The morning after the news had been received, Agatha and Christabel rushed to the porch-room directly after breakfast, and flattened their noses against the pane to watch for the first sign of their chosen companion, that same Kitty of whom mention has already been made, and who came daily to join the schoolroom party, instead of indulging in the luxury of a governess of her own. She came at last, a tall lamp-post of a girl, with blue serge skirt blowing back from long brown legs, a plaid Tam O’Shanter perched on the top of chestnut locks, and a bundle of books tucked beneath the arm of a corduroy jacket. Christabel banged an eager fist upon the window, and rushed downstairs in a whirl of excitement to meet her friend, and carry her off to the schoolroom.
“My deah, such news! You’ll never guess! It’s perfectly charming! You’ll go wild when you hear it!”
Kitty sat down in a chair and gazed calmly around. Whether she would “go wild” or not when the news was unfolded remained to be seen; but in the meantime her composure showed not the slightest sign of being disturbed.
“Um!” she ejaculated, and began to divest herself of her outdoor garments, as if nothing more important engrossed her attention. She tugged at the fingers of her deerskin gloves, and let them fall indiscriminately at either side of her chair; she sent her cap flying across the room, wriggled out of her jacket, kicked her overshoes beneath the table, then folded her arms and seemed to feel that she had no further responsibility in the matter. The art of putting away outdoor clothes was one, indeed, which Miss Kitty seemed powerless to master. In vain her mother exhausted herself in objurgation, and grew alternately pitiful and angry; Kitty kissed her fervently and vowed amendment, but the next day there was the jacket as usual, hanging over a dining-room chair, and the other garments dropped in as many odd places about the house. This method of procedure was, no doubt, a saving of trouble in the first instance, but retribution followed when it came to starting out again after lunch, when Miss Kitty might have been seen plunging wildly about the room in search of a missing glove or tie, while groans of despair attended every movement.
“Where can it be? Wish my things could be left alone! Always stuck out of the way! Shall be late again now, and get bad marks. Not my fault. Horrid old servants! Wish they’d do their own work, and leave my things alone.” So on, and so on, until at last the missing article was found, folded up in a magazine, or thrust beneath a fern-pot, when Kitty would seize it resentfully, and stalk down the garden-path on her long brown legs, puffing and fuming, and feeling herself the most ill-used of mortals. On the present occasion Elsie and Agatha entered the room as she finished undressing, and the former immediately set to work to gather together the scattered possessions and put them away, for she was tidier-in-general to the household, and could never by any possibility bring herself to sit down comfortably in a room where a picture hung awry, or a tablecloth dipped unevenly at the corner. The while she moved about she cast a pensive glance at the newcomer, and exclaimed regretfully—
“Kitty doesn’t approve. I saw it in her face the moment I came into the room. I knew she wouldn’t, and I don’t know that I do, either. It’s a great risk!”
“I haven’t heard anything to approve of yet. Chrissie has been too excited to descend to details. You seem to have been very busy! I never heard of any news when I was here yesterday.”
There was a tinge of displeasure in the voice in which the last sentence was spoken, and Agatha, the tenderhearted, was quick to note it, and to explain away the misconception.
“There was nothing to hear. It happened later. There are two things we want to tell you about. One is a piece of news from the outside, and the other is our own special affair; but of course it’s not really settled, for, as mother said, until you had been consulted, nothing definite could be decided.”
“Think not, indeed!” said Kitty shortly. She put her hand in her pocket and drew forth a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, which she placed, not on the bridge, but on the extreme tip of her nose. Her curly hair was roughened over her shoulders, the brown ribbon bow stood up erect at the top of her head; her arms were folded in deliberate inelegance, and she gazed over the spectacles with an air of grandmotherly condescension, comically at variance with her appearance.