"'And she shall have silks and satins for to wear,
And a coach and six for to take the air——'
"I will not sing that again to-day!"
You see, Kitty did not know, could not possibly know, psychical processes being in their present veiled condition, that currents were flowing, wireless messages flashing, between her subliminal self and another; that Tom Lee, striding up and down the deck of his steamer, was crying all day long in his heart, "Kitty! Kitty! Kitty! I am coming! Wait for me!" Had "Psychic Wireless, Unlimited," informed Tom that there were other aspirants for the hand he had so confidently thought his? Who can tell? Certainly, he told Kitty afterward, the voyage was "H. E. Double," and ten times a day he thought of jumping overboard and swimming the Pacific Ocean, as likely to make better time.
John Tucker emerged from the harness-room, in leather apron and gloves.
"It's good to hear you singin' round the place, Miss Kitty," he said: "it is so! I enjoy it, and I expect they do as well, if they could speak."
He nodded toward Dan and Pilot, who were certainly pictures of attention, as they stood with shining eyes, ears pricked forward, and delicate nostrils dilated.
"Bless them!" said Kitty. "It's sugar they want, the darlings, not singing. Pilot, stop! You cannot get your head into my pocket, you greedy cherub, and it is Dan's turn, anyhow. Here, Dan! Don't slobber, darling! Eat like a gentleman, because you know you are one, a Perfect Pattern, except for just a shade of gluttony. Now, Pilot!"
John Tucker stood in the doorway, gazing at her with delight. She was the "very moral" of a picture that hung in his own sitting-room; a steel engraving, neatly framed. It was labeled "Thoroughbred," and showed a fair girl patting a noble horse. John Tucker had seen it in the window of a print shop in the city and had bought it, refusing steadfastly to tell his Mary what it cost. Miss Kitty and Pilot might have sat for the two portraits, he maintained, except for Pilot's being black, which was all a Pilot colt could be.
The horses fed and petted—not to their hearts' content, but as near it as the passing nature of time would allow—John Tucker turned back into the harness-room with a backward jerk of his head which said as plainly as one of Pilot's gestures, "Aren't you coming to see me now?"
Kitty followed him into the pleasant little leather-scented room and perched on the arm of a chair as was her wont.