Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/514

472 ing, Maudie says—and I stole along the halls to Kittie's room. If you have ever stolen along the wide halls of a great convent at half after five on a March morning, you will remember that it is not much fun. They are icy cold, and very dark, with little blinks of light very far apart; and they are so horribly, horribly still! I felt very noble, but kind of sorry I had promised to do it every morning.

When I got to Kittie's room she was awake, and quite cross. She said she had been awake all night waiting for me and that she didn't feel well. I thought the best thing to do was to divert her mind, so I opened the rhetoric right off and started in. I love rhetoric, so when I had really begun I enjoyed it, but, alas! it was different with Kittie. You can believe she learned her lesson, just the same. I told her the whole of the first three chapters, and then I made her tell it to me, and I asked questions, and kept at her till she knew it as well as I did, for I was very stern. And I did the same with the Latin. When the hour was up we were both tired out, but, as I remarked to Kittie, it was a worthy cause, and there was no doubt she knew more about rhetoric and Latin than she had ever known before. Kittie said that was true, and she added eagerly that she thought she knew 'most all there was now, and could learn the few remaining items by herself, but I checked her with a glance. A General's daughter never takes her hand from the plough after she has got it there. I said that to Mabel Blossom, later in the day, and she said she guessed Kittie was going to be the plough, all right.

I could see that my example had inspired Mabel, for she hardly gave Kittie time to eat her lunch before she started her on the constitution. It was right after this, I think, that Kittie changed her mind about its being fun. When Mabel Muriel and Maudie saw how noble we had been, a look of grim determination settled on their brows, and they went at Kittie that night and fed her with history and algebra the way folks feed Strasburg geese to fatten their livers. I read about that once, and it is very interesting. You take very rich and fattening food, and a great deal of it—but perhaps I'd better not tell that here, because it is not really part of the story, and I might get it mixed up with Kittie. I will only add that the people who feed the geese keep on feeding and feeding them, and that was indeed the way Maudie and Mabel Muriel and Mabel Blossom and I fed Kittie James with knowledge. We are all very conscientious girls, and we did it thoroughly. I went right to bed at eight o'clock every night, I was so tired, and I did not sleep very well, for of course I remembered I would have to be up by five the next morning. It was a troubled slumber, and I kept thinking it was five long before it was. When I got to Kittie's room the second morning at half after five, she gave me one look and turned her face to the wall and sobbed. She said it was so sweet of me to come, and she had kind of thought perhaps I wouldn't. She little knew about me and the plough.

Kittie was not a heroine. Mabel Blossom says she was the innocent victim, but I thought it sounded better to call her The Worthy Cause, so we did. The Worthy Cause made it pretty hard for us sometimes. She acted queer and almost ungrateful, and she telegraphed for her family to send for her, but they didn't; and she even got sick and went to the Infirmary for two days. But as soon as she came out we each gave her an extra half-hour—I went to her at five in the morning, and the others stayed later at night—till the lost time was made up. Kittie didn't go to the Infirmary again after that, for she saw clearly that she had no time to be ill, as we pointed out to her. She really did get thin and pale, though, and we were quite worried over her; but of course we remembered it was all for her good, which she kept forgetting, so we remained firm. Once she locked her door when Maudie and Mabel Muriel came, but they stayed till twelve the next night and made that up, too—the brave, dauntless souls!

The Sisters did not know anything about all this, and they kept wondering what was the matter with Kittie. They thought, I guess, that her disposition was being warped some way, but it was only that she was imbibing knowledge. Finally Kittie telegraphed to her sister Josephine, and Josephine came right off