"No—at least I don't think so. Perhaps I have, though. I don't feel well," she stammered. She spoke confusedly, and did not look at Kitty.
"I should think you had better go to bed and have some hot milk," said
Betty in her serious, old-fashioned way.
"Oh no. I am all right, thank you," said Anna, shrinking from the thought of her mother's visits to her room, and her searching inquiries as to how she could possibly have got a cold. "Do be quiet, Betty, and let me do my work. You know it is nearly bedtime."
"Well, you haven't seemed in a hurry till now," said Betty sharply. "You haven't been learning your lessons in your room, because I saw your bag and your books on your bed just now, and you hadn't touched them then."
"I do wish people wouldn't always be prying after me," said Anna angrily, and this time it was Kitty who looked guilty.
Supper was a very silent meal that night, and soon after it the three went to bed, scarcely another word having been spoken.
Kitty and Betty had been in bed an hour perhaps, and Betty was fast asleep, when Kitty, restless and sleepless with the new trouble she had on her mind, was surprised by the gentle opening of the door of the room. Half alarmed, she rose up in bed, peering anxiously through the gloom. Then—"O Anna!" she cried, "what is the matter? Are you ill?"
"No—o, I don't think I am, but I—I am sure I shall be. O Kitty, I am in such trouble. I must tell some one."
"I think I know what it is," said Kitty gently.
"Oh no, you don't," groaned Anna. "You can't. It is worse than copying my sums, or—or cribbing, or anything."