"Only to Elma Lewis' house. I want to see her; it is awfully important."
"But Elma lives quite two miles from here."
"Oh, that does not matter. I am sure to find my way. It is most urgent," said Kitty.
She rushed out of the room, pinned on her hat, and a moment later was walking down the street as fast as she could go. She crossed a field and a common, and after a time got into that part of the town where Elma lived. By dint of asking half a dozen children and three or four policemen she at last reached Constantine Road, and presently found the right house. She ran up the steps and sounded a rattling rat-tat on the knocker. The moment she did so a girl with a mop of untidy red hair peeped up at her from the area below.
"Come and open the door at once," called Kitty. "Why do you keep a lady waiting?"
The girl soon appeared, tying on her cap and apron as she did so.
"I thought as they was all out for the day," she began, "—Oh, miss, I beg your pardon."
Kitty, notwithstanding her rather rude words, presented a very charming spectacle as she stood on the steps. She was dressed not only in the height of the fashion, but wore such a perfectly captivating little toque at the back of her head as to fire the fancy and take the little wit which she possessed out of Mrs. Lewis' maid-of-all-work.
Maggie had never seen anything so captivating nor so ravishing. A wild desire to make a toque like it to put on her own towzled locks on the following Sunday caused her to stare so hard at Kitty with her mouth wide open that she did not hear a word that young lady was saying.
"Are you in a dream?" asked Kitty Malone. "I want to see Miss Elma
Lewis. Is she at home?"