"Oh, it wasn't a child; it was a collie pup."
"I thought you said 'fellow-creature,'" remarked her father plaintively.
"All dogs are my fellow-creatures," declared Kitty simply.
"I am a credulous as well as a sinfully indulgent parent," said Mr. Thorold, stepping back to view his sketch; "but I don't believe a word of your story."
"'Documentary evidence was instantly forthcoming,'" retorted Kitty, extending a tiny paw with a card inserted delicately between her fingers.
Her father took it, read aloud: "Lady Hawborough, 209, Belgrave Square," and then emitted a low whistle.
"My word, Kitty, you've gone and done it!" he said. "If this is the Lady Hawborough—and Nature, with all her audacity, cannot have made two of them—you've run up against a celebrity of the deepest dye."
"Oh?" said Kitty. "Never heard of her. What's she celebrated for?"
"For good works—which means, in most cases, a disposition and a capacity for interfering in the affairs of other people. And her ladyship is one of the biggest and most incorrigible interferers in this crank of a world of ours. She is immensely rich; she is also 'powerful,' as the novelists say; she is a tyrant to her relations, a terror to her friends, and a well-meaning, charitable bugbear to the world in general."
"Oh!" said Kitty, somewhat dismayed. "But how is it you are so intimately acquainted with the history and characteristics of this lady of lofty rank and goodly oof?"