“Dearest Betty,” wrote Kitty, “I have so much I want to say that I don’t know what to say first.  I am very lonely, but one day and night are over, and one of the girls is very nice, I think.  She is called Pamela Peters, and I want to bring her home with me for the holidays, because she has no father or mother, or home, or anything but a guardian, a very cross old man, and I want her to see what jolly times we have.  I think I shall like another girl too, called Hope Carey.  She is quite little, about your age, and is very unhappy.  Her mother was very ill when she left home, and she is always thinking about her and fretting.  I think it was very cruel to send her back until her mother was better.  I do feel so sorry for her.

“One of the first things I did was to take off my gray stockings and put them all away.  I shall give them to one of the maids.  It is lovely to be without the hateful things.  I wonder what you are all doing at this very minute, and if you are thinking of me.  I am always thinking of you all the time, and saying, ‘Another minute gone, another hour gone,’ but it only seems to make the time pass more slowly.  I have a bedroom to myself, I am glad to say, and it looks very nice with my things about it, but of course I don’t really care for it at all.  I think Miss Pidsley isn’t as nasty as I thought she was when Aunt Pike was with her.  I think she is ill, or worried, or something, and not so very cross.  Miss Hammond, the other principal, is a dear.  I like her very much.  We are all going out shopping one day with Miss Hammond.  We are allowed to go on one Wednesday afternoon each month.  Sometimes she takes the girls to see something, or to a concert, instead of going shopping.  I do not want to buy anything for myself, but I think I shall get some flowers for Miss Hammond, and something for Hope, she is so unhappy, and she has very little pocket-money.  We go for excursions in the summer and have theatricals at Christmas, and you and father will be invited to those.  It is rather nice, isn’t it?  But of course I don’t take any real interest in it.  I hate being here, but I am going to work hard to make the time pass.  I hope Anna is better.  Give Tony my love, and tell him he was a perfect dear to give me his precious piece of spar.  I shall always take it with me wherever I go.  I will write to him next time.  Mind you write and tell me everything, and give my love to Fanny, and Jabez, and Grace, and kiss Prue and Billy for me.  Kiss Prue on her dear old cheek and her soft nose.—­Your loving sister,

“Kitty.”

CHAPTER XVII.

“GOOD IN EVERYTHING.”

Betty’s satisfaction, though, ended with the day.  “I am never happy one day but what I’ve got to be unhappy the next,” she said plaintively to her father the following evening, when telling him her woes.

“You might put it another way,” he said, smiling, “and say you are never very unhappy one day but what you are very happy the next.”