mr. harley's library was a beautiful room. it was lined with books from floor to ceiling, and these books had been selected with the greatest care. standard works of all sorts and in three languages were to be found on certain bookshelves, also modern works, both poetry and prose, with some of the best novels of the day.
bessie challoner never envied rich people. she cared nothing whatever for fine dresses, nor for carriages and horses, nor for the luxurious life of the wealthy, but she did envy gwin harley the use of her father's library; and when she entered the room now, with that delicious faint smell of leather which all libraries possess, she sniffed first with ecstasy, and then climbing on the ladder secured the volume of the "encyclopædia" which she required, and seating herself at one of the center tables, was soon lost in the fascinations of her subject. after a time a little cough, very gentle, however, caused her to raise her head, and there standing before her was kitty malone.
kitty's long arms had dropped to her sides, and she had pushed back her masses of dark hair. there was a pathetic expression about her rosy lips, and tears trembled on her long eyelashes.
"why, what is it, kitty; what do you want?" asked bessie.
"ah, then it's good to hear you say that word, aroon," said kitty. "i want to sit near you. i won't speak, no, not a syllable. hush will be the only word with me, hush! hush! hush! you can go on with your beloved reading and i'll stay near you; that's all i require. why, then, it's just a shelter i need, and nothing more. read away, bessie, my honey, and i'll do nothing to interrupt you."
"but why have you left the others?" asked bessie.
"never mind, dear, now. i'll just sit quietly here, and contemplate you while you are studying."
bessie sighed impatiently. she then bent again over her book, and began to devour the pages. kitty watched her with marked interest.
"i wonder if it will be my fate to have to take up with literature in sober earnest," she said to herself, "i, who can never abide a book. oh, to be back again in the dear old place! i should not be a bit surprised if laurie is out fishing now, and pat with him. and oh, suppose they are bringing in the trout, and the creatures are leaping and struggling as they come to shore, and father is going round to feed the dogs—why, the thought is enough to madden me. oh, then, why did i ever leave home? i don't care that for books, nor for being clever nor for—how she works to be sure! how earnest she looks. she has got a very fine forehead, although it is miles too high. she ought to wear a fringe; it would improve her wonderfully. i will cut her hair some day if she will let me. i will cut it and curl it. i have got the dearest little jewel of a pair of curling tongs that ever was seen! aunt honora sent it to me in a box with a spirit lamp all complete when i got the rest of my things. i'll just exercise those little tongs on dear, nice bessie. i do wish she would not be so devoted to that book, she might talk. oh, i am lonely. i think i'll fidget a bit."
kitty moved her chair, creaking it ominously; but bessie had got to a most thrilling part of her subject, and kitty might have creaked the library down before she would have roused her companion's attention.
"now, if i sigh, perhaps that will do it," thought kitty. she opened her mouth and let some profound sighs come up from the depths of her heart; but they only depressed her still more, and had no effect whatever on bessie.
"i think i hate intellectual people," muttered the irish girl. she jumped to her feet.
"i must do something to rouse her or i shall go mad. she is the nicest of them all, much. i wish she would speak to me. why should i break my heart, and why should she simply go on devouring that stupid book? here, i know what i'll do. i'll just toss down one of the big volumes; it will make a clatter and she will have to look up. perhaps i'll let it drop just the tiniest bit in the world on the corner of her toe; that will finish her." here kitty laughed excitedly, pushed out her arm and knocked over a huge volume which certainly fell a good deal more than a tiny bit on poor bessie's foot.
"oh, kitty, what have you done?" cried bessie. "you have quite hurt me.
i wish you would not drop the books about."
"there, darling, i had to do it. pray forgive me," said kitty.
"you had to do it!" answered bessie. "do you mean that you did it on purpose?"
"why, then, yes, love—that's what i do mean exactly. i did it because i wanted you to talk to me, and you would think of nothing but that book."
"it is such a chance," answered bessie, "and i wanted to find out for myself all about that wonderful magnetic iron ore. you know it never loses its power, it is potent for hundreds and hundreds of years, and—"
"oh, don't tell me any more, or i'll lose my senses. dear bessie, what does magnetic iron ore matter. bessie, i'm awfully unhappy. every one is so unkind to me. promise you'll be my friend, won't you?"
bessie looked up, and then she saw something so touching in kitty's face that she closed her book with a reluctant sigh, to devote herself the next moment with all the sympathy she possessed to her companion.
"i am sure you are suffering, kitty, and i am sorry for you," she said.
"i'll fetch my hat and we'll go out for a little."
"oh, what a darling you are!" answered kitty.
a moment or two later the girls were walking across the beautifully-kept garden; they soon reached a shady path at the further end.
"and now, kitty," said bessie, "i mean to lecture you a little."
"anything in the world you like, darling. i'm quite agreeable. aunt honora and aunt bridget lecture me, and so does the dear old dad sometimes; but i always say when they have finished that it is like water on a duck's back—it rolls off without making the least bit of impression, and then they laugh and say that i am the queerest mixture they ever came across, and that they had best leave me to nature. but perhaps i'll listen to you, bessie."
"i wish you would," said bessie. "i am sure," she added, speaking with great earnestness, "that you are a very nice girl, kitty; but at the same time you are wild."
