemed aware of her presence; but his whole attention was so fixed on getting out the weeds with his knife, that he evidently had not heard her approach.
“Good afternoon, little boy,” she began condescendingly at last.
The boy raised a hot face, and touched his ragged cap. He was much taller and bigger than Philippa herself but it seemed right to her to call him “little boy.”
“Who are you?” was her first question. “I’ve never seen you before.”