“What train will you be taking for Folkestone on Thursday?” asked Molly. “Will you take a morning or an afternoon train?”
“I’ll look up the trains when I come back from the Dodds’,” was Kitty’s answer, and then she went out of the room.
Molly looked at Jessie. “I don’t think Kitty is very happy,” she said.
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know; she doesn’t look it.”
“I can’t imagine why she’s not going on to the Dodds’,” was Jessie’s remark; “she was full of it a short time ago; she told me when we asked her that she had, of course, two invitations, one to her poor aunt and the other to the Dodds.”
“I suppose she doesn’t like to disappoint her aunt,” said Molly; “but don’t let us bother about her now; we have so much to do. I’m so delighted that Mary Welsh and her sisters are coming to stay with us. I don’t think anything is quite so nice as when we have the Welshes with us; they’re such delightful girls.”
Meanwhile Kitty went to her room. She put on her plainest dress, discarding for the nonce the crimson frock and squirrel jacket and cap. She wore a neat dark-blue serge; she had, as a matter of fact, no shabby dresses, having been clothed by the Dodds for over a year now. The dress, however, was the sort that no one could possibly speak of as anything but extremely plain; it was her little school everyday coat and skirt. Her hat was plain, with a piece of dark-blue ribbon round it.
She ran downstairs. Her dress made such a difference in her appearance that one or two girls who were standing about did not recognise her at the first moment.
“Oh, it’s you, Kitty,” said one, and then the other asked her how long she’d be away, and then they watched her as she drove up the avenue, accompanied by Sam, one of the grooms.