Kitty Trenire

Kitty Trenire, by Mabel
Quiller-Couch

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Title: Kitty Trenire
Author: Mabel Quiller-Couch
Release Date: November 9, 2004 [eBook #13992]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KITTY
TRENIRE***
E-text prepared by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer. The
source was a Sunday-school prize presented in 1920 to Lily Richardson
by the United Methodist Church, Regent Street, Stockton.

KITTY TRENIRE

by
MABEL QUILLER-COUCH

CONTENTS.
I. Fate and a Rusty Nail.
II. The News, and how they received it.
III. A Drive and a Slice of Cake.
IV. Storms at Home and Abroad
V. In Wenmere Woods.
VI. Tea at the Farm.
VII. The "Rover" takes them Home.
VIII. A Bad Beginning.
IX. The Coming of Anna.
X. Lessons, Alarms, and Warnings.
XI. Poor Kitty!
XII. Those Dreadful Stockings.
XIII. An Exciting Night.
XIV. Mokus and Carrots
XV. Missing!
XVI. Banished.

XVII. "Good in Everything".
XVIII. Threatening Clouds.
XIX. Betty's Escapade.
XX. Kitty's Hands are Full.
XXI. The Last.
CHAPTER I.
FATE AND A RUSTY NAIL.
On such an afternoon, when all the rest of the world lay in the fierce
glare of the scorching sun, who could blame the children for choosing
to perch themselves on the old garden wall, where it was so cool, and
shady, and enticing? And who, as Kitty often asked tragically in the
days and weeks that followed, could have known that by doing so "they
were altering their fates for ever"?
The four of them talked a great deal in those days of their "fates;" it
sounded so mysterious and grand, and so interesting too, for, of course,
no one could know what lay in store for them all, and the most
wonderful and surprising events might happen. They did happen to
some people, and why not to them?
"I am quite sure something will happen to me some day," said Betty,
with a very wise and serious look.
"I shouldn't be surprised," said Dan with mock seriousness, "if
something did."
"I mean something wonderful, of course," added Betty. "Don't," with a
superior air, "be silly, Dan. Things must happen to somebody, or there
would never be any."
Later that same day they realized for the first time that small events

could be interesting and important too, and that while they were
thinking of their "fates" as something to be spun and woven in the
mysterious future, the shuttle was already flying fast.
As I said before, the old wall was particularly cool and
tempting-looking that sunny afternoon, for the high, untrimmed laurel
hedge on the other side of the path behind them threw a deep broad
shadow over the flat top of it, and shade was what one appreciated most
on that hot day. All the ground in Gorlay sloped, for Gorlay was built
on two hills, while the gardens of all the houses on either side sloped
either up or down another and a steeper hill. Dr. Trenire's house was on
the left-hand side of the street, as one walked up it, and it was the steep
slope up of the garden behind it that made the old wall so fascinating.
To reach the garden from the house one had to pass through a cobbled
yard, with the back wing of the house and a stable on one side of it, and
a coach-house and another stable on the other. The garden and the
garden wall were at the end. From the yard the wall ran up to a good
height--to the children it seemed immense, as high as the tower of
Babel, though were they to go back now and look at it I dare say they
would find it quite insignificant, for walls have a curious way of
decreasing an inch or two with every year one grows older.
To the children, though, its two chief charms were that it had a broad
flat top on which one could sit and dangle one's legs over the abyss
below, and that from the garden it was so low that by just walking over
a flower-bed one could step right on to it, while from that eminence one
could command a view of the back door, the side door, the stables, and
all that went on in the yard. So that, in addition to being cool and shady,
it really was a most attractive and alluring spot.
A vine with a wealth of pretty leaves and long graceful tendrils covered
the front of the stable