No. 127 Laburnum Road was under the joint partnership of two ladies, Miss Pidsley and Miss Hammond.  Miss Pidsley was the chief partner, and took the lead.  She interviewed the parents, managed the house, the meals, and almost everything, while Miss Hammond’s duties lay more especially with the girls, their lessons and games.

Before ever Kitty went to the school she had decided that she could not like Miss Pidsley.  She declared that she knew exactly what she would be like.  She would be cold, and stern, and hateful, or Aunt Pike would not have taken to her; and when Miss Pidsley came into the room to receive them, she knew that to some extent she was right.  Her new mistress welcomed them—­at least she shook hands with them—­and she smiled—­at least she half closed her eyes in a weary fashion, and widened her lips, but there was no heartiness or gladness in it.  But while Kitty felt the chilliness of it, she could not help sympathizing with Miss Pidsley.  To her it would have been wonderful if any one had been able to smile in such a house as that.

Presently tea was brought in, and for nearly half an hour Kitty sat holding tea and bread and butter, trying her best to swallow both, but vainly.  Miss Hammond did not appear at tea.  She had only just arrived, Miss Pidsley explained, and was tired.  The other pupils had not yet come; there were only four of them, and they travelled by later trains from higher up the line.

After tea, Kitty, who was to have a room to herself that term as there was no room-mate for her, was shown her little bare bedroom, and there Aunt Pike said her farewells, and left her alone amidst her boxes; and there she remained crying and crying her heart out, her boxes untouched, everything forgotten but her own overpowering misery.  “She could not bear it,” she moaned, “she could not bear it!” She thought of her father, and Tony, and Betty, and felt sure her heart must break.

“Poor child!  We all have to bear it, dear, once in our lives, and some of us many times,” said a soft voice very quietly, while a soft hand was laid on her bowed head.

Kitty was so startled that she forgot her disfigured face and looked up; and when she had once looked, and her eyes met the kind eyes gazing into hers, she did not mind, for they were misty too with sympathy.

“You remind me so of the day that I first went away to school, Katherine.  You are Katherine, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” murmured the owner of the name; “but they always call me Kitty at home, all but Aunt Pike.”

“May I call you Kitty?”

“Please do,” said Kitty eagerly.

“Well, dear, I want you to unpack your things now, and try to make your room less bare and unhomelike.  It will look so different when you have your own pretty things about it, and will seem more your own.”

“I don’t want it to,” said Kitty miserably.  “It isn’t home, and it never could be; in fact, I don’t want it to.”