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might apply a clever woman' has always been to me a terrible sort of being. But at that time I had not formed any conception of such a being, and only knew that Miss La Mort meant to praise my mother.

CHAPTER V.

THE girl that was next to me in age was far from me in other things. In play time, however, we were always together; whenever I could do so I got away from the great young ladies who scorned her, to sit close to poor little Kathleen O'More in her lower form.

Her name was a curious one, and its frequent repetition rendered it more so. Miss O'More or Miss Kathleen O'More, with a marked emphasis on the Christian name, were often heard in the great saloon, as Miss La Mort styled our schoolroom. There were degrees of comparison in her displeasure against poor Kathleen, but the displeasure always existed.

The child was a half-boarder-that was all any one seemed to know about her; and whenever the biliousness, to which, perhaps, all teachers are more or less liable, was active in Miss La Mort's temperament, poor Kathleen formed a sort of safety valve, which allowed the machine to continue its course without risk of an explosion.

"Miss Kathleen O'More, I beg you will be so good as not to walk with your arms hanging down by your sides."

The next time the shivering girl had to traverse the formidably long apartment, she folded her arms before her.

Then, when she crossed the black inlaid table would be heard the voice again-" Miss O'More, I must request you will be so good as not to walk your arms folded."

with

her arms.

Kathleen's eyes were as much in the way as She never knew, as she said, where to put them. They were provokingly large and very blue; but her face was so pale that they seemed out of character with it, and designed rather for some rosy-cheeked, laughing, and lighthearted girl when these great eyes were cast

down, as indeed they usually were, she was entreated not to look on the ground, and when they were raised, Miss La Mort begged her to be so good as not to stare.

Kathleen was indeed the scape-goat of our whole school, and the recipient of all the irascibility which certainly was rarely, if ever, vented upon others. Her hair was as troublesome as her eyes and arms. Mine was allowed to fall about as it pleased, but neither nature nor art could ever arrange hers to Miss La Mort's mind. It was of a twilight hue, that hair, but looked as if the setting sun still gleamed through its twilight. At one time she had put up this hair too tightly; at another she was requested not to allow her hair to fall about so carelessly.

In our confidences one day, Kathleen informed me that I was quite a favourite with Miss La Mort; the teachers knew it for a certainty.

"And are you too?" I asked.

"Me! O! I am only a half boarder-but your father has a very large property, and they say you are so pretty."

This speech hurt me deeply. "I am then a

favourite because my father has a large property," I thought to myself; I did not utter it; but the remark, united to all the wonderful things our old refugee tutor used to tell, of the utility of being able to do for ourselves, of the strange reverses his compatriots had gone through, and of Madame Genli's mode of bringing up her royal pupils, confirmed in my mind the desire to be poor

so poor, that, as that old Frenchman used to forewarn us, I might be forced to live by my head or hands, and even to help to support others. As to what a half boarder was I had but a dim idea but knowing that being a boarder meant eating, drinking, and sleeping at school, I wisely conjectured that poor, pale Kathleen O'More was only allowed to eat and drink half as much as the other pupils. My portion of stale bread, and sour milk and water-for school fare at that period was not very elaborate-was not more than enough for myself, but I was thinking how I could manage to share some of it with Kathleen, when the thought also struck me that a half boarder might mean something different from my interpretation of the phrase. I asked her what it was, and she explained it.

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