"O Janey, Janey, and you know I'd do anything in the world for you."
Sophy's lovely eyes slowly filled with tears. Janet gave her a quick half-contemptuous, half-affectionate glance.
"There," she said, "you needn't fret; I daresay everything will be all right, and I have something very jolly to tell you in a minute or two. Only let us get to your lodgings first, for we can't talk comfortably in this noisy street."
The girls presently reached the poky little house where Sophy had spent her night. They went up at once to a tiny room with a sloping roof, and there Janet proceeded to administer a very sound lecture to her sister.
"I have something unpleasant to talk about before I say anything nice," she began. "You must first hear me out, whether you like it or not, for if you cry until your eyes are sunk into your head it won't make the least bit of difference to me. Speak I will, for it is for your good and mine."
No one could cry more copiously than Sophy on occasions, but she also had a certain power of self-control. If her tears could effect no object there was not the least use in her spoiling her pretty eyes, so she sat very still now on the edge of the small hard bed, and gazed at Janet, who sat opposite to her on a cane-bottomed chair.
"The first thing to be done is this," said Janet; "I must see Miss Simpkins, and ask her if she will take you back after the holidays are over."
"I won't go!" said Sophy, clenching her fist.
"That is nonsense, Sophy; you will either have to go to Miss Simpkins or to Aunt Jane. Aunt Jane will half starve you, and give you no money at all; Miss Simpkins will feed you well—I know she does that, or you'd be sure to tell me the contrary—then Miss Simpkins gives you fifteen pounds a year. That being the case, there is no choice at all between the two posts. Miss Simpkins's, notwithstanding the Persian cats, is much the best place for you to live at."
"Oh, you don't know," said Sophy; "it's the most horrid life. Besides, she wouldn't have me again; I know she wouldn't. We were both frightfully impertinent to each other. We were like two cats ourselves. Miss Simpkins was the old tabby, and I was the angry, snarling kitten. I have claws, you know, Janet, although I do look so velvety."