“I tell you it will come right; it will come quite right,” said Kitty. “I tell you I can manage it; I am certain on the subject. There, I suppose I must do with what I have. You couldn’t let me have five pounds, could you?”
No, the girls could not even let her have five pounds; but, after much consultation, they managed to put three pounds into her pocket.
“And you must do with that, you really must,” said Anne, “until we meet again after the holidays. Oh dear,” she added, “what fun! Next term we’ll be trying for the prize as hard as we can. I hope the subject of the essay won’t be too difficult.”
“Well, I don’t suppose it matters much to you whether you win or not with all your enormous riches,” said Kitty.
“Oh but it does, I can assure you; it is just the very sort of thing that will delight dad. There’s nothing he won’t give us if we win the prize.”
“I wonder if he’d give me anything if I won it?” said Kitty.
“I expect he’d give you a great deal. He wrote me one letter about it,” said Grace, “and he said it was the most splendid thing he ever heard of, and he hoped both his girls would try for it.”
The Dodds, the Wyndhams, Kitty Merrydew, and Peggy Desmond occupied a carriage to themselves as far as the station where they were to separate. There the Wyndham motor-car was waiting to receive the four girls; it was a splendid new motor, covered in so as to shut away all cold winds. The Dodds also had a very smart motor-car waiting for them. Good-byes were said, Molly and Jessie invited the Dodds to come and see them during the holidays, which the Dodd girls promised to do—“that is, if daddy will consent”—and then they got into their car and drove home. The last thing they saw was the anxious and sweetly pretty little face of Peggy Desmond looking at them. She was whirled past in the Wyndhams’ motor-car.
“There! we’re alone at last!” said Anne. “Upon my word, I’m relieved.”
Grace did not speak at all for a minute; then she said, “You know, Anne, there is something very haunting about that Irish girl.”