Over some of the girls of the Great Shirley School there passed that morning a curious wave of excitement.  Those girls who had joined Kathleen’s society were almost now more or less in a state of tension.  Once a week they were to meet in the quarry; once a week, whatever the weather, in the dead of night, they were to meet in this sequestered spot.  They knew well that if they were discovered they would run a very great chance of being expelled from the school; for although they were day scholars, yet integrity of conduct was essential to their maintaining their place in that great school which gave them so liberal an education, in some cases without any fees, in all other cases with very small ones.  One of the great ideas of the school was to encourage brave actions, unselfish deeds, nobility of mind.  Those girls who possessed any talent or any specially strong characteristic had every chance offered to them in the Great Shirley School; their futures were more or less assured, for the governors of the school had powers to give grants to the clever girls, to award scholarships for which all might compete, and to encourage industry, honesty, and charitable ideas as far as possible.

Kathleen, when she entered the school and started her society, had not the slightest idea that, while she was trying to help the foundationers, she was really leading them into very grave mischief.  But several of the foundationers themselves knew this; nevertheless the fun of the whole thing, the particular fascination which Kathleen herself exercised over her followers, kept them her undeniable slaves, and not for the world would any of them have left her now that they had sworn fealty to her cause.  So Kathleen had thought when she left the house that morning; but as she entered the school she knew that one girl, and that the girl whom she most cared for, had decided to choose the thorny path which led far from Kathleen and her company.

“In addition to everything else, she is quite mean,” thought the little girl, and during that morning’s lessons she occupied herself far more in flashing angry glances in the direction of Ruth one minute, and at Cassandra the next, than in attending to what she was about.  Kathleen had been given much by Nature.  Her father was a very rich man; she had been brought up with great freedom, but also with certain bold liberal ideas as regards the best in life and conduct.  She was a very beautiful girl, and she was warm-hearted and amiable.  As for her talents, she had a certain charm which does more for a woman than any amount of ordinary ability; and she had a passionate and great love for music.  Kathleen’s musical genius was already spoken of with much approbation by the rest of the school.  The girls used to ask her to improvise.  Kathleen could improvise in almost any style, in almost any fashion.  She could make the piano sob with her heart-rendering notes; and again she could bring forth music clear and fairy-like.  Again she would lead the tender and solemn strains of the march; and again she would dance over the keys so lightly, so ravishingly, that the girls kept time with their feet to her notes.  The music mistress was anxious that Kathleen should try for a musical scholarship, and she had some ideas of doing so herself.  But to-day she felt cross, and even her music was at fault.