Part 4 (2/2)

”Are you glad?”

”No. Are you?”

”I don't care. I wonder how long she will stay. I know Mother said a week, but I dare say she'll ask her to stay longer as she did last year.”

”Well, I know she'll be tiresome, and I shall be glad when she goes away.”

”I'm going to sleep now.”

”Oh, Martha, how soon you always do go to sleep! I'm not a bit sleepy yet.”

A snore from the other little bed soon showed Betty that further talk was hopeless. She would have liked to chatter longer, but Martha had a way of falling asleep at the most interesting points, and Betty knew it would be useless to try and rouse her now.

So she resigned herself to her own thoughts with a sigh. Kitty was coming to-morrow! Coming before Martha and she had had any enjoyment of their country life together, for the children had only just left London.

Coming to spoil all their plans and games with her tiresome ways, just as she had done last year. Of course she would insist on being first in everything, on ruling everyone, and would be as pus.h.i.+ng and disagreeable as possible. It was all very well to say that she was a visitor and must do as she wished, but that did not make it any the less provoking.

And then Martha took it all so quietly. It was almost impossible to rouse her to be angry, and that was annoying too in its way. ”I suppose,” thought Betty, very sleepily now, ”that I ought to try to be patient too, but sometimes I really _can't_.” She fell asleep here, and dreamed that Kitty was an immense ”daddy-long-legs” flapping and buzzing about in her hair.

The next afternoon Kitty arrived, full of excitement, and ready to be more than delighted with everything.

She was eleven years old, just Martha's age, and Betty was two years younger. Fresh from her life in London, where there always were so many lessons to be learned and so little ”fun” of any kind, this beautiful country home was a sort of paradise to her. To have no one to scold her, no lessons to learn, no tiresome straight walks with her governess, and above all, to have two playfellows always ready to join in pleasures and games! Kitty was an only child, and her life was often dull for want of companions.h.i.+p. Everything went on very well at first, for there was so much to do and see that there was no time for disputes. True, Kitty commanded as much as ever, and had a way of setting people to rights which was distinctly trying; but she and Betty did not come to any open disagreement until she had been at Holmwood for nearly a week.

Nevertheless there had been many small occasions on which Betty had felt fretted and irritated; for Kitty, without the least intending it, seemed often to choose just the wrong thing to say and do.

And then she always wished to do _exactly_ the same as Martha and herself, and that was _so_ tiresome.

For instance, all the children were very fond of dear Miss Grey. But now it was always Kitty who must sit next to her, Kitty who rushed to supply her with roses to wear and strawberries to eat, Kitty who kissed her repeatedly at the most awkward moments. Martha and Betty, who naturally felt that Miss Grey was their _own dear_ Miss Grey, could hardly get near her at all, and Betty resented this very much. In fact, she gradually got to dwell so entirely on these annoyances that she could not think of Kitty's good qualities at all, and was quite unable to remember that she was generous and affectionate, and that her faults, though tiresome, were partly the result of a longing to be loved.

At last, the clouds having gathered, the storm came.

One morning, almost as soon as she got up, Betty felt that every single thing Kitty did or said was silly. It did not occur to her that perhaps she was a little bit cross herself, which was the real explanation.

After breakfast they all three went down to the pond, and, dividing the water into shares, began to fish for frogs and newts.

”In a minute,” said Betty to herself as she watched Kitty, ”she'll say Martha and I have the best places.”

It happened just so.

”I say,” said Kitty, throwing down her net and coming close up to Betty, ”I've got the worst place of all, there's nothing to catch in this part!”

”You haven't tried long enough,” said Martha.

”Let's change,” was Kitty's next suggestion as she stood looking eagerly over Betty's shoulder.

”All right,” said Betty moodily, and she went round to the part of the pond Kitty had left, where she almost immediately caught two tadpoles and a newt.

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