Wild Kitty Part 20

Kitty gazed at her mistress very earnestly.

"What is it I am good in?" she asked after a pause. "Is it my English?

Bless you, they tell me it's awfully Irish."

"It certainly is, Kitty."

"Then, I don't know any music, although I can sing and whistle. Oh, I can whistle anything. There's not an air that Laurie plays (it's he that has the genius for music, bless the boy)--but there's not an air he plays that I can't whistle it right up and down, and with variations too."

"Yes, my dear, yes; but I was not thinking of this special talent. Now, let me tell you something that you have got."

"What? Please speak."

"You have plenty of money."

"I never thought that was a talent," cried Kitty.

"I should think it a very great and responsible talent. You have been given that money to do something for G.o.d. He wants you to use it for Him. Then, also, you have a very bright, attractive, loving manner."

"Oh, I feel every word I say. It's not manner," said Kitty. "You don't suppose I'm a hypocrite, do you?"

"No, I think on the contrary you are very sincere. We will now admit that you have got two talents; you have got money and you have got a pleasant manner. I think also that you have got a third, and I may be able to prove to you that you have got a fourth."

"Dear me, this is most entertaining!" exclaimed Kitty. "So I have really got two talents, and you think I have more. What is the third?"

"I don't wish to make you vain; but you have--yes, I must tell you--a remarkably pretty face."

"Ah, now, what a darling you are! I always thought you were sweet. What part of me do you admire most, the eyes or the mouth? I have the real Irish eyes I know--gentian-blue, yes, that's the color--and my eyelashes--aren't they long?"

"We need not discuss your beauty piece by piece," said Miss Sherrard.

"You are pretty, and I am willing to admit it. Now, a bright face like yours, with an attractive manner, is a gift. Then, besides, you have--you will be astonished when I say this--lots of becoming dress, which adds to the charm of your appearance. Kitty, if you were all you might be--if you would use that money which G.o.d has given you, that beauty which G.o.d has given you, that attractive manner which G.o.d has given you, all for His service--why, you could do a great deal in the world. You could make it a better place, a brighter place, a happier place. Now, my dear child, your father has trusted you to me. He wrote to me a great deal about you before you came to Middleton School----"

"Dear old dad!" cried Kitty.

"He loves you with all his heart."

"I should think so, the darling blessed man--may the saints preserve him!"

"As your father feels so strongly about you, and as I promised him to do what I could for his child, will you help me, Kitty? Will you remember that you are equipped for the battle of life much more bravely, much more strongly than most of the other girls in Middleton School? Use your beauty for Him, dear; use your attractive manner for Him."

"You make me feel very solemn," said Kitty. She rose. "I will try and think about it," she said. "I wish I was not quite such a giddypate; but I'll try and think about it."

Miss Sherrard kissed her.

"And now I want you to do something more," she said. "You won't be able to be a better girl than you were in the past if you don't pray to G.o.d to help you; and when you pray, Kitty, ask Him to teach you to restrain your feelings a little, not to let them all rush to the surface, to keep a little back. Thus you will gain strength of character, and--and be all the better for it, my child."

"You are very good to me," said Kitty. "I don't mind what I do for those I love. I suppose now you would wish me to learn my lessons perfectly every day?"

"I certainly should."

"And to--to turn poor little Agnes Moore from the head of her cla.s.s?"

"Well, Kitty, I cannot say anything about that. II you do better work than Agnes Moore you will get to the head of the cla.s.s and she will go down; but I doubt your being able to do so, for Agnes is a very clever and a very diligent little pupil. But I want you, dear, soon to get out of that cla.s.s, for it is a great deal too young for you. I want you to be with girls of your own age. We are yet one month to the end of the term. By the end of term I want to be able to tell you that you have got a remove. And now, dear, good-by. Remember, I shall watch you, and--yes, I shall pray for you."

"You are very good to me," repeated Kitty; and she walked out of Miss Sherrard's presence with her head lowered, and a mist before her eyes.

For the next few days Kitty was strangely thoughtful. She did not speak nearly so much as usual, she felt inclined to go away by herself, and she was much puzzled about her talents. Miss Sherrard's words had made quite a deep impression. She learned her lessons with care, and had every chance, so her teachers told her, of a remove at the end of term.

Even Alice found less to say against her. Kitty began to look on her school life as something roseate and delightful; but all these things were to come to a speedy end.

On a certain afternoon she got home to find Alice out and Mrs. Denvers seated in the drawing-room with a great basket of mending before her.

"Oh, what a lot of work! Would you like me to help you?" said Kitty.

