“No, I regret much we are not; but the fact is,” said Gloriana, “Kitty is in such immense request that she cannot spare her poor old auntie even a single day. She’s going to spend the greater part of the holidays with her friends the Wyndhams, at Preston Manor. You, of course, know the Wyndhams; they are some of our county people, some of the best folks in the whole of England. Afterwards she intends to go on to stay with the Dodds.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound a very aristocratic name,” said Miss Glynn.
“I’m not saying that it does, Miss Glynn, but sometimes people, even in our station of life, have to put up with mere wealth. The Dodds are enormously rich, and have taken such a great fancy to my Kitty that it is with the utmost difficulty I can keep Mr. and Mrs. Dodd from adopting her. That, of course, I could not consent to for a moment, but you can imagine how greatly the child is adored.”
Kitty, therefore, had very little difficulty in getting her own way; but, although Miss Gloriana could not deny the girl’s wish to spend the Christmas holidays with the Wyndhams, she put down her foot very firmly when it came to a question of expense.
“My dear,” she wrote, “I haven’t got it to give you. I have barely the money which your father set aside for your education; and when it is spent, unless you can get one of those Dodd girls to let you live with her, I’m sure I don’t know what you are to do. However, my dear Kitty, there is plenty of money to keep you at The Red Gables School for the next three years at least, and there is no good, in my opinion, looking farther ahead. As to fine dresses, I can’t give you another sou for your clothing; but surely you can get what you want from the Dodds?”
Now Kitty did most earnestly intend to get what she wanted from the Dodds, but for the first time the Dodds were frightened. They had, it is true, during the early part of the last term, been extremely lavish with regard to Kitty; they had spent all their pocket-money upon her and had given her several of their own dresses, which could easily be altered to fit her exceedingly charming little figure. But Mr. Dodd had written a severe letter, first to Grace and then to Anne, on the subject of their expenditure. He said that it was contrary to all reason to have to pay such enormous bills for mere schoolgirls.
“When you come out, my dears,” he said, “there’s nothing in the world I will deny you; but at present you are only schoolgirls, and I am not going any longer to have bills of the sort that Miss Weston is sending in; so don’t you think it. I have been showing them to your mother, and she says they’re outrageous.”
After this letter, Grace and Anne had to refuse Kitty’s demands for ten pounds to put into her pocket in order to have plenty of money in hand for her visit, and also for another evening frock.
“I’d give it you with a heart and a half,” said Grace.
“I’d give you every dress I possess myself,” said Anne; “but you don’t know what daddy is when he puts down his foot. He’s ever so cross. I can’t imagine what you did to him last summer, Kitty; up to then there was nothing he wouldn’t do for you; then, all of a sudden, he turned against you.”