"All very well," grumbled Mr. Thorold; "but you'll be brought home on a stretcher some day, Kit. You're too venturesome by far. What became of the child?"
"Oh, it wasn't a child; it was a collie pup."
"I thought you said 'fellow-creature,'" remarked her father plaintively.
"All dogs are my fellow-creatures," declared Kitty simply.
"I am a credulous as well as a sinfully indulgent parent," said Mr. Thorold, stepping back to view his sketch; "but I don't believe a word of your story."
"'Documentary evidence was instantly forthcoming,'" retorted Kitty, extending a tiny paw with a card inserted delicately between her fingers.
Her father took it, read aloud: "Lady Hawborough, 209, Belgrave Square," and then emitted a low whistle.
"My word, Kitty, you've gone and done it!" he said. "If this is _the_ Lady Hawborough--and Nature, with all her audacity, cannot have made two of them--you've run up against a celebrity of the deepest dye."
"Oh?" said Kitty. "Never heard of her. What's she celebrated for?"
"For good works--which means, in most cases, a disposition and a capacity for interfering in the affairs of other people. And her ladyship is one of the biggest and most incorrigible interferers in this crank of a world of ours. She is immensely rich; she is also 'powerful,' as the novelists say; she is a tyrant to her relations, a terror to her friends, and a well-meaning, charitable bugbear to the world in general."
"Oh!" said Kitty, somewhat dismayed. "But how is it you are so intimately acquainted with the history and characteristics of this lady of lofty rank and goodly oof?"
"My dear Kitty, 'oof' is not nearly such a good word as 'wealth.'"
_Painted for Princess Mary's Gift Book by E. J. Detmold_]
"Maybe, but it's easier to pronounce," retorted Kitty.
"Oh, I don't know," said Mr. Thorold, as if he were weary of the subject. "Heard some one at the Club talking about her; seen her name in the papers. Take my advice and don't call. She'll enlist you in one of her gangs of workers, hustle you into a hospital as a nurse, make you into a district visitor, or turn you a lecturer on vegetarianism or some other fad."
"Oh no, she won't," said Kitty, with sublime confidence; "not that I should object to being a nurse--that is, if I hadn't already to look after an aged and infirm parent. Yes; much as I value your advice, Dad, I think I'll call. I'll go to-morrow; and if I come back, say, in a Salvation Army kit, and banging a tambourine--and, mind you! I might do worse: I've a whole-hearted admiration for the S.A. and the uniform is distinctly fetching--you can indulge in the exquisite pleasure of exclaiming, 'I told you so!' What are you on this morning, Dad?" she asked, going to him, putting her arm round his neck, and giving him a little hug.