Meanwhile the Major and Kitty went away by themselves. As soon as Kitty had hugged her father, one close, passionate, voiceless hug, she released him, stepped back a pace, looked him in the face, and then said eagerly, "Come away quickly, father; there is a meadow at the back of the cherry orchard which we can have quite to ourselves. Come at once. Did Mrs. Clavering send you out here? How good of her to let me see you alone!" "She does not even know that I have come, Kitty," replied her father. "I met a girl--I don't know what her name is--just as I reached the porch, and she took me to you. I cannot stay very long, my love, as I must get back to Chatham to-night." "All right," said Kitty; "let us make for the meadow; there is a big oak-tree and we can sit under it and no one need see us. We must be alone all, all during the time that you are here." The Major said nothing. Kitty linked her hand through his arm. She was feeling wildly excited--her father and she were together. It might be an hour, or it might be two hours, that they were to spend together, but the time was only beginning now. They were together, and she felt all the warm glow of love, all the ecstasy of perfect happiness in their reunion. They reached the oak-tree in the meadow, the Major sat down, and Kitty threw herself by his side. "Well, Kitty," he said, "what is this that I hear? I read your letter; it is quite a wonderful letter, little girl. It was the sort of letter a brave girl would write." "The sort of letter a girl would write whose father was a hero before Sebastopol," said Kitty. "What has put that in you head, my darling?" "Sir John Wallis spoke of it. Oh, father dear, won't you go and see Sir John Wallis--he is so nice and so kind? You were both heroes before Sebastopol, were you not, father dearest, you and he?" "We were in the trenches and we suffered a good bit," said the Major, a grim smile on his face, "but those are bygone times, Kitty." "All the same they are times that can never be forgotten while English history lasts," said Kitty with a proud sparkle in her eyes. "Well, no, little girl, I don't suppose England will ever forget the men who fought for her," replied the Major; "but we won't waste time talking on these matters now, my child; we have much else to say." "What, father?" "Well, your letter for instance; and you greatly dislike going to stay with Helen Dartmoor?" Kitty's face turned pale; she had been rosy up to now. The roses faded out of her cheeks, then her lips turned white, and the brightness left her eyes. "I should hate it," she said; "there are no other words." "And you think there is just an off chance that you may win this wonderful Scholarship?" "I mean to have the biggest try a girl ever had, and you know your Kitty," replied the girl. "Yes, I know my brave, brave Kitty, the girl who has clung to her father through thick and thin, who has always tried to please him, who has a spirit of her own."