"Now, will you have them?" she said. "Ah, do now, just to please me, Kitty Malone; they came all the way from Old Ireland this morning. Stay, I'll pin them into the front of your dress. Hold easy a moment dear woman, and you'll have as neat a little bunch as ever you clapped your two eyes on." Miss Sherrard could not help once again letting that ghost of a smile play round her lips, and then vanish. "But really," she said--"oh, thank you for the roses; yes, they are very sweet; yes, delicious! She bent her head and sniffed quite audibly. "Ah, then, aren't they refreshing, and aren't they melting the anger down in your heart? Say they are now--say they are. You see you never had an out-and-out wild Irish girl to manage before. Well, and what is it you want with me? I'll be as civil as you please, and as willing to listen to the words of wisdom, if only you'll let me first tell my own story." "It is only fair that you should be allowed to tell your own tale," said Miss Sherrard; "but please understand that I am very angry. Miss Worrick's story has amazed me. Do you know. Kitty Malone, of what you are accused?" "Well, I do, and I don't; but I should like to hear the crime spoken of by your pretty lips. What is it? Something black of course; black things are always laid to the door of Kitty Malone." "The crime, Miss Malone, is the very grave sin of disobedience. You must know that in a great school of this kind, if there were not perfect obedience there would be no order at all." "True for you, it looks like it; but then, as far as I can see--and I have watched all the girls pretty closely of late--I am the only black sheep. Now, I should think that one black sheep in a great big orderly place of this kind would make a sort of diversion. You would all be after her, and joking at her, and thinking which of you could get her under control. Well, I am the black sheep, and I suppose I am sorry." "Don't talk any more, Kitty; listen to me." "Yes; what is it?" "You have been disobedient; you were very inattentive over your history lesson, not knowing it at all. Miss Worrick says, as a matter of fact, you did not even trouble to open your book, and when the time came for you to go through your lesson you were not able to answer a single question. For this extreme carelessness she desired you to stay in the schoolroom during morning recess. She said you pleaded hard that she would excuse you, not liking to take the punishment which you richly deserved; but Miss Worrick, very justly insisted on her word being obeyed. What then, was her astonishment to see you in the playground walking calmly up and down with Gwin Harley." "Yes, dear; and what else could you expect?" answered Kitty. "What else could I expect? I don't understand."