Kitty Trenire Part 28

"GOOD IN EVERYTHING."

Betty's satisfaction, though, ended with the day. "I am never happy one day but what I've _got_ to be unhappy the next," she said plaintively to her father the following evening, when telling him her woes.

"You might put it another way," he said, smiling, "and say you are never very unhappy one day but what you are very happy the next."

Betty shook her head gravely. "But I am not," she said. "I can't be _sure_ I am going to be happy, but I can be that I am going to be unhappy, and sometimes it lasts for ever so long."

"You poor little suffering martyr," said Dr. Trenire, "what is wrong now?"

"It's my stockings," said Betty solemnly.

"Whatever is wrong with your stockings? Stand still, child, can't you, and tell me."

"No," said Betty, "I can't, my legs itch so. I am sure I shall be crazy before long. I _almost_ wish I'd been sent away to school too, then I could give them away, as Kitty has."

"Given away what?--her legs? What made Kitty do it, and what is wrong with the stockings? Are they new, that they have only just begun to irritate you?"

"No, they aren't new, but--well, you see, I've only just been found out."

"What _do_ you mean?"

"Well, you see, Aunt Pike would make us wear these ugly, woolly, itchy things, and "--Betty's voice waxed indignant--"she wouldn't believe us when we said we couldn't, and so--well, I thought of it first--we wore our black cotton ones under these, and then we didn't feel them."

"I see," said Dr. Trenire, a smile beginning to twinkle in his eyes.

"And you were not found out?"

"Not till to-day," with a triumphant air; "but to-day there was a hole in the gray ones, and I didn't know it; but Aunt Pike saw the black showing through, and she screamed out, 'Elizabeth, _what_ has happened to your leg?' And oh! I did jump so; and then I looked, and there was a great black spot, and everybody was looking and laughing. It was--oh, it was dretful, and Aunt Pike was _so_ angry, she made me go home and take off the black ones; and now she has taken all my cotton ones away, and--and I've _got_ to wear these, and it's--it's _awful_, it really is, daddy," and poor Betty's eyes grew pink with tears.

"I know," said her father sympathetically. "I suffer in the same way myself. Don't cry, child; it will be all right. I will explain to your aunt."

But Betty had borne much that day, and the tears, at least a few, had to come. "She said if Tony can bear it, I can; but Tony doesn't mind, he doesn't feel it; he says, though, he would never have said he didn't if he had known it would make it harder for me and Kitty."

"Loyal Tony!" laughed Dr. Trenire. "I like his spirit. Well, don't fret about it any more; you shall have some others. I think, though, that we will have some other colour; they aren't very pretty, are they?"

"Pretty!" cried Betty; "they are _'trocious_. No one else would have worn them. I'll take them off now; shall I, father?"

"Hadn't you better wait till you have some others to put on?"

"Oh no, thank you. f.a.n.n.y wouldn't take long getting me some. If you will give her some money, she won't be more than a few minutes.

I'll wrap my feet up in two shawls for the time."

"I see there is to be no time wasted," said Dr. Trenire. "You are a business-like young person, Betty."

"Yes," said Betty, with satisfaction. "You see, I can't do anything until I have them; and if they are going to be bought, they may as well be bought quickly."

"Your logic is admirable; but, dear, why didn't you speak to me about it before? It would have been much better than pretending to obey your aunt all these weeks, and deceiving her."

Betty looked ashamed. To have the word "deceive" used about herself without any glossing of it over made her feel very small and mean.

"We did think of it, father," she said earnestly; "but Kitty said she didn't want to seem to be always complaining about Aunt Pike."

"I see," said Dr. Trenire quietly, and he gazed for a moment gravely into the fire before he left the room.

Betty never knew what pa.s.sed between her father and her aunt; but she heard no more about the gray stockings, and she wrote off delightedly to Kitty to tell her all about it.

Kitty was out when the letter came. It was the day on which the girls were taken for an afternoon's shopping or sight-seeing.

"I really must get some presents to take home to them all," she had said quite seriously to Pamela in the morning.

Pamela laughed. "There are eleven more weeks to do it in," she said.

But Kitty covered her ears. "Don't, don't," she cried--"just when I have been telling myself that time is flying, and that I haven't many more chances."

"Well, you haven't _many_," laughed Pamela. "Of course we don't go every week. I think you are wise, though, to get your things while you have the money, and if you see things later that you like better you mustn't mind."

"I shall keep my eyes turned away from the shops," said Kitty. "Now be quiet, Pamela, while I make my list."

"Mine is ready," said Pamela, with something between a laugh and a sigh, and she held up a blank sheet.

"Haven't you any one to get anything for?" said Kitty sympathetically, sorry At once that she had talked so much about herself. "Poor Pamela!"

"Only Miss Hammond," said Pamela. "We generally give her some flowers-- most of us do, at least. Rhoda Collins doesn't; she says it seems such a waste of money, as flowers fade so soon. I suggested one day that she should give Miss Hammond a cake instead, as that at any rate was useful."

"And did she?"

"No; she said one couldn't get anything very nice for a penny."

Kitty t.i.ttered. "Flowers for Miss Hammond," she wrote on her list.

"What do you give to Miss Pidsley?"

"Miss Pidsley!" Pamela looked surprised at her question. "Oh, nothing.

You see, Miss Hammond goes with us, and--and--well, we all like her; but Miss Pidsley--I don't know why, but I think we never thought of giving her anything. I should be afraid to."

The shopping was really great fun; the girls swarmed about the counters and wandered about the shops, going into raptures over this thing and hesitating about buying that thing, until it really seemed as though all the purchases never would be made. Yet by degrees they somehow acquired a great many curious possessions.

Kitty bought a nice pocket-book for her father, a little brooch for Betty, a book for Tony, and a penknife for Anna; but it took so long to decide on these that she left her presents for the servants to get another day, for she still had to buy her flowers for Miss Hammond, and teatime was fast approaching. The flower-shop was perhaps the most fascinating of all; the cut flowers, the ferns, and the plants in the pots were perfectly bewildering in their beauty. Kitty was in raptures, and almost wished she had bought flowers to take home to them all, instead of the things she had got.

"Father would simply love that fern," she cried, "and Betty would go wild over that little white basket with the ferns and hyacinths in it.

O Pamela, I do so want it for her! I want them all!"

Pamela had not lost her head as Kitty had. "Well, the hyacinths will have faded long before you go home, Kitty, and the brooch is easier to pack."

Kitty laughed somewhat shamefacedly. Her eye was already caught by a lovely little flowering rose-bush in a pot. "I must buy that," she said with determination, "and I am going to."

"For Miss Hammond? Oh, how nice! Stupid me had never thought of a plant for her. I always get cut flowers for her room."

"It isn't for Miss Hammond," said Kitty rather shyly; "I have bought violets for her. I think I will take the rose back to Miss Pidsley."