“Thanks,” said Kathleen.  “I’m awfully obliged to you, Ben.  See if I don’t do something for you.  You are a broth of a boy.  What do you say to Carrigrohane in the summer, and a gun all to yourself?  I’ll teach you how to shoot rabbits and to bring down a bird on the wing.”

She brushed her lips against his cheek, and ran lightly upstairs.  She escaped the treacherous second step, and entered her bedroom without waking Alice.  The bolster carefully manipulated had done its work; it had never occurred to Alice that the form in the bed was anything but the living form of Kathleen O’Hara.  She had shaded the light from what she supposed to be the sleeping girl, and got into bed herself feeling tired and sulky.  She had dropped asleep immediately.

Kathleen’s first step, therefore, towards the formation of a secret society in the Great Shirley School was marked with success.  The idea which she had formulated in the old quarry spread like wildfire amongst the foundationers; but Kathleen was determined not to have another meeting for nearly a week.  She wished to hear from her father; she wanted to have money in hand.

“They are all poor,” she thought.  “If I appear just as poor as they are, I shall never be able to keep my exalted position as queen.  We cannot have our next meeting until I have drawn up the rules, and I should like Ruth Craven to help me.  She has got sense.  I don’t want the thing to be riotous, nor to do harm in any way.  I just want us to have a bit of fun, and to teach the horrid paying girls of the school a lesson.”

The thought of her secret society kept Kathleen in a fairly good humor, and she worked at her lessons so well that Alice began to have hopes of her.  About a week after her arrival at Myrtle Lodge the box which Aunt Katie O’Flynn was sending from Dublin arrived.  It came when the girls were at school.  When they returned to early dinner they saw it standing in the front hall.

“Whatever is this, and why is it put here?” said Alice, springing forward to look at the address: 

“Miss Kathleen O’Hara, care of Mrs. Tennant, Myrtle Lodge.”

“Golloptious!” cried Kathleen.  “It’s my own.  It’s my clothes—­my sort of a kind of a treasure.  Oh, what delicious fun!  Now you will see how smart I can be.  Maybe there will be something here to fit you, Alice.  Wouldn’t you like it?  We are going to tea to-night to Mrs. Weldon’s, and Ruth Craven is to be there.  The darling girl—­I will give her something.  I should love to make her look just as beautiful as she can look.  I am not a bit a stingy sort of girl; you know that, Alice.  I want to be quite generous with my lovely things.”

“Well, do stop talking,” said Alice.  “I never came across such an inveterate chatterbox.  I suppose you’d like to have the box taken up to our room; but I don’t think you’ll have any time to open it at present.  You have promised to come back with me to the school this afternoon, in order that Miss Spicer may give you a special lesson in music.”