Kitty Trenire | Page 5

that the doctor himself looked
worried, and sad, and careworn.
The pity of it was that Kitty did not try to learn even the very simplest
things in housekeeping, and in that lay the root of the trouble and the
cause of all that followed. Though when four wild young spirits, that
have been bottled up and corked down for years, suddenly find
themselves free and able to do what they like when they like, without
having to render an account to any one, it would be rather wonderful if
they did settle down and become quite staid and steady all at once.
Kitty it was, though, who was most at fault. She had begged to be
allowed to manage the house, and, having got her wish, she just seized
the advantages and revelled in the freedom, but ignored the
responsibilities; and no one was more acutely aware of this fact than
was Kitty herself during the next half-hour, when their father talked so
gravely to them all in the schoolroom.
"I have been thinking a great deal," he said, as he dropped wearily into
the roomy old chair by the fireplace--the chair where their mother used
to sit and tell them stories, and hear them say their prayers before they
went to bed. "I have thought over the whole situation, as well as my
tired brain will let me, and I have come to the conclusion that for all
our sakes I must get some one to come and look after us."
"O father!" gasped Kitty in utter dismay. She had never thought that
anything as dreadful as this could happen.
"Evidently the management of the house and all of us is beyond Kitty,"
went on Dr. Trenire; "and that is not to be wondered at. We are a large
family on the whole, and a doctor's house is not an ordinary one, and it
is not surprising that everything should have got into a state of muddle
and confusion."

Kitty felt, but could not say, that she had never really tried to manage it;
that as long as things had gone on without any open fiasco, and they
had been able to enjoy themselves, and the servants had not been
bad-tempered, she had been quite content. She could not make that
confession now, and if she had it would not have done any good.
"The house must be orderly and well managed, the meals properly
arranged and served, and the servants kept in order, and I should be
very culpable if I did not see that it was so," went on her father slowly.
"So, after much thought and hesitation, for I am very reluctant to admit
even a comparative stranger into our midst again, I feel that the only
thing to be done is to write to your dear mother's cousin, Mrs. Pike, and
ask her to come and make her home with us. She once offered to, and I
think now, if she is still willing, it will be well to accept her kind offer."
A stifled cry of dismay broke from the four shocked listeners--a cry
they could not repress. "Aunt Pike!" Aunt Pike, of all people, to come
to live with them! Oh, it was too dreadful! It could not be--they could
never bear it! She had stayed with them once for a fortnight, and it
might have been a year from the impression it had left on their
memories. When she had left they had had a thanksgiving service in the
nursery, and Betty--solemn Betty--had prayed aloud, "From Aunt Pike,
pestilence, and famine, please deliver us."
And now this dreaded aunt was to be asked to come again--not for a
fortnight only, but for many fortnights; and not as a guest, but as head
and mistress of them all, to manage them, to order them about, to make
them do as she chose. Oh, it was overwhelming, appalling, too
appalling to be true!
"But there is Anna!" gasped Kitty.
"I know," said Dr. Trenire, who really felt nearly as bad about it as did
his children. "Anna will live here too, probably. Of course we could not
expect her mother to leave her."
This was the hardest blow, the final drop of bitterness their cup could
hold, the last straw on four overburthened camels.

"But we all hate Anna," said Betty with slow, deliberate emphasis; "and
we shall hate her more if she is here always, wanting to play with us,
and go about with us, and--and--"
"Betty, those remarks are unworthy of you," said her father gravely.
"But they are quite true, daddy," said Tony solemnly, "and we've got to
speak the truth and shame the devil. Jabez told us so."
Dr. Trenire did not feel able or inclined to argue the point then.