"The pain here." She pressed her hand against her heart.
"Poor child! you love him very much."
"Very much," answered Kitty, "and the pain is too bad, and—and I can't talk now. I'll just go back to the other girls in the cherry orchard."
"But, Kitty, can you bear to be with them just now?"
"I can't be alone," said Kitty, with a little piteous smile. She ran out again into the summer sunshine. Mrs. Clavering stood and watched her.
"Poor little girl," she said to herself, "and she does not know the worst, nor half the worst, for I had a long letter from Major Sharston this morning, and he told me that not only was he obliged to go to India, but that he had lost so large a sum of money that he could not afford to keep Kitty here after this term. She is to go to Scotland to live with an old cousin; she must give up all chance of being properly educated. Poor little Kitty! I wonder if he mentioned that in the telegram, and she is so proud, too, and has so much character; it is a sad, sad pity."
Meanwhile Kitty once more returned through the orchard. She began to sing a gay song to herself. She had a very sweet voice, and was carolling wild notes now high up in the air—"Begone, dull care; you and I shall never agree."
The girls sitting under the finest of the cherry trees heard her as she sang.
"There can't be much wrong with her," said Mary Bateman, with a sigh of relief. "Hullo, Kitty, no bad news, I hope?"
"There is bad news, but I can't talk of it now," said Kitty. "Come, what shall we do? We need not stay under the trees any longer surely, need we? Let's have a right good game—blind man's buff, or shall we play hare and hounds."