na did, sitting primly at the square table in the playroom.

Anna learnt her lessons by repeating them half aloud, and making a
hissing noise through her teeth all the time. The sound alone drove
Kitty nearly distracted, while the sitting up so primly to the table
seemed to destroy all her interest in the lesson and her power of
concentrating her mind on the study in hand.

"I can't learn in this way, Aunt Pike," she pleaded earnestly; "I can't
get on a bit. I dare say it is silly of me, but my own way doesn't do
any one any harm, and I can learn my lessons in half the time, and
remember them better."

"Katherine, do not argue with me, but do as I tell you. It is the right
way for a young lady to sit to her studies, and it will strengthen not
only your back-bone, but your character as well. You are sadly
undisciplined."

So Kitty, irritated, sore, and chafing, struggled on once more with her
lessons. But to get her work done she had, after all, to take her books
to bed with her, and there, far into the night, and early in the
morning, she struggled bravely not only to learn, but to learn how to
learn, which is one of the greatest difficulties of all to those who
have grown up drinking in their knowledge not according to school
methods.

Nothing but her determination not to let Anna outstrip her could have
made her persevere as she did at this time, and she got on well until
Anna, whether consciously or unconsciously she alone knew, interfered to
stop her.

"Mother! mother!" Anna in a straight, plain dressing-gown, her hair in
two long plaits down her back, tapped softly in the dead of night at her
mother's door, and in a blood-curdling whisper called her name through
the keyhole.

Mrs. Pike roused and alarmed, flew at once at her daughter's summons.
"What is the matter? Are you ill? I thought you were drinking rather
much lemonade. Jump into my bed, and I will--"

"No, it isn't me, mother, I am all right; it's--it's the girls. I saw a
light shining under their door, and I was so frightened. Do you think
it's a fire?"

Considering the awfulness of that which she feared, Anna was curiously
deliberate and calm. It did not seem to have struck her that her wisest
course would have been to have first rushed in and roused her cousins,
and have given them at least a chance of escape from burning or
suffocation. Now, too, instead of running with her mother to their
help, she crept into the bed and lay dow