use with mamma?" she asked.

"Don't ask me, dear," was all that Sydney could say. Kitty drew the
inevitable conclusion: "Have you and mamma quarreled?"

"Oh, no!"

"Then come indoors with me."

"Wait a little, Kitty, and tell me something about yourself. How do you
get on with your lessons?"

"You dear foolish governess, do you expect me to learn my lessons, when
I haven't got you to teach me? Where have you been all this long while?
_I_ wouldn't have gone away and left _you!_" She paused; her eager eyes
studied Sydney's face with the unrestrained curiosity of a child. "Is it
the moonlight that makes you look pale and wretched?" she said. "Or are
you really unhappy? Tell me, Syd, do you ever sing any of those songs
that I taught you, when you first came to us?"

"Never, dear!"

"Have you anybody to go out walking with you and running races with you,
as I did?"

"No, my sweet! Those days have gone by forever."

Kitty laid her head sadly on Sydney's bosom. "It's not the moonlight,"
she said; "shall I tell you a secret? Sometimes I am not happy either.
Poor papa is dead. He always liked you--I'm sure you are sorry for him."

Astonishment held Sydney speechless. Before she could ask who had
so cruelly deceived the child, and for what purpose, the nursemaid,
standing behind the chair, warned her to be silent by a touch.

"I think we are all unhappy now," Kitty went on, still following her own
little train of thought. "Mamma isn't like what she used to be. And even
my nice Captain hasn't a word to say to me. He wouldn't come back with
us; he said he would go back by himself."

Another allusion which took Sydney by surprise! She asked who the
Captain was. Kitty started as if the question shocked her. "Oh dear,
dear, this is what comes of your going away and leaving us! You don't
know Captain Bennydeck."

The name of her father's correspondent! The name which she vaguely
remembered to have heard in her childhood! "Where did you first meet
with him?" she inquired.

"At the seaside, dear!"

"Do you mean at Sandyseal?"

"Yes. Mamma liked him--and grandmamma liked him (which is
wonderful)--and I gave him a kiss. Promise me not to tell! My nice
Captain is going to be my new papa."

Was there any possible connection between what Kitty had just said, and
what the poor child had been deluded into believing when she spoke of
her father? Even Susan seemed to be in the secret of this strange second
marriage! She int