“Glory be!” answered Peggy; “you ask Kitty if she’d like me to finish that sentence, bedad.”
“Don’t bother about her,” was Kitty’s indignant remark. She put a hand through Jessie’s and dragged her along. “Oh,” she said, “I know it’s wicked of me, but I almost hate your cousin.”
“And I tell you she’s not my cousin, Kitty.”
But Kitty was sharp enough; she was not going to be under the thumb of any one. She had got her entrée into Preston Manor, and now she meant to make the best of it. Hitherto she had been very subservient to Jessie Wyndham; but now she might as well get the girl a little bit under her power. Only a trifle, of course, but still it must be done.
“All I can say is this,” Kitty remarked now, “that whether Peggy is your cousin or not matters very little—less than nothing, in fact—when she’s so fussed over by your father. Did you see the welcome he gave her last night? Why, he took her in his arms and kissed her over and over, and inquired how she was—oh in such a loving voice! And then he—after dinner, you know—he took Peggy away with him into his smoking-room, and I heard them chattering like a pair of magpies and laughing like anything.”
“But how could you hear if you weren’t in the room?” said Jessie.
Kitty coloured faintly. “I hope I didn’t do wrong,” she said; “but I couldn’t sleep. I suppose I was too excited at coming to this heavenly place, so I thought I’d go down to the library and find a book, in order to read it to put me asleep, and the door of the smoking-room was a little open; that’s how I heard them laughing. They were talking about me, too, for I heard the word Kitty quite distinctly; but I’m far too honourable to listen, of course.”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Jessie, “of course, you’re too honourable to eavesdrop, Kitty; do you think if you did such a thing you’d be allowed to come here? But it was very funny about the smoking-room door being open, for daddy always shuts it, as mother can’t bear the smell of smoke.”
“Well, it was open,” said Kitty; “you don’t suppose I opened it?”
“Of course I don’t, Kitty.”