"I am certainly going to take you to her. You are a very, very wicked girl. I doubt not you will be expelled."
"Oh, I hope I shall," said Kitty. "I should like nothing in all the world better."
"You would? You are quite incorrigible. Do you know, you wretched girl, what it means?"
"No," answered Kitty; "I wait for you to tell me. What does it mean,
Miss Worrick?"
"That you are tainted for life, disgraced for life. Wherever you go it will be always remembered to you that your conduct was so bad at school that you were obliged to be expelled."
"But that won't matter in old Ireland," said Kitty with a hollow, forced laugh.
"Yes, it will; it will break your father's heart. There are no people so proud as the Irish. They can stand a good deal; but any cloud on their honor——"
"Ah, you are right," cried Kitty, standing still, and a queer change coming over her face. "Our honor—no one ever touched that yet."
"It will have a nice blow when you are dismissed from Middleton School," said Miss Worrick, glad to find a point in Kitty's hitherto invulnerable armor. "Come with me at once, you bad girl. I must explain your conduct to Miss Sherrard."
"I have something on my own account to say to Miss Sherrard," answered
Kitty in a proud voice; "something which will explain a good deal."