The longer she thought of it the surer she was that her intuitions were correct, so she said she must go and write a line to dear Phil. Fenie accompanied her, but when Trif reached her room Fenie was invisible, for the girl had caught a glimpse of Kate in one of the halls, and had hurried toward her. Fenie was thinking about Kate and Jermyn, so she put her arm about Kate, drew her into a parlor in which there chanced to be no one else, kissed her, and exclaimed:
"You darling girl, I'm so happy about it!"
"So am I, dear," Kate replied, returning Fenie's endearments in kind; "but I do think Harry might have said something to me, after all that I have done for him."
"Harry?" said Fenie, with a wondering look. "Doesn't he approve of the match?"
"Approve? My dear girl, how could he have made it if he hadn't thought well of it? How strangely you talk!"
"He made it? The sly rogue! He and I have chatted together for hours every day, but I didn't imagine that anything of the sort was on his mind."
"Tryphena Wardlow!" exclaimed Kate. "Will you tell me what you are talking about?"
"About you and Lieutenant Jermyn, to be sure."
"Oh, Fenie!" Kate flushed deeply before she continued: "He and I have become pleasantly acquainted, and I esteem him very highly, but can you imagine for a moment that I am anything more than the acquaintance of a gentleman whom I never saw until this week? How did you get so crazy a fancy?"
Fenie went down into the valley of humiliation, and said she was sure she didn't know, unless something that Trixy had said—no, something that Trixy hadn't said—that is, Trixy had behaved so strangely——