"There, Kitty, it is over now, and you will never disobey your teacher again as long as you live," said a kind voice, and Kitty raised her eyes to see, not the face of Miss Worrick, but that of the head-mistress.
"Oh, Miss Sherrard, how could you make me do it?" she sobbed. "It wasn't in me. None of the Malones could beg anybody's pardon, and I couldn't go on my knees when the moment came because they felt stiff, they had no joints in them. I could not do it properly; no, I could not."
"You did it, dear, but not very well. You did it, however, and you have learned your lesson. Now come with me into my private sitting-room. You and I will have lunch together, and I will excuse you from any more lessons to-day."
Kitty Malone never forgot that next hour. Miss Sherrard was an ideal head-mistress. She had the keenest sympathy with girls. In her long experience she had met girls of every shade of character, the bold, the ambitious, the timorous, the idle, the frivolous, the noble, the earnest. She knew all about the Christian girl as well as the pagan girl; all about the girl who had a terrible battle with her own evil pro pensities, and the girl whose nature was so amiable, so gentle, so sweet, that life would be comparatively easy for her. But although she had been head-mistress of the great Middleton School now for several years, she had never before met quite such an extraordinary specimen as Kitty Malone. Where, however, others would see nothing but a spirit of frivolity, a love of admiration, dress, pleasure, in Kitty, Miss Sherrard peeped below the surface and discovered some really noble qualities. She determined to be very gentle to this wild, willful girl—to take her, in short, as she was.
"Oh, I wonder you care to speak to me," said Kitty, when her sobs having ceased, she stood looking half-repentant, half-rebellious in Miss Sherrard's private room.
"You are not to be the subject of our conversation at all for the present, Kitty," said Miss Sherrard. "Lunch is ready, and you must be hungry. Would you like to go into my room—it is just next to this—and wash your hands and brush out your hair?"
Kitty looked at Miss Sherrard's small and beautifully-kept hands. She was fastidious to a remarkable degree about her personal appearance.
"I dare say my hair is somewhat untidy," she said. "I might as well take a squint at myself in the glass. I never like to look ugly. Is my nose very red, Miss Sherrard?"
"Never mind about your appearance," said Miss Sherrard, who could not help feeling slightly annoyed at what she considered such a very irrelevant remark.
"I expect I am a fright," said Kitty standing up and talking half to herself and half for the benefit of the head-mistress. "Crying always spoils me. Now, I knew a girl at home, and the more she cried the prettier she got. She used to let her tears roil down her cheeks in great drops, and never attempted to wipe them away, and her nose never got red, and her eyes only got bigger and quite dewy. Now, as to me when I cry, my nose——"