THE POOR TIRED ONE.
Mrs. Tennant spent the afternoon out shopping. She told the girls at dinner that she would be home for tea, that she expected to be rather tired, and hoped that they would be as good as possible. The boys were always out
during the afternoon, and as a rule never returned until after tea; but Alice and Kathleen were expected to be in for this meal. When Mrs. Tennant walked down the street, Kathleen went to the window and looked after her.
"What are you going to do this afternoon?" said Alice, who was lying back in an easy-chair with an open novel in her hand.
"I don't know," replied Kathleen. "What a dull hole this is! How can you have grown up and kept well in a place like this?"
"Opinions differ with regard to its dullness," said Alice. "I think our home a very pleasant, entertaining place. I wouldn't live in your wild castle for all you could give me."
"Nobody asked you, my dear," said Kathleen, with a saucy nod of her head.
She left the room and went up to what she called her half of the bedroom on the next floor. She knelt down by the window and looked across over the ugly landscape. There were houses everywhere—not a scrap of real country, as she expressed it, to be found. She took out of her pocket the letter which the foundation girls had sent her, and opened and read it.
"The old quarry! I wonder where the old quarry is," she thought. "It must be a good way from here. We have such a place at home, too. I did not suppose one was to be found in this horrid part of the world. I am rather glad there is an old quarry; it was quite nice of little Susy to suggest it, and she will meet me, the little colleen. That is good. What fun! I shall probably have to return through the bedroom window, so I may as well explore and make all in readiness. Dear, dear! I should like David to help me. It isn't the naughtiness that I care about, but it is the fun of being naughty; it is the fun of
having a sort of dangerous thing to do. That is the real joy of it. It is the ecstacy of shocking the prim Alice! Oh! there is her step. She's coming up, the creature! Now then, I had best be as mum as I can unless I want to distract the poor thing entirely."