"I am going out now, Kathleen; aren't you coming with me?"
"No, thank you, my love."
"You ought to, Kathleen. I am busy preparing for my scholarship examination or I would stay and argue with you. It is an awful pity to have gone to the expense of coming here if you don't mean to do your utmost."
"Thank you, darling, but it is rather a waste of breath for you to talk so long to me. I mean to be naughty this afternoon."
"I can't help you," said Alice. "I am very sorry you ever came."
"Thank you so much, dear."
Alice ran downstairs.
"Mother," she said, rushing into her mother's presence, "we shall have no end of trouble with that terrible girl. She is lying now on the bed with her outdoor boots on, and she won't come to school, or do a single thing I want her to."
"The money her father pays will be very welcome, Alice. We must bear with some discomforts on account of that."
"I suppose so," said Alice, shrugging her shoulders. "How horrid it is to be poor, and to have such a girl as that in the house! Well, I can't stay another minute. You had better keep a sort of general eye on her, mother, for there's no saying what she will do. She has declared her intention of being naughty. She knows no fear, is not guided by any sort of principle, and would, in short, do anything."