ne side or the other, and nothing was really
further from her intention.

The next arrangement made--and this was an even greater blow to them
than the "banishment" of Dan--was that Kitty and Betty were to go as day
girls to school, instead of having Miss Pooley to the house.

The plan, being Aunt Pike's, would probably have been objected to in any
case; but to Kitty, with her shy dread of strangers--particularly girls
of her own age--the prospect was appalling, and she contemplated it with
a deep dread such as could not be understood by most girls.

Betty complained loudly, but soon found consolation. "At any rate," she
said, "we need not walk to school with Anna, and we needn't see as much
of her there as we should have to at home; and I think it will be rather
jolly to know a lot of girls."

"Do you?" sighed Kitty, looking at her sister with curious, wondering
eyes, and a feeling of awe. "I can't think so. I can't bear strange
girls." It seemed to her incredible that any one should _want_ to know
strangers, or could even contemplate doing so without horror.
She envied them, though, for being able to. "It must make one feel ever
so much more happy and comfortable," she thought, "to have nothing to be
afraid of." She would have given a very great deal not to feel shy and
embarrassed when with strangers, and to be able to think of something to
say to them. But she never could. Nothing that she had to say seemed
interesting or worth saying. Betty, with her self-confidence and fluent
tongue, was a constant source of admiration to Kitty.

"You will get on all right," she said, with another sigh; "but I was
never meant to go where there are other people."

"That is why you've got to go. It is good for you; I heard Aunt Pike
saying so to father. She said you were growing up shy and _gauche_.
I don't know what _gauche_ means; do you?"

"No," said Kitty, colouring. "I expect I ought to, and I expect it is
something dreadful; but if I am happier so, why can't I go on being
_gauche_?"

"Father said you were very shy, but he didn't think you were the other
thing--_gauche_."

"Did he?" cried poor Kitty, brightening; but her face soon fell again.
"Father doesn't notice things as quickly as some people do--Aunt Pike,
and Lady Kitson, and others; and I expect they are right. It is always
the disagreeable people and the disagreeable things that are right.
Did Aunt Pike say the same thing of you?"

"No; she sai