Then there was the walk home through the busy streets again, where the shops were all brilliantly lighted now, making everything look very gay and cheerful.  Kitty felt the exhilaration of it tingling in her blood as she stepped along through the strange scenes which, in her eyes, were so exciting and gay and full of interest.

When they reached home and the others all flew off to their rooms, Kitty stood for a moment hesitating; then, with a little added flush on her cheeks, she walked along the hall to Miss Pidsley’s private room and knocked.  There was a moment’s silence, then “Come in,” said Miss Pidsley in a voice that was not exactly encouraging, for it was that of a person who had reached the limits of her patience.

Kitty almost wished she had not come.  She seemed to be doing such a dreadful thing by interrupting, and suddenly her pretty rose looked very poor and insignificant; but there was no drawing back now, so she opened the door and went in.  Miss Pidsley looked up very sharply.

“Oh, surely, Katherine,” she began, when she saw who it was, “it is not time for your music lesson yet?” Then she noticed that Kitty had on her hat, and had evidently only just come in.

“Oh no, Miss Pidsley,” said Kitty, “there is an our yet before that.  I hope I haven’t interrupted you.  I brought you home a little rose-tree, which I hope—­I—­I thought you might like it,” and she put the beautiful, cheery-looking little crimson rambler down on the table beside her.

Miss Pidsley looked completely surprised, but quite pleased.  “How kind of you, Katherine—­how very kind of you to think of me,” she said, and Katherine noticed that her voice sounded strangely.  Then her head dropped on her hand, and she gave a deep, deep sigh.  “Oh,” she exclaimed, and the words seemed to be forced from her, “I am so worried, and oh! so tired, so tired.”  Then she looked up again with almost an embarrassed air.  “I am afraid I spoke sharply when you knocked.  I feared it might be Jane again, and after the scene I have had with her I really do not want to see her for some time yet.  She has quarrelled with the house-maid, and both have given me notice; and what to do I don’t know, just at the beginning of term and all.”  Miss Pidsley talked on as though she really could not keep her troubles to herself any longer.  “It has been a most trying scene; they upset me dreadfully, they were so violent.”

Had any one else in the house heard the usually reserved headmistress talking so unreservedly they would have gasped with astonishment.  But Kitty was too full of sympathetic interest to think of anything else.  She had a little unconscious way of her own of winning confidence from the most unlikely of people, and poor Miss Pidsley, who was so weary, so overburthened with worries, so perplexed and altogether out of heart, could not refrain from pouring her troubles out to her; for, first of all, her sympathy, and, secondly, her little gift of the rose had carried her straight into Miss Pidsley’s lonely, aching heart.