"Yes, the dear old dad, the dearest, the best in the world."
"But what did he send you here for?"
"Well, I suppose to get knowledge and manners. Ah, bad luck to them! and I suppose also to tame me down a bit. He said he never could manage that at Castle Malone."
Miss Sherrard once more gave that faint involuntary smile.
"Your father sent you here," she said, "to put you under discipline. While you are in this school, my dear girl, you must obey me, and also the other teachers. If you are disobedient the other girls will be disobedient, and then where should we all be?"
"It would be a lark!" muttered Kitty, with sparkling eyes.
"Don't interrupt, and please listen. I should be very sorry to send you back to Castle Malone in disgrace. I should be sorry to have to write to your father in order to tell him that his Kitty, whom he loves—his bright, pretty, lovable daughter—can never learn manners nor accomplishments, nor be tamed in the very least. There are from six to seven hundred girls in this school, who all now know about your very daring act of disobedience. Were I not to punish you they would be astonished, and some of them might even go to the length of copying your behavior. You see this for yourself, don't you?"
"Oh, I see it plain enough," answered Kitty; "plain as a pikestaff.
What's the punishment to be?"
Miss Sherrard hesitated. Once more she looked at Kitty; Kitty's eyes were as bright as stars.
"You need not be afraid," said the pupil in an encouraging voice. "I am nothing of a coward; I'll take anything in reason. Is it a flogging you are thinking of ordering for me?"