"Open the door at once, please, Kitty," she said.
Kitty crossed the room, turned the key in the lock, and allowed Alice to enter.
"I must beg of you, Kitty," said Alice, "not to lock the door again."
"And why not, pray? You locked it last night. It was on account of that
I am now in all this trouble."
"Really, Kitty, you are quite too ridiculous; as if I were the cause of your trouble. You are in trouble because you disobeyed a strict rule; and my locking the door or not had nothing whatever to do with it. You are quite the most tiresome, inconsistent girl I ever came across."
"Well, it is nothing to you what I am," said Kitty. She sank down on a chair by the side of her little bed as she spoke; her expression was so woe-begone, her face so pale, the droop of her eyes so pathetic, that Alice was slightly touched in spite of herself.
"I am going to see Bessie Challoner," she said. "If you were different I would not leave you."
"Oh, never mind me, pray."
"All the same, I would not leave you, Kitty; for remember I am the only girl belonging to the school who may speak to you for the next week; but, really, your ways are so unpleasant——"
"And I so infinitely prefer your absence to your company," retorted
Kitty. "So you may go with quite an easy mind."