a lift, he recognized first old Prue,
then Jabez and Kitty, and, best of all, Anna, and knew that his search
was ended?

CHAPTER XVI.

BANISHED.

Kitty was to be sent away to school. That was what that unlucky day had
done for Kitty. The fiat had gone forth, and there was no escape.

Aunt Pike had been very frightened indeed when she was summoned home,
and learned all about Anna's Helbarrow Tors experience, and found her
seriously ill with pneumonia as a result of it. She was very angry and
very indignant, and angry fright, or fright and anger combined, make the
worst form of anger as a rule.

"Kitty was responsible, and there could not possibly be any excuse for
her leaving the spot without her cousin," declared Mrs. Pike.
"Kitty knew that there were many ways amongst which she might get lost,
and how lonely it was, and she and Dan should have gone in search of
poor Anna, and not have left the place until they had found her or heard
for certain where she was. The idea of coming all the way home without
her, and with never a thought or a care as to what had become of her!
It was almost incredible!"

"I did think. I did care," pleaded Kitty. "Of course I thought she was
ahead of us. I never dreamed that she could have lost her way, or of
course I shouldn't have come home without looking for her."

"Then you should have dreamed, or have taken the trouble to find out.
In any case, you should not have left the spot without her."

"But we really thought she was ahead of us," repeated Kitty earnestly,
"and we hurried on to pick her up."

"_How_ could you overtake her or pick her up, when you were hurrying as
fast as you could away from her, leaving her alone, poor child, to
wander about that dreadful, dreadful place, in that awful storm in the
dead of night?" demanded Aunt Pike angrily.

"But--" began Kitty, then realized the hopelessness of trying to
explain, and said no more.

"For the future I shall always feel," said Aunt Pike severely, "that I
not only cannot trust you, Katherine, but that I can never know what
mischief you may be leading the younger ones into. I am sure they would
not be so wild if they hadn't you as a ringleader."

Kitty's cheeks flamed with indignation. _She_ could not be trusted!
_She_ led the others into mischief! Her eyes darkened with anger at the
injustice, for all the trouble had been caused by Anna deciding, in her
pig-headed way, that she knew a short cut home, a