"Starting from Dublin by the night-boat, with you to-morrow.—DENNIS
MALONE."
"There, didn't I say he was a darling—the best, best darling in the world?" cried the excited girl. "Oh, won't he have a caed mille afaltha; won't he? Elma, I am almost beside myself."
"I don't know what you are talking about," said Elma. "What do you mean by those queer words?"
"Caed mille afaltha? Oh, they are the Irish for a hundred thousand welcomes. We put them over our arches and everything when people are coming home. Oh, they don't speak a half nor a quarter of what our hearts are full of. Oh father, father, the joy—the joy your poor little Kitty feels at the thought of seeing your darling face again!"
That night again Kitty lay awake, although Elma slept. Strange thoughts, strange and new, were coursing through the young girl's brain. Everything had been a failure, and yet she felt bright and happy and like her old self once more.
"It is the thought of seeing father," she said to herself. "I was never fit for England. England and its ways will never suit me, never, never; but when I see father I shall be all right. Oh, to think that he is really coming, and that Laurie is saved! I must, of course, tell father everything; but he won't be angry with Laurie when I tell him the story in my own way."
Accordingly early the next morning Kitty dressed herself in the fascinating leghorn hat and slipped on the pink muslin dress, and, with a bunch of roses at her belt, sallied forth to the railway station. She soon found the right platform, and paced up and down in a fever of impatience waiting for the train. As she was doing so, flaunting her pretty little person in a somewhat aggressive way and causing some prim-looking ladies to gaze at her with anything but approval, a hand was laid on her arm, and turning she saw, to her amazement, the extremely indignant faces of Miss Sherrard and Miss Worrick.
"Well, Kitty, after this!" said Miss Sherrard,
"Oh, please don't scold me just now!" said Kitty, with a little gasp; "wait until he comes."
"Until who comes?"