“I should think you had better go to bed and have some hot milk,” said Betty in her serious, old-fashioned way.

“Oh no.  I am all right, thank you,” said Anna, shrinking from the thought of her mother’s visits to her room, and her searching inquiries as to how she could possibly have got a cold.  “Do be quiet, Betty, and let me do my work.  You know it is nearly bedtime.”

“Well, you haven’t seemed in a hurry till now,” said Betty sharply.  “You haven’t been learning your lessons in your room, because I saw your bag and your books on your bed just now, and you hadn’t touched them then.”

“I do wish people wouldn’t always be prying after me,” said Anna angrily, and this time it was Kitty who looked guilty.

Supper was a very silent meal that night, and soon after it the three went to bed, scarcely another word having been spoken.

Kitty and Betty had been in bed an hour perhaps, and Betty was fast asleep, when Kitty, restless and sleepless with the new trouble she had on her mind, was surprised by the gentle opening of the door of the room.  Half alarmed, she rose up in bed, peering anxiously through the gloom.  Then—­“O Anna!” she cried, “what is the matter?  Are you ill?”

“No—­o, I don’t think I am, but I—­I am sure I shall be.  O Kitty, I am in such trouble.  I must tell some one.”

“I think I know what it is,” said Kitty gently.

“Oh no, you don’t,” groaned Anna.  “You can’t.  It is worse than copying my sums, or—­or cribbing, or anything.”

“I know,” said Kitty again.

But Anna did not hear her.  She was looking at Betty.  “Come to my room, do!” she said.  “Betty may wake up, and I don’t want her to hear.”

“Very well,” said Kitty, slipping out of bed and into her dressing-gown.  “I expect, though, she will have to know.  It is bound to reach all the girls.  I only wish it wasn’t.”

Anna, creeping back to her room, did not answer till she got there.  Then she turned round sharply.  “What do you mean?  Know what?” she demanded.

Kitty looked surprised.  “Why, about Lettice and—­and you, and those letters, of course.”

Anna dropped on to a chair, her face chalk-white, her eyes starting.  “Lettice and—­and—­and me—­and—­who told—­what do you mean?  I don’t understand.”

“Anna, don’t!” cried Kitty, ashamed and distressed.  “Don’t try to pretend.  There is no mistake, and every one must know soon about Lettice.  Whoever it was who nearly caught you made a mistake, for she thought it was me, and Miss Richards wrote to father accusing me, but, of course—­”

“Accusing you!” cried Anna in astonishment.  But her voice had changed.  It was less full of terror than it had been.  For a moment after Kitty ceased speaking she sat lost in thought.

“Of course father does not believe it, and he has written to tell Miss Richards so, and that I was at home all the evening, so there would have to be an inquiry of course, to try and find out which of the other girls it was, and everybody would have to know all about it; but now, when you tell Miss Richards that it was you, it needn’t go any farther.  Of course there will be a row, and probably you and Lettice will be punished, but no one else need ever hear anything more about it.”