“Loftus—­are you going to ask her to give you much money?”

“My dear child, you would think the sum I want enormous, but it isn’t really.  Most fellows would consider it a trifle.  And I don’t want her really to give it, Kate, only to lend it.  That’s altogether a different matter, isn’t it?  Of course I could borrow it elsewhere, but it seems a pity to pay a lot of interest when one’s mother can put one straight.”

“I don’t know how you are to pay the money back, Loftus.”

Loftus laughed.

“There are ways and means,” he said.  “Am I going to take all the bloom off that young cheek by letting its owner into the secrets of Vanity Fair?  Come Kitty, go to bed, and don’t fret about me, I’ll manage somehow.”

“Loftus, how much money do you want mother to lend you?”

“What a persistent child you are.  You positively look frightened.  Well, three fifty will do for the present.  That oughtn’t to stump anyone, ought it?”

“I suppose not,” answered Kate, in a bewildered way.

She put her hand to her forehead, bade her brother good-night, and sought her room.

“Three hundred and fifty pounds!” she murmured.  “And mother won’t buy herrings more than eightpence a dozen!  And we scarcely eat any meat, and lately we have begun even to save the bread.  Three hundred and fifty pounds!  Well, I won’t tell Mabel.  Does Mabel really know the world better than I do, and is it wrong of me in spite of everything to love Loftus?”

CHAPTER VI.

FOR MY PART, I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE ANY NOTICE OF THE BERTRAMS.

But notwithstanding all worries, the world in midsummer, when the days are longest and the birds sing their loudest, is a gay place for the young.  Catherine Bertram stayed awake for quite an hour that night.  An hour was a long time for such young and bright eyes to remain wide open, and she fancied with a wave of self-pity how wrinkled and old she would look in the morning.  Not a bit of it!  She arose with the complexion of a Hebe, and the buoyant and gladsome spirit of a lark.

As she dressed she sang, and when she ran downstairs she whistled a plantation melody with such precision and clearness that Loftus exclaimed, “Oh, how shocking!” and Mabel rolled up her eyes, and said sagely, that no one ever could turn Kate into anything but a tom-boy.

“Girls, what are we to do after breakfast?” asked the brother.

“Have you any money at all in your pocket, Loftie?” demurely asked Mabel, “for if so, if so—­” her eyes danced, “I can undertake to provide a pleasant day for us all.”

“Well, puss, I don’t suppose an officer in her Majesty’s Royal Artillery—­is quite without some petty cash.  How much do you want?”