"oh, i pride myself on that," said kitty in her frankest of voices.
"but i wish you would not, kitty, for it really isn't nice."
"not nice! now what may you be meaning by that, aroon?"
"well, there is a sort of dignity which i think a really well brought-up girl ought to possess."
"oh, my! dignity is it?" said kitty. she stepped away from her companion, drew down her face to a ridiculous length, nearly closed her eyes, and folded her hands demurely across her breast.
"is that pleasing you, mavourneen?" she said. "is it dignified and sober enough poor kitty malone looks now?"
"oh, kitty, you will joke about everything."
kitty immediately changed her mood.
"no, i won't," she said. "i am really awfully obliged to you. you don't know what all this has been to me. father said i was growing too wild—yes, the darling dad did; he agrees with you down to the core of his heart, and he said i must go to england and be taught manners. but, bless you, they'll have a job. i told him so when i was going. i said, 'dad, it's the hearts of the teachers i'll be breaking;' and dad said, 'oh, no, you won't, kitty, aroon. you'll be a good girl, and you'll try to please your old dad and you'll come back a beautiful, perfect lady!' he said it with tears in his eyes, he did, the darling; and i promised, and down on my knees i went and asked god to help me. but, dear, it's like the froth of the sea-foam inside me, the fun and the mischief and the nonsense and the ways that you think queer; but, all the same, those ways delight the good folk at home. must i really give them up, bessie—must i?"
"to a certain extent," said bessie, "or you will have a lot of enemies here, kitty, and you won't be at all happy."
"how i wish i lived with you, bessie challoner. you're a broth of a girl, that you are. you have not taken a dislike to me just because of the fun bubbling up in my heart?"
"no, dear; on the contrary, i like you extremely."
"ah, you precious duck of a darling! it is a good squeeze you would like, if i gave it to you?"
"well, i am not very fond of being kissed; but if you must, kitty."
"i must, dear, i must, for the heart in me is full to the brim. now then, stand still, and i'll catch you up close to my heart. there! isn't that better?"
poor bessie gave some long-drawn breaths, for the firmness, in fact the ferocity, of kitty's embrace quite hurt her for a moment.
"there," said kitty, "that's the way we hug in old ireland. now i'm a sight better, and i'll let go. so you do like me, bessie?"
"yes, very much indeed, kitty, only—please don't do it again."
"i won't to-night, i won't really, but it's wonderful that you don't like it. i wish you could see aunt honora and aunt bridget hug one another. why, it's the noise they make when they get together, and the way they kiss! oh, dear, i hope some day you'll come to ireland."
"you don't tempt me by these descriptions," replied bessie. "but now, kitty, will you promise just to be a little quieter, to keep in all those irrepressible and—really i must say it, dear, at the risk of hurting you—those silly words."
"but then i'm silly myself," said kitty. "can you expect wisdom out of nonsense? i am pure and simple nonsense from first to last."
"but you do want to be something better? you do want to lead a good life?"
"a good life! i never thought there was anything bad in me."
"you want to learn for instance?"
"no; that i don't, darling."
"you don't want to learn, kitty? then what is the good of coming to
middleton school?"
"listen," said kitty. "i'll do anything for father. father said i was to learn, and that i was to get manners. now i think your manners are perfect. i'll model myself on you, dear; that i will. will you teach me your manners, bessie challoner?"
"i'll do all i can to help you, kitty."
"and you'll be my real faithful friend?"
"yes, only please not—"
"i won't, dear, i won't to-night; but when i meet you to-morrow you'll allow me just once?"
"well, if it will break you in."
"it will, it will. it will enable me to bear alice. i am not the sort to hate people; but i'll soon get to hate her. it's an awful affliction that i have got to live with the denvers; not that mrs. denvers is bad, nor mr. denvers, poor dear, nor fred, but alice! i'd like to get alice over to ireland, to castle malone. i could punish her a bit if i put her into laurie's hands. but there!"
"well, kitty, time is going," said bessie. "it is a bargain that i help you to learn some of our english ways, and that you, in order to pay me, try to be gentle yourself, and to restrain some of your wild words."
"i'll try. i'll do my very, very best. you'll see when i get to
middleton school what a proper, respectable sort of girl i'll become."
"and you'll work hard too, won't you, kitty? for i know it will do you a great deal of good, and i am sure you are very intelligent."
"well, i can take in most things; only it's no end of a bother."
"i am certain you will succeed if you try," said bessie. "then it's a bargain, isn't it? you'll try to learn a great deal, and you will do your best to get better mannered?"
"why, of course i will. i hate learning, and i don't want to be bothered with lessons: but there's nothing under the sun i wouldn't do for those i love; and i love father and i love you too, bessie challoner."
"they are calling us. we must go into the house," said bessie.
"do yield to me on one point," cried kitty.
"what is that?"
"let us go back to the house with our arms round each other's waists. it will show alice that we have come to an understanding. i don't care twopence about miss harley nor about that other girl—i don't remember her name; but i want alice to see us. why, it's mad with jealousy she'll be. come along, aroon. here's my arm firm round your waist; now let us dance up to the house."
"oh kitty, kitty, you are incorrigible!" cried poor bessie, and a feeling of despair certainly visited her at that moment.
