第83章 Chapter XXXIV. Mrs. Presty.(2)

Kitty was sent for. She entered the room looking unusually quiet and subdued--but, discovering Randal, became herself again in a moment, and jumped on his knee "Oh, Uncle Randal, I'm so glad to see you!" She checked herself, and looked at her mother. "May I call him Uncle Randal?" she asked. "Or has _he_ changed his name, too?"

Mrs. Presty shook a warning forefinger at her granddaughter, and reminded Kitty that she had been told not to talk about names.

Randal saw the child's look of bewilderment, and felt for her.

"She may talk as she pleases to me," he said "but not to strangers. She understands that, I am sure."

Kitty laid her cheek fondly against her uncle's cheek.

"Everything is changed," she whispered. "We travel about; papa has left us, and Syd has left us, and we have got a new name. We are Norman now. I wish I was grown up, and old enough to understand it."

Randal tried to reconcile her to her own happy ignorance. "You have got your dear good mother," he said, "and you have got me, and you have got your toys--"

"And some nice boys and girls to play with," cried Kitty, eagerly following the new suggestion. "They are all coming here directly to dine with me. You will stay and have dinner too, won't you?"

Randal promised to dine with Kitty when they met in London.

Before he left the room he pointed to his card on the table. "Let my friend see that message," he said, as he went out.

The moment the door had closed on him, Mrs. Presty startled her daughter by taking up the card and looking at what Randal had written on it. "It isn't a letter, Catherine; and you know how superior I am to common prejudices." With that defense of her proceeding, she coolly read the message:

"I am sorry to say that I can tell you nothing more of your old friend's daughter as yet. I can only repeat that she neither needs nor deserves the help that you kindly offer to her."

Mrs. Presty laid the card down again and owned that she wished Randal had been a little more explicit. "Who can it be?" she wondered. "Another young hussy gone wrong?"

Kitty turned to her mother with a look of alarm. "What's a hussy?" she asked. "Does grandmamma mean me?" The great hotel clock in the hall struck two, and the child's anxieties took a new direction. "Isn't it time my little friends came to see me?" she said.

It was half an hour past the time. Catherine proposed to send to Lady Myrie and Mrs. Romsey, and inquire if anything had happened to cause the delay. As she told Kitty to ring the bell, the waiter came in with two letters, addressed to Mrs. Norman.

Mrs. Presty had her own ideas, and drew her own conclusions. She watched Catherine attentively. Even Kitty observed that her mother's face grew paler and paler as she read the letters. "You look as if you were frightened, mamma." There was no reply. Kitty began to feel so uneasy on the subject of her dinner and her guests, that she actually ventured on putting a question to her grandmother.

"Will they be long, do you think, before they come?" she asked.

Th e old lady's worldly wisdom had passed, by this time from a state of suspicion to a state of certainty. "My child," she answered, "they won't come at all."

Kitty ran to her mother, eager to inquire if what Mrs. Presty had told her could possibly be true. Before a word had passed her lips, she shrank back, too frightened to speak.

Never, in her little experience, had she been startled by such a look in her mother's face as the look that confronted her now.

For the first time Catherine saw her child trembling at the sight of her. Before that discovery, the emotions that shook her under the insult which she had received lost their hold. She caught Kitty up in her arms. "My darling, my angel, it isn't you I am thinking of. I love you!--I love you! In the whole world there isn't such a good child, such a sweet, lovable, pretty child as you are. Oh, how disappointed she looks--she's crying. Don't break my heart!--don't cry!" Kitty held up her head, and cleared her eyes with a dash of her hand. "I won't cry, mamma." And child as she was, she was as good as her word. Her mother looked at her and burst into tears.

Perversely reluctant, the better nature that was in Mrs. Presty rose to the surface, forced to show itself. "Cry, Catherine," she said kindly; "it will do you good. Leave the child to me."

With a gentleness that astonished Kitty, she led her little granddaughter to the window, and pointed to the public walk in front of the house. "I know what will comfort you," the wise old woman began; "look out of the window." Kitty obeyed.

"I don't see my little friends coming," she said. Mrs. Presty still pointed to some object on the public walk. "That's better than nothing, isn't it?" she persisted. "Come with me to the maid; she shall go with you, and take care of you." Kitty whispered, "May I give mamma a kiss first?" Sensible Mrs. Presty delayed the kiss for a while. "Wait till you come back, and then you can tell your mamma what a treat you have had." Arrived at the door on their way out, Kitty whispered again: "I want to say something"--"Well, what is it?"--"Will you tell the donkey-boy to make him gallop?"--"I'll tell the boy he shall have sixpence if you are satisfied; and you will see what he does then." Kitty looked up earnestly in her grandmother's face. "What a pity it is you are not always like what you are now!" she said. Mrs. Presty actually blushed.