'I found this letter in your old serge frock pocket—the one that was too shabby to take with you. I meant to send it to you before, but I wasn't sure how to write the address; you wrote it on such a scrap of paper. I will keep this till to-night, and ask uncle to help me. I hope it won't matter, for as you are there your aunt won't need letters from you. I was feeling in your pocket for my new bit of india-rubber that I lent you, but it wasn't there.'
Kathie sat quite still for a minute or two after reading all this. Then she took up Neville's letter and looked at it vaguely.
'Yes,' she said to herself, 'I must have slipped it into my pocket, meaning to have it posted with my own note to Neville. How careless of me! and to think how I went on about aunty not meeting us at the station.'
It was a good lesson for Kathie. The softening process had begun, and she was already ashamed to remember the way in which she had spoken of Miss Clotilda. And she was not a little mortified at now finding that she, and she alone, had been to blame. But Kathleen was courageous and honest. After a moment or two's hesitation, she got up and marched off, letters in hand, to the dining-room, where she knew she should find her aunt at that time of day.
'LOOK, IT'S NEVER BEEN POSTED AT ALL!'
'Aunty,' she said, and Miss Clotilda looked up from the fine old damask tablecloth she was carefully darning—she prided herself on her darning, and though the table-linen, as well as everything else, was Mr. Wynne-Carr's now, she would not on that account relax in her carefulness—'Aunty, I've got something to tell you. It wasn't old John Parry's fault about that letter, nor anybody's but mine. Look,' and she held it up, 'it's never been posted at all;' and she went on to explain to Miss Clotilda how it had been found. 'I am so sorry,' she said at the end.
Just then Neville came in. 'I have been looking everywhere for you, Kathie,' he said; and then the story had to be told to him again.
'I am sorry,' Kathie repeated, 'and ashamed,' she added, in a lower voice, and Neville saw that the tears were quivering on her eyelids. He understood.