"I won't to-night, I won't really, but it's wonderful that you don't like it. I wish you could see Aunt Honora and Aunt Bridget hug one another. Why, it's the noise they make when they get together, and the way they kiss! Oh, dear, I hope some day you'll come to Ireland."
"You don't tempt me by these descriptions," replied Bessie. "But now, Kitty, will you promise just to be a little quieter, to keep in all those irrepressible and--really I must say it, dear, at the risk of hurting you--those silly words."
"But then I'm silly myself," said Kitty. "Can you expect wisdom out of nonsense? I am pure and simple nonsense from first to last."
"But you do want to be something better? You do want to lead a good life?"
"A good life! I never thought there was anything bad in me."
"You don't want to learn, Kitty? Then what is the good of coming to Middleton School?"
"Listen," said Kitty. "I'll do anything for father. Father said I was to learn, and that I was to get manners. Now I think your manners are perfect. I'll model myself on you, dear; that I will. Will you teach me your manners, Bessie Challoner?"
"I won't, dear, I won't to-night; but when I meet you to-morrow you'll allow me just once?"
"It will, it will. It will enable me to bear Alice. I am not the sort to hate people; but I'll soon get to hate her. It's an awful affliction that I have got to live with the Denvers; not that Mrs. Denvers is bad, nor Mr. Denvers, poor dear, nor Fred, but Alice! I'd like to get Alice over to Ireland, to Castle Malone. I could punish her a bit if I put her into Laurie's hands. But there!"
"Well, Kitty, time is going," said Bessie. "It is a bargain that I help you to learn some of our English ways, and that you, in order to pay me, try to be gentle yourself, and to restrain some of your wild words."
"I'll try. I'll do my very, very best. You'll see when I get to Middleton School what a proper, respectable sort of girl I'll become."
"And you'll work hard too, won't you, Kitty? For I know it will do you a great deal of good, and I am sure you are very intelligent."
"Well, I can take in most things; only it's no end of a bother."
"I am certain you will succeed if you try," said Bessie. "Then it's a bargain, isn't it? You'll try to learn a great deal, and you will do your best to get better mannered?"