“Opinions differ with regard to its dullness,” said Alice.  “I think our home a very pleasant, entertaining place.  I wouldn’t live in your wild castle for all you could give me.”

“Nobody asked you, my dear,” said Kathleen, with a saucy nod of her head.

She left the room and went up to what she called her half of the bedroom on the next floor.  She knelt down by the window and looked across over the ugly landscape.  There were houses everywhere—­not a scrap of real country, as she expressed it, to be found.  She took out of her pocket the letter which the foundation girls had sent her, and opened and read it.

“The old quarry!  I wonder where the old quarry is,” she thought.  “It must be a good way from here.  We have such a place at home, too.  I did not suppose one was to be found in this horrid part of the world.  I am rather glad there is an old quarry; it was quite nice of little Susy to suggest it, and she will meet me, the little colleen.  That is good.  What fun!  I shall probably have to return through the bedroom window, so I may as well explore and make all in readiness.  Dear, dear!  I should like David to help me.  It isn’t the naughtiness that I care about, but it is the fun of being naughty; it is the fun of having a sort of dangerous thing to do.  That is the real joy of it.  It is the ecstacy of shocking the prim Alice!  Oh! there is her step.  She’s coming up, the creature!  Now then, I had best be as mum as I can unless I want to distract the poor thing entirely.”

Alice entered the room.

“Do you greatly object to shutting the window?” she said to Kathleen.  “I have a slight cold, and the draught will make it worse.”

“Why, then, of course, darling,” said Kathleen in a hearty voice, as she brought down the window with a bang.  “Would you like me to shut the ventilator in the grate?” she then asked.

“No.  How silly you are!”

“Is it silly?  I thought you had a cold.  You are afraid of the draughts.  Why are you going out?”

“I want to see a school friend.”

“You will be back in time for tea, won’t you?”

“Can’t say.”

“But your mother, the poor tired one, asked you to be back.”

“I do wish, Kathleen, that you wouldn’t call mother by that ridiculous name.  She is no more tired than—­than other women are.”

“If that is the case,” said Kathleen, “I heartily hope that I shall not live to be a woman.  I wouldn’t like us all to be as fagged as she is—­poor, dear, gentle soul!  She’s overworked, and that’s the truth.”

Kathleen saw that she was annoying Alice, and proceeded with great gusto to expand her theory with regard to Mrs. Tennant.

“She’s in the condition when she might drop any time,” she said.  “We have had old Irishwomen overworked like that, and all of a sudden they went out like snuffs:  that is what happens.  What are you putting on your best hat for?”