“Is it irksome?” cried Kathleen.  “Is it that she calls it?  Oh, glory!  It’s purgatory, my dear, that’s what it is—­purgatory—­and I haven’t done anything to deserve it.”

“But you want to learn; you don’t want to be always ignorant.”

“Bedad, then, darling, I don’t want to learn at all.  What do I want to know your sort of things for?  I could beat you, every one of you, and the teachers, too, in some accomplishments.  Put me on a horse, darling, and see what I can do; and put me in a boat, pet, and find out where I can take you.  And set me swimming in the cold sea; I can turn somersaults and dive and dance on the waves, and do every mortal thing as though I were a fish, not a girl.  And give me a gun and see me bring down a bird on the wing.  Ah! those things ought to be counted in the education of a woman.  I can do all those things, and I can mix whisky punch, and I can sing songs to the dear old dad, and I can comfort my mother when her rheumatics are bad.  And I can love, love, love!  Oh, no, Alice, I am not ignorant in the true sense; but I hate French, and I hate arithmetic, and I hate all your horrid school work.  And I never could spell properly; and what does it matter?”

“Everything,” replied Alice.  “You can’t go about the world if you are stupid and ignorant.”

“Can’t I?” exclaimed Kathleen, and she flashed her eyes at Alice and made her feel, as she said afterwards, quite uncanny.

The Tennants were, after all, not a large family.  They consisted of Mrs. Tennant, Alice, and two young brothers.  These brothers were schoolboys of the unruly type.  Alice considered them very badly trained.  Kathleen, however, was much taken by their schoolboyish ways.

As the two girls now entered the house they heard a whistle proceeding from the attic; a cat-call at the same time came from the basement.

“Oh, dear!” cried Alice, “there are those dreadful boys again.  Whatever you do, Kathleen, you must not encourage them in their larks.”

“But why shouldn’t I?  I like them both.  I call David a broth of a boy.  I am glad you have got brothers, Alice.  I haven’t any; but then I have lots of boy cousins, which comes to much the same thing.”

The girls by this time had reached the large bedroom which they shared on the first floor.

“You are welcome to my brothers if you don’t toss all your things about in my room,” cried Alice.  “If we are to sleep together we must be orderly.”

“Orderly, is it?” cried Kathleen.  “I don’t know the meaning of the word.  Well, all right, I’m ready.”

She pushed her fingers through her tangled golden hair, and, without glancing at herself in the glass, marched out of the room.

“I wish mother hadn’t asked her to come,” said Alice to herself.  “The house was bad enough before, but now she will make things past bearing.”

Alice went downstairs to the sound of a cracked gong.  The Tennants had their meals in a sitting-room on the second floor.  It was barely furnished, and had kamptulicon instead of a carpet on the floor.  Mrs. Tennant, looking careworn and anxious, was seated at the head of the table; her dress was somewhat faded.  Alice entered and took her seat at the foot.  Kathleen was nowhere to be seen.