per she went with David into the old loft over the tumble-down stables. It was not a very safe place of refuge, for the rafters were rotten and might tumble down at any time. Still, the sense of danger made it all, the more interesting to the children. There they sat side by side, and Kathleen told David about her old life. She was very outspoken and affectionate, and very fierce and very wild. To look at her, one would have said there never was any one less reserved; but Kathleen in her heart of hearts was intensely reserved. Her real feelings she never told; her real hopes she never breathed. She talked with high spirits all the time; and although she liked David and was much comforted by his words and his actions, he did not get at the real Kathleen at all.
When Alice came back that evening Kathleen was sound asleep in her little bed, dreaming of Carrigrohane and the old home. She was murmuring some loving words as Alice entered the room.
"Oh, daddy mine, my heart is sore for you," she was saying in a tone which caused Alice to pause and look at her attentively.
"She is the most awful girl I ever heard of," thought Alice. "I am sure she will get us into trouble. I know that those three guineas a week that mother gets for having her are not worth all the mischief she will drag us into. But still, she does look pretty when she is asleep."
Kathleen had very long and very thick eyelashes and nobly arched brows. Her forehead was broad and full and beautifully white. The mischievous, dare-devil expression of her face when awake was softened in her sleep. Alice, who had determined to come very noisily into the room and bang her things about, to take rude possession of her own half of the room—which, after all, was the better half—
was softened by the look on the girl's face. She knelt for a moment at her bedside and prayed that God would keep her from quite hating Kathleen. This was a great deal from Alice, who had made up her mind never to be friends with the Irish girl. Then she got into bed and fell asleep.
The next morning, quite early, Kathleen was up. She was accustomed to getting up almost at cock-crow at Carrigrohane, and when Alice opened her eyes, it was to see an empty bed and an empty room.
"I wonder if she's up to mischief?" she thought.
She got up and went to the window. Kathleen was walking across the common. She had no hat on, and no jacket. She was stepping along leisurely, looking up sometimes at the sky, and sometimes pausing as though she was thinking hard.
"She will catch cold and be ill; that will be the next trouble," thought the indignant Alice. She sleepily proceeded with her dressing. It was only half-past seven. The Great Shirley School met at nine. Alice was seldom downstairs until past eight. When she came down this morning she saw, to her amazement, Kathleen helping the very untidy maid-of-all-work to lay the breakfast things. She was dashing about, putting plates and cups and saucers anyhow upon the board.