“I suppose you know,” she said, “that there was a prize for that veterans’ race this afternoon.”
“No,” I said, “I didn’t know, but I’m glad to hear it. I hope Miss Lane will enjoy the prize. She certainly deserves it.”
“The prize,” said Kitty, “is——”
To my surprise she mentioned a sum of money, quite a large sum.
“—To be paid,” said Kitty, “by the losers, and to go to the funds of Miss Lane’s Society for giving pleasure to poor children. The gardener and cook can’t pay, of course, being poor themselves. So you’ll have to pay it all.”
“I haven’t the money in my pocket,” I said. “Will it do if I send it to-morrow?”
Kitty graciously agreed to wait till the next day. I hardly expected that she would.
“By the way, Kitty,” I said, “if I’d won, and I very nearly did, would Miss Lane have paid me?”
“Of course not. Why should she? You haven’t got a society for showing kindness to the poor. There’d be no sense in giving you money.”
The gardener to whom I was talking next morning, gave it to me as his opinion that “Miss Kitty is a wonderful young lady,” I agreed with him and am glad that she is my niece, not my daughter.