ft 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