CHAPTER XL.
KITTY.
Winter had come to our cold northern isles. The snow lay thick upon the ground, but a sharp frost had made it hard and crisp. It sparkled in a flood of brilliant sunshine; the air was fresh and exhilarating, the sky transparently blue. It was a pleasant day for walking, and one that Miss Kitty Heron seemed thoroughly to enjoy, as she trod the white carpet with which nature had provided the world.
She carried a little basket on her arm: a basket filled with good things for some children in a cottage not far from Strathleckie. The good things were of Elizabeth's providing; but Kitty acted as her almoner. Kitty was a very charming almoner, with her slight, graceful little figure and mignonne face set off by a great deal of brown fur and a dress of deep Indian red. The sharpness in the air brought a faint colour to her cheeks—Kitty was generally rather pale—and a new brightness to her pretty eyes. There was something delightfully bewitching about her: something provoking and coquettish: something of which Hugo Luttrell was pleasantly conscious as he came down the road to meet her and then walked for a little way at her side.
They did not say very much. There were a few ardent speeches from him, a vehement sort of love-making, which Kitty parried with a good deal of laughing adroitness, some saucy speeches from her which all the world might have heard, and then the cottage was reached.
"Let me go in with you," said Hugo.
"Certainly not. You would frighten the children."
"Am I so very terrible? Not to you; don't say that I frighten you."
"I should think not," said Kitty, with a little toss sideways of her dainty head. "I am frightened of nothing."
"I should think not. I should think that you were the bravest of women, as you are the most charming."