第74章 Chapter XXX. The Lord President.(3)

"Grandmamma came in. She told mamma to keep up her spirits. She says, 'It will all be over in a few hours more.' She says, 'What a burden it will be off your mind!' She says, 'Is that child asleep?' And mamma says, 'Yes.' And grandmamma took one of mamma's towels. And I thought she was going to wash herself. What would _you_ have thought?"

Mr. Sarrazin began to doubt whether he would do well to discuss Mrs. Presty's object in taking the towel. He only said, "Go on."

"Grandmamma dipped it into the water-jug," Kitty continued, with a grave face; "but she didn't wash herself. She went to one of mamma's boxes. Though she's so old, she's awfully strong, I can tell you. She rubbed off the luggage-label in no time. Mamma says, 'What are you doing that for?' And grandmamma says--this is the dreadful thing that I want you to explain; oh, I can remember it all; it's like learning lessons, only much nicer--grandmamma says, 'Before the day's over, the name on your boxes will be your name no longer.'"

Mr. Sarrazin now became aware of the labyrinth into which his young friend had innocently led him. The Divorce, and the wife's inevitable return (when the husband was no longer the husband) to her maiden name--these were the subjects on which Kitty's desire for enlightenment applied to the wisest person within her reach, her mother's legal adviser.

Mr. Sarrazin tried to put her off his knee. She held him round the neck. He thought of the railway as a promising excuse, and told her he must go back to London. She held him a little tighter. "I really can't wait, my dear;" he got up as he said it.

Kitty hung on to him with her legs as well as her arms, and finding the position uncomfortable, lost her temper. "Mamma's going to have a new name," she shouted, as if the lawyer had suddenly become deaf. "Grandmamma says she must be Mrs. Norman.

And I must be Miss Norman. I won't! Where's papa? I want to write to him; I know he won't allow it. Do you hear? Where's papa?"

She fastened her little hands on Mr. Sarrazin's coat collar and tried to shake him, in a fury of resolution to know what it all meant. At that critical moment Mrs. Presty opened the door, and stood petrified on the threshold.

"Hanging on to Mr. Sarrazin with her arms _and_ her legs!" exclaimed the old lady. "You little wretch, which are you, a monkey or a child?"

The lawyer gently deposited Kitty on the floor.

"Mind this, Samuel," she whispered, as he set her down on her feet, "I won't be Miss Norman."

Mrs. Presty pointed sternly at the open door. "You were screaming just now, when quiet in the house is of the utmost importance to your mother. If I hear you again, bread and water and no doll for the rest of the week."

Kitty retired in disgrace, and Mrs. Presty sharpened her tongue on Mr. Sarrazin next. "I'm astonished, sir, at your allowing that impudent grandchild of mine to take such liberties with you. Who would suppose that you were a married man, with children of your own?"

"That's just the reason, my dear madam," Mr. Sarrazin smartly replied. "I romp with my own children--why not with Kitty? Can I do anything for you in London?" he went on, getting a little nearer to the door; "I leave Edinburgh by the next train. And I promise you," he added, with the spirit of mischief twinkling in his eyes, "this shall be my last confidential interview with your grandchild. When she wants to ask any more questions, I transfer her to you."

Mrs. Presty looked after the retreating lawyer thoroughly mystified. What "confidential interview"? What "questions"? After some consideration, her experience of her granddaughter suggested that a little exercise of mercy might be attended with the right result. She looked at a cake on the sideboard. "I have only to forgive Kitty," she decided, "and the child will talk about it of her own acc ord."