“But Dan is always polite,” said Kitty, warm in defence of him at once.  She might sometimes admit to herself that there was a flaw in her brother, but she could not endure that any one else should see one; “and he is always sorry for people when they are hurt, and it was our fault that she was hurt.”

“Yes, it was his fault really,” said Betty, whose memory was a good one—­too good at times, some said—­“for he was the first to kick off his boots and leave them there.”

“I know; but he didn’t tell us to do the same.  And you see we had all agreed to be polite to Aunt Pike, and you could have got the embrocation for her if you had liked.”

“But I don’t see why it should be called ‘polite’ if Dan does it, but ‘sucking up’ if I do it,” argued Betty.

Kitty sighed.  She often wished that Betty would not want things explained so carefully.  She never made allowances for changes of mood or sudden impulses.  Kitty herself so constantly experienced both, that she could sympathize with others who did the same, and as she put it to herself—­“What can you do if you feel sorry for a person that you hated only a little while before?”

Kitty could not understand the right and the wrong of these things, or what to do under such circumstances.  She wished she could, for they made her feel mean to one side or the other, and nothing was really further from her intention.

The next arrangement made—­and this was an even greater blow to them than the “banishment” of Dan—­was that Kitty and Betty were to go as day girls to school, instead of having Miss Pooley to the house.

The plan, being Aunt Pike’s, would probably have been objected to in any case; but to Kitty, with her shy dread of strangers—­particularly girls of her own age—­the prospect was appalling, and she contemplated it with a deep dread such as could not be understood by most girls.

Betty complained loudly, but soon found consolation.  “At any rate,” she said, “we need not walk to school with Anna, and we needn’t see as much of her there as we should have to at home; and I think it will be rather jolly to know a lot of girls.”

“Do you?” sighed Kitty, looking at her sister with curious, wondering eyes, and a feeling of awe.  “I can’t think so.  I can’t bear strange girls.”  It seemed to her incredible that any one should want to know strangers, or could even contemplate doing so without horror.  She envied them, though, for being able to.  “It must make one feel ever so much more happy and comfortable,” she thought, “to have nothing to be afraid of.”  She would have given a very great deal not to feel shy and embarrassed when with strangers, and to be able to think of something to say to them.  But she never could.  Nothing that she had to say seemed interesting or worth saying.  Betty, with her self-confidence and fluent tongue, was a constant source of admiration to Kitty.