Three weeks after the school had recommenced, some time therefore in the first week in September, Mary Bateman, who had been bending for a long time over her desk with her hands pressed to her temples and her cheeks somewhat flushed, suddenly raised her eyes and encountered the fixed stare of Kitty Sharston.  Kitty had done her work and was leaning back in her chair.  Kitty's sweet pale face looked a little paler than usual.  She was expecting a letter from her father, and on the week when the letter was to arrive she always looked a little paler and a little more anxious than she did at other times.