"Oh, I know that," interrupted Kitty; "and how I hate rich fathers and mothers! Why should only rich people have nice things?"
"Then you do like this school, don't you, my love?"
"As much as I could like any place away from father; but what did he say this morning, Mrs. Clavering?" Kitty started restlessly and faced her governess as she spoke.
"He said, dear, that he must go to India because he had lost a very large sum of money. He said he would send you a telegram as soon as he had made arrangements, as there was no good troubling you before. He thought it best you should know by telegram, as the sight of the telegram itself would slightly prepare you for the bad news. But, my dear little Kitty, in some ways there is worse to follow, for your father cannot afford to pay my fees, and you must leave Cherry Court School at the end of this term."
Kitty sat silent. This last news, very bad in itself, scarcely affected her at first. It seemed a mere nothing compared to the parting from her beloved father.
"Yes," she said at last, in a listless voice, "I must leave here."
"I will keep you with me, darling, until the end of the vacation." Kitty gave a perceptible shudder. "I am going to the seaside with Florence Aylmer, and you shall come with us. I will try and give you as good a time, dear little Kitty, as ever I can, but it would not be fair to the other girls to keep you here for nothing."
"No, of course it would not be fair," said Kitty. "And where am I to go," she added, after a very long pause, "when the vacation is over, when the girls come back here again at the end of August?"
"Then, my dear child, I greatly fear you will have to go and stay with your father's cousin, Miss Dartmoor, in Argyleshire."
"Helen Dartmoor!" said Kitty, suddenly springing to her feet, "father's cousin, Helen Dartmoor! She came to stay with us for a month after mother died, and if there is a person in the whole world whom I loathed it was her. No, I won't go to her; I'll write and tell father I can't—I won't; it shan't be. Nothing would induce me to live with her. Oh, Mrs. Clavering, you don't know what she is, and she—why, she doesn't speak decent English, and she knows scarcely anything. How am I to be educated, Mrs. Clavering? I could not do it."