"Very much, dear; but what kept you so late? Oh, here is a letter for you."

"A letter!" cried Kitty eagerly. "Oh, it is from Laurie. Hurrah!

hurrah!"

She forgot all about her offer to help Mrs. Denvers with her darning, tossed the letter in the air two or three times, and then sank down on the nearest ottoman to read it. These were the words on which her eyes rested:

"DEAR OLD KITTERKINS: I have got into the greatest bother of a mess that ever a.s.sailed a poor gossoon, and if you can't help me, old girleen, well, I shall be done brown, as the saying is. The whole matter concerns Paddy Wheel-about. The poor creature has been getting queerer and queerer lately, and father has been ever so much worried about him. I didn't know a word of this, mind you, at the time, but learnt it afterwards; and it makes my bit of a frolic all the blacker, I can tell you. Father got Dr. Milligan to go and see Paddy in his cabin at the top of Sleeve Nohr, and the doctor said that the poor old boy was going off his head as fast as he could, and we must be careful not to give him any shock. Well, but to come to my part of it. You know that coat of his, and what diversion we have had out of it from time to time? You made one of the patches yourself, don't you remember, Kitty? We always told him that in each patch he had concealed a sovereign. Well, hot as the days are, he has been wearing that coat, and a figure of fun he did look. The Mahoney boys and Pat and I thought we would take a rise out of him; so one night when he was asleep we stole up to his lair and got hold of the precious coat. We bundled it up and were off with it. We had to cross the lake, in the old boat with a hole in the bottom, in order to get home in time, and what do you think happened? Up came a squall, the boat was upset, and Paddy's coat sank to the bottom of the lake. We swam to the sh.o.r.e and thought it would be an easy matter to fish up the old coat on the following morning; but although we dragged and dragged, and Pat and I both dived down to the bottom a good dozen of times, the coat had sunk in the deep mud and we could not find it, no nor a sign of it.

Well, of course, our one hope was that no one should know; but what was our horror to be confronted by no less a person than Wheel-about himself. You know that craze he has about never speaking. Well, he spoke to us and pretty sharp too, and told us he knew we had taken the coat, and didn't he look thunders and daggers at us, and we funked it so awfully--yes, I will confess it, Kits, your brave Laurie funked it like anything--for Wheel-about did really look like a roadman; at last there was no help for it--we had to out with the truth. Oh, didn't he raise a yell louder than anything you ever heard, and then I told him that if I could not get back the coat I would give him ten pounds for certain by Sat.u.r.day next. He said if I did he would lie quiet for a bit and not tell the governor, so I want you like a blessed girleen to lend me the money. Send it off the very instant you read this; for if you don't the saints alone know what will happen. We are certain to be sent to a school in England, at least I am. From what you tell me, Kitterkins, of that place, I should think it would break our hearts to smithereens. Now look sharp and send the money. Your loving brother,

"LAURIE."

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Kitty starting to her feet. "Do you mind my going out at once, Mrs. Denvers?"

"Certainly not, my love. Tea will be ready at five o'clock. Are you going far?"

"Only to Elma Lewis' house. I want to see her; it is awfully important."

"But Elma lives quite two miles from here."

"Oh, that does not matter. I am sure to find my way. It is most urgent,"

said Kitty.

She rushed out of the room, pinned on her hat, and a moment later was walking down the street as fast as she could go. She crossed a field and a common, and after a time got into that part of the town where Elma lived. By dint of asking half a dozen children and three or four policemen she at last reached Constantine Road, and presently found the right house. She ran up the steps and sounded a rattling rat-tat on the knocker. The moment she did so a girl with a mop of untidy red hair peeped up at her from the area below.

"Come and open the door at once," called Kitty. "Why do you keep a lady waiting?"

The girl soon appeared, tying on her cap and ap.r.o.n as she did so.

"I thought as they was all out for the day," she began, "--Oh, miss, I beg your pardon."

Kitty, notwithstanding her rather rude words, presented a very charming spectacle as she stood on the steps. She was dressed not only in the height of the fas.h.i.+on, but wore such a perfectly captivating little toque at the back of her head as to fire the fancy and take the little wit which she possessed out of Mrs. Lewis' maid-of-all-work.

Maggie had never seen anything so captivating nor so ravis.h.i.+ng. A wild desire to make a toque like it to put on her own towzled locks on the following Sunday caused her to stare so hard at Kitty with her mouth wide open that she did not hear a word that young lady was saying.

"Are you in a dream?" asked Kitty Malone. "I want to see Miss Elma Lewis. Is she at home?"