Miss O’Flynn looked rather indignant.

“You shall have your almshouse if it can be got.  How unfeeling you are to think only of yourself when my dearest friend may be at death’s door.  Here’s a sovereign, which will more than cover the expenses of the tea.—­Good-bye, Kathleen, core of my heart.—­Good-bye, all of you.”

Miss O’Flynn flung a sovereign on the table.  Mrs. Church made a grab at it, and held it tightly in her hand, which was covered by a black mitten.  The next moment the good lady had departed, and Kathleen, looking thoroughly bewildered, was left alone.

“Dear, dear!” she said.  “Yet I am an Irish girl, and I’m not going to show funk.  There are all those poor girls waiting in the yard so long.  I will go to them at once.  Come with me, Susy.”

There were about forty girls in the yard, and they sat close together.  The night was sufficiently cold to make them somewhat chill, and the fears which little Janey Ford had put into their hearts began to grow greater and more fixed each moment.  When Kathleen appeared all was immediately changed.  Susy preceded her, carrying the little paraffin lamp.  This was placed on the table which was arranged in the yard for the purpose, and its light fell now on the vivid coloring and beautiful face of the Irish girl.  She took off her favorite blue velvet cap and pushed her hand through her masses of radiant hair, and then flung herself into what she was pleased to call an attitude, but which was really a very graceful and natural pose.  Then she said, speaking aloud: 

“Girls of the society, Wild Irish Girls, I am sorry to tell you that my aunt, Miss O’Flynn—­Miss Katie O’Flynn—­who I hoped would have joined our numbers to-night, and would have been a perfect rock of strength for us all, has been obliged to suddenly go back to Ireland, owing to an accident that has happened to her dearest friend.”

“Dear, dear, how sad!” said one or two.

“So we are without her, girls,” continued Kathleen.  “And now I want to know if you are prepared to stand by me through thick and thin?”

“That we are!” was shouted in one vivid, clear girlish note.

“I am glad to hear it.  And if you will stand by me, you may be quite sure that I will stand by you.  It is whispered in the school that we are found out, and the school, bless it! is angry.  It doesn’t want us, you foundationers and me, to have our fun—­our little bit of innocent fun.”

“Very mean of it!” said one or two, while the others groaned.

“It wants to crush us,” continued Kathleen.  “We mean the school no harm, and why shouldn’t it let us alone?  All we want is our fun, a little bit of liberty, and to show those companions who look down upon us that we are as good as they, and that we will fight for each other, and have our own way, and meet when we please, and do as we like out of school hours.  It is a sort of Manifesto of Independence, that is what it is, girls, and I want to know if you will stick to it.”