"Talents! I thought talents meant genius. Now, I have always and always been told that I was a dunce of the dunces. It's not joking me you are, is it, Miss Sherrard?"
"No, Kitty; I am in very sober earnest. You have been sent to me to make something of you."
"Well, my dear woman, I am afraid you won't make much. The fact is, I am wild through and through. I come of a wild stock. I wish you could see us at home, and Laurie, and----"
"You must tell me about your home afterward," said Miss Sherrard. "But now I have something to say about yourself."
As she spoke, Miss Sherrard drew her cup of coffee to the side of the table, leaned back, and looked fixedly into the bright and lovely face of the girl who sat opposite her.
"You have read your Bible, have you not?" she said.
"My Bible!" cried Kitty. "Yes; I read it every day."
"Why, you don't suppose we are a lot of heathens at Castle Malone, do you, Miss Sherrard? Father has prayers every morning, and we all troop in, every one of us, into the big hall. Oh, I wish you could see the hall, and the pictures of my ancestors, and----"
"Afterward you shall tell me about them," interrupted Miss Sherrard. "So you do read your Bible every day. Then I dare say you happen to know the beautiful story, or rather parable, spoken by Christ himself about the talents?"
"Yes, I love that story; only I don't think it applies specially to me, for I have not got any."
"Have not you? Perhaps I can find that you have."
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."
"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."
"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 God. He wants you to use it for Him. Then, also, you have a very bright, attractive, loving manner."