Part 6 (2/2)
Tony was in bed, and Betty was in her room. She listened more closely, and nearly dropped the tray in her astonishment, for the voice she heard was her father's, and she had never before known him go to their rooms to talk to them.
For a moment her heart sank with dread. Was he still angry? Was he scolding poor Dan again? he could hardly think so, for it was so unlike him to be harsh or severe with any of them.
Then, as the voice reached her again, though she caught only the tone of it, and not a word that was said, she knew that all was right, and with a sudden lightening of her heart, and a sense of happiness, she quietly crept away to her own room. All the time she was undressing she listened alertly for the sound of her father's footsteps, but she had been in bed some time before they pa.s.sed down the corridor. ”They must be having a nice long talk,” she thought, as she lay listening, in a state of happy drowsiness; and she was almost in the land of Nod when a sudden thought turned her happiness to dismay, and drove all sleep from her.
”Oh!” she cried, springing up in her bed, ”oh, how stupid of me!
How perfectly dreadfully stupid of me!”
”Whatever is the matter?” demanded Betty crossly. ”I was just beginning a most beautiful dream, and now you have sent it right away.”
”Never mind your dream,” groaned Kitty. ”That's nothing compared with that letter. I did mean to get him to write it to-night, and I would have posted it, so that it could reach almost as soon as the other, and--and I _never_ did it, I never even asked him to write it, and now the post has gone, and--”
”Whatever are you talking about?” interrupted Betty impatiently.
”Why, the letter to Aunt Pike, of course. I was going to coax father to write another letter to her to-night, to say it was all a mistake, that we didn't want her, and--”
”Oh, that's all right,” answered Betty coolly. ”Don't worry. I have written to Aunt Pike and told her all that, and I posted it myself to make sure of its going. She will get it almost as soon as she gets--”
”Betty, you haven't?”
”Yes, I have,” said Betty quietly. ”Why not? I am sure it was best to.
f.a.n.n.y wouldn't live with her, I know, and Jabez said it would be more than his life was worth, and you know father hates changing servants, so I wrote and told her exactly all about it. I wrote quite plainly, and I think she will understand.”
”O Betty, you shouldn't have. What _will_ father say?”
”Father will be very glad, I think. He hates writing letters himself.”
”Um--m!” commented Kitty dubiously, but said no more, for at that moment Dan's door was opened, and she heard her father's steps pa.s.s lightly along the corridor.
A few moments later she slipped out of bed and carried Dan's tray to his room, but she did not go in with it. Her instinct told her that he would rather she did not just then; so, laying it on the floor, she tapped lightly at his door, told him what was there, and crept back to bed again.
”What a day it has been,” she thought to herself as she nestled down under the cool sheet. ”Yet it began like all the others. I wonder how all will end. Perhaps it won't be so bad after all. I hope that Betty's letter won't do more harm than good. I shouldn't be at all surprised, though, if it made Aunt Pike make up her mind to come. But I'll try not to think about it,” and turning over on her pillow, Kitty had soon forgotten Aunt Pike, Anna, torn braid, orange cake, and Lady Kitson, and was once again driving dear old Prue across the moor with the storm beating and roaring about them, only this time it was a dreamland moor and a dreamland storm.
CHAPTER V.
IN WENMERE WOODS.
”I could not think, for the moment,” said Kitty, sitting up in bed and clasping her knees, ”why I woke with a feeling that something dreadful had happened. Of course it is Aunt Pike that is on my mind.
”She needn't be, then,” said Betty, stretching herself luxuriously in her little bed. ”My letter will settle all that worry.”
”Um!” remarked Kitty thoughtfully, with none of the confidence shown by her young sister. ”If your letter doesn't make her come by the very first train, it will only be because she missed it. I shouldn't be at all surprised to see her walk in, and Anna too.”
”You don't _really_ think she will?” Betty, struck by something in Kitty's voice, had stopped stretching herself, and looked across at her sister. ”Kitty, you don't really mean that? Oh no, of course you don't; she couldn't really come to-day, she would have lots to do first--packing and saying 'good-byes.'”
”I should think she hadn't a friend to say 'good-bye' to,” said Kitty naughtily. ”Any way, I am not going to worry about her. If she doesn't come--oh, it'll be perfectly lovely; and if she does--well, we will get all the fun we can beforehand, and after, too, of course; but we will try and have some jolly times first, won't we? What shall we do to-day?
I wonder if Dan has planned anything.”
What Dan's plan might be was really the important point, for according to him the others, as a rule, shaped their day.
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