, the youngest, who had arrived two years after Beth, being
left to follow with their mother. The elder children had been sent to
England to be educated. In their father's absence Mildred and
Bernadine were transferred to their mother's room, Jane Nettles and
Bridget, the sulky, had disappeared, and Kitty slept in the nursery
with Beth. Beth had grown too long for her crib, but still had to
sleep in it, and her legs were cramped at night and often ached
because she could not stretch them out, and the pain kept her awake.

"Mamma, my legs do ache in bed," she said one day.

"Beth, you really _are_ a whiny child, you always have a grievance,"
her mother complained.

"But, mamma, they _do_ ache."

"Well, it's only growing pains," Mrs. Caldwell replied with a satisfied
air, as if to name the trouble were to ease it. And so Beth's legs ached
on unrelieved, and, when they kept her awake, Kitty became the object of
her contemplation. The sides of the crib were like the seat of a
cane-bottomed chair, and Beth had enlarged one of the holes by fidgeting
at it with her fingers. This was her look-out station. A night-light had
been conceded to her nervousness at the instance of Dr. Gottley, when it
became a regular thing for her to wake in the dark out of one of her
vivid dreams, and shriek because she could not see where she was. The
usual beating and shaking had been tried to cure her of her nonsense,
but this sensible treatment only seemed to make her worse, she was such
a tiresome child, till at last, when Dr. Gottley threatened serious
consequences, the light was allowed, a dim little float that burned on
an inch of oil in a glass of water, and made Kitty look so funny when
she came up to bed. Kitty began to undress, and at the same time to
mutter her prayers, as soon as she got into the room; and sometimes she
would go down on her knees and beat her breast, and sigh and groan to
the Blessed Virgin, beseeching her to help her. Beth thought at first
she was in great distress, and pitied her, but after a time she believed
that Kitty was enjoying herself, perhaps because she also had begun to
enjoy these exercises. Beth had been taught to say her Protestant
prayers, but not made to feel that she was addressing them to any
particular personality that appealed to her imagination, as Kitty's
Blessed Lady did.

"Kitty, Kitty," she cried one night, sitting up in her crib, with a
great dry sob. "Tell _me_ how to do it. I want to s