erfered with a sharp reproof. "You mustn't talk in that
way, Miss Kitty. Please put her off your lap, Miss Westerfield; we have
been here too long already."

Kitty proposed a compromise; "I'll go," she said, "if Syd will come with
me."

"I'm sorry, my darling, to disappoint you."

Kitty refused to believe it. "You couldn't disappoint me if you tried,"
she said boldly.

"Indeed, indeed, I must go away. Oh, Kitty, try to bear it as I do!"

Entreaties were useless; the child refused to hear of another parting.
"I want to make you and mamma friends again. Don't break my heart,
Sydney! Come home with me, and teach me, and play with me, and love me!"

She pulled desperately at Sydney's dress; she called to Susan to help
her. With tears in her eyes, the girl did her best to help them both.
"Miss Westerfield will wait here," she said to Kitty, "while you speak
to your mamma.--Say Yes!" she whispered to Sydney; "it's our only
chance."

The child instantly exacted a promise. In the earnestness of her love
she even dictated the words. "Say it after me, as I used to say my
lessons," she insisted. "Say, 'Kitty, I promise to wait for you.'"

Who that loved her could have refused to say it! In one form or another,
the horrid necessity for deceit had followed, and was still following,
that first, worst act of falsehood--the elopement from Mount Morven.

Kitty was now as eager to go as she had been hitherto resolute to
remain. She called for Susan to follow her, and ran to the hotel.

"My mistress won't let her come back--you can leave the garden that
way." The maid pointed along the path to the left and hurried after the
child.

They were gone--and Sydney was alone again.

At the parting with Kitty, the measure of her endurance was full. Not
even the farewell at Mount Morven had tried her by an ordeal so cruel as
this. No kind woman was willing to receive her and employ her, now. The
one creature left who loved her was the faithful little friend whom
she must never see again. "I am still innocent to that child," she
thought--"and I am parted from her forever!"

She rose to leave the garden.

A farewell look at the last place in which she had seen Kitty tempted
her to indulge in a moment of delay. Her eyes rested on the turn in the
path at which she had lost sight of the active little figure hastening
away to plead her cause. Even in absence, the child was Sydney's good
angel still. As she turned away to follow the path