an empty room.

"I wonder if she's up to mischief?" she thought.

She got up and went to the window. Kathleen was walking across the
common. She had no hat on, and no jacket. She was stepping along
leisurely, looking up sometimes at the sky, and sometimes pausing as
though she was thinking hard.

"She will catch cold and be ill; that will be the next trouble," thought
the indignant Alice. She sleepily proceeded with her dressing. It was
only half-past seven. The Great Shirley School met at nine. Alice was
seldom downstairs until past eight. When she came down this morning she
saw, to her amazement, Kathleen helping the very untidy maid-of-all-work
to lay the breakfast things. She was dashing about, putting plates and
cups and saucers anyhow upon the board.

"Now then, Maria," she said, "shall I run down to the kitchen and bring
up the hot bacon and the porridge? I will, with a heart and a half. Oh,
you poor girl, how tired you look!"

Maria, whom Alice never noticed, looked with adoring eyes at beautiful
Kathleen.

"It isn't right, miss. I ought to be doing my own work," she said. "I am
ever so much obliged to you, miss."

"Wisha, then, it is I who like to help you," said Kathleen, "for you
look fair beat."

She dashed past Alice, and appeared the next moment in the kitchen.

"Where's the bacon, cook? And where's the bread, and where's the butter,
and all the rest of the breakfast? See, woman--see! Give me a tray and I
will fill it up and take the things upstairs with my own hands. You
think it is beneath me, perhaps; but I am a lady from a castle, and at
Carrigrohane Castle we often do this sort of thing when the hands of the
poor maids are full to overflowing."

The cook, a sandy-haired and sour-looking woman, began by scowling at
Kathleen; but soon the girl's pretty face and merry eyes appeased her.
She and Kathleen had almost a quarrel as to who was to carry up the
tray, but Kathleen won the day; and when Mrs. Tennant made her
appearance, feeling tired and overdone, she was amazed to see Kathleen
acting parlor-maid.

"I love it," she said. "If I can help you, you dear, tired, worn one, I
shall be only too glad."

"I am sure, mother," said Alice, "it is very good of Kathleen to wish to
do the household work; but as she has been sent here to gain some
information of another sort, do you think it ought to be allowed?"

"And who will prevent it, darling? That is the question," said Kathleen
in her soft