Kitty, having at last finished her work of restoring the altered envelopes to their original position, now looked at Peggy. “I’ve done it,” she said. “You have stopped me and ruined me. I suppose I can go now,”
“Why, then, no.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Ye have got to come along with me to Mrs. Fleming, bedad.”
“Peggy! Oh you can’t be so cruel!”
“Cruel, is it? Why, then, it’s meself don’t see that at all. It’s you that has been cruel, Kitty Merrydew.”
“I—I—oh let me go, let me go! Have mercy, have pity! I’ll go on my knees to you. Have mercy! Peggy, Peggy, have mercy!”
“Get up again on to your legs. I can’t stand people making mollycoddles of themselves. You’re in a fright now, for you think you’re in my power, and you be in my power, Kitty Merrydew! I did wrong, bitter wrong, to promise I wouldn’t tell when you and those girls you were colloguing with let out a hit at me leg and broke it; but I’m tired of shielding ye, and what’s more, I’ll not do it, Kitty Merrydew. There are two girls in the school, and they’re frightened out of their lives at ye. One of them is Sophy Marshall and the other is Hannah Joyce. They couldn’t try for the prize just because of ye. Well, now, I promised that I’d not tell, and bitter sore have I felt about that said promise; but a promise with me is a promise, and I kept it, though me heart was bleeding, bleeding; but I never said I’d keep this, and I don’t mean to, so we’ll just come along and have our collogue with Mrs. Fleming, the crature. She’ll be mighty interested at the clever way ye did it, Kitty, altering the bits of envelopes and all. My word! it will be a fine story for her to listen to, and the sooner she hears it the better.”
“But do you know, can you guess, what this will mean to me?”
“Why, then, I’m not thinking of ye at all; it’s those two poor wans left out in the cold that me heart is aching for. Ah, to be sure, it’s pity I feel for them, poor colleens; but for ye, never a bit, so come along and get it done.”