wouldn't give 'em to me!" he chuckled; "but I remembered the drawer where you kep' 'em. You'll need 'em. I kep' him in yes'day a-puppose."
With a flashing, "Oh, John! You are a darling!" Kitty almost snatched the gloves from him. Another moment, and they were speeding along the level, a swallow-flight which brought the blood to the girl's pale cheeks and the light to her eyes.
"I tell ye!" chuckled John Tucker. "Gee whiminy! Go it, Miss Kitty, he's fresh: I kep' him in yes'day a-puppose."
Kitty chirruped; Pilot tossed his handsome head and sped on the faster.
"If I am a daughter of Jehu," said Kitty, "I might as well live up to my name, John Tucker!"
So it came to pass that when Kitty Ross came home to her father's house, it was with a rush and a swirl that brought Sarepta flying from the kitchen in a panic, dish-cloth in one hand, stove-lifter in the other.
"My land of the living!" cried Sarepta. "That John Tucker!"
CHAPTER III
ross house
The Ross house stood—stands, thank heaven!—on the north side of the Common, between Judge Peters's and Madam Flynt's, its front windows facing due south. The main body of the house is of brick, the two wings and the portico with its Doric columns, of wood; all gleaming white, with blinds of exactly the right shade of green. The front fence (Cyrus has not done away with its fences; it would scorn to do so. "When I wish to move into my neighbor's yard," says Madam Flynt, "I shall ask his permission first." And Miss Almeria Bygood says, "I prefer to live on the street, not in it") is of iron, with chains and tassels elaborately looped; the posts of white brick, surmounted by wooden balls large enough for a child to sit on with some measure of comfort. The gate, a beautiful affair of handwrought iron (a testimonial to Dr. Ross from a grateful blacksmith) was made, one would think, to be swung on. Near the bottom were four grapevine circles, into which two pairs of small feet fitted perfectly; while the smooth bar across the top was manifestly intended for the resting of dimpled chins and the grasping of chubby hands. Then, its squeak! At the friendly sound, Kitty Ross glanced down, and all her childhood came flooding back.
"Ah, Tommy!" she sighed. "Ah, Duke! We are too big now, even if you were anywhere."
Then the door opened, and there stood Sarepta Darwin, just as she had stood at similar home-comings all Kitty's lifetime.
"Come in this minute, child!" she said. "You had the life nigh scared out of me. You, John Tucker, you'd ought to be ashamed of yourself, at your time of life!"
"That's just it, S'repty," chuckled John. "I've outgrown the sensation!"
"Don't scold, Sarepta dear!" said Kitty. "I've come home!"
Sarepta snorted, and turned her head away. No one had ever seen a tear in that wintry blue eye, and no one ever should. The idea!
"You're froze, I expect," she said severely, "speedin' like that in this cold. Come in to the fire! Nelly Chanter's comin' to supper with you and spend the night, but I thought you'd want to get your things off first."
Home! After all the wandering, all the longing: home at last! Kitty had enjoyed much of the time abroad. Endless wonder, endless beauty; she rejoiced to have seen it; but the place where she was born, the countryside where she belonged, meant more to her than all the glories of Europe and Asia. So long as her mother was with her, so long as anything strange or fair could lift the languid head or bring a gleam of light to the sad eyes, on they must go, wherever the brightest way seemed to point: but when it was over, and the weary body which held the gay, innocent, flower-like soul, was hid quietly in the churchyard at Vevey, there was but one thought in Kitty's mind. The English cousins, the kind Swiss friends, might plead as they would; they all wanted her; it would mean so much to them if she would make her home with them. Kitty thanked them all with tears, and took the next and swiftest steamer for home.
A plain square hall, with stairs going up at one side; old prints on the walls: Regulus and the Carthaginian Ambassadors, Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi:—Kitty had a loving glance for all: the very oilcloth felt friendly under her feet. Had not Grandfather Ross laid it down fifty years ago, when oilcloth was oilcloth, and not, as dear Father used to say, brown paper and fish glue?
It was late January, but the Christmas wreaths still hung in the windows, the fir boughs over the picture-frames. The mail-table, with its scales and weights, the barometer, the hanging shelf where garden baskets and implements slept the long winter away—Kitty's glance took them all in lovingly.
"Fire's in the settin' room!" said Sarepta.
Kitty turned to the right, and entered the room she loved best in the world. Shabby, Mrs. Sharpe called the sitting room of Ross House. If it was shabby, no one but Mrs. Sharpe knew it. The rugs were worn, it is true, the original patterns lost in a warm blending of reds and blues, but they were still thick and soft, and only Sarepta knew of the mended places. The wallpaper had not been changed since the memory of man. Why should it be, when it was in perfect condition? And how much of it was visible anyhow? Mellow, rich, warm: one sought for other kindred words, feeling the friendly harmony of everything from the Piranesi etchings to the books which lined half the walls and lay on every available flat surface. The fireplace occupied most of one side, the fire leaped and crackled behind the high fender—not so high as it used to be, Kitty, when you and Tom "stumped" each other to climb on it and grimace at your reflections in the round balls of the andirons. A leather sofa stood before the fireplace: well! I grant that the sofa was shabby, but who cared? Never was another, old or new, to compare with it in comfort. Kitty sank down on it now, and stretched her hands to the blaze, and made a little sound, half moan, half coo, of utter thankfulness. Sarepta, erect in the doorway, hands folded over her spotless apron, had the air of waiting for something. Presently Kitty spoke over her shoulder, her eyes still fixed on the fire.
"She didn't suffer at all, Sarepta!"
Sarepta grunted.
"She just faded away quietly, like a flower. It was like—do you remember how I used to put the hollyhocks in the little black pool, under the trees? They didn't wither or crumple up, they just grew more transparent, day by day, till at last they seemed almost to melt into the water: it was more like that than anything else."
Sarepta grunted again. "Got your feet wet reg'lar every time you did it!" she said.
"She knew she was going," the clear lovely voice went on, as if repeating a lesson. "She asked me to—to leave her there, among the flowers: she was so tired, she thought it would trouble her in heaven to know that—it—was being carried about. And then—she said—'Go home, darling! Go home to—Sarepta and John Tucker: they will—take—care—'"
The clear voice faltered, broke: Sarepta Darwin threw her apron over her head and went away.
An hour later, a composed and cheerful Kitty was greeting Nelly Chanter, who came in rosy and breathless as usual, full of tender incoherence.
"Darling Kitty! so heavenly of Sarepta to ask me to come! I didn't mean to be—oh, Kitty, you are home again! I thought you never—what a perfectly delicious kitten!"
All the embarrassment was Nelly's, and she did not quite know what to make of the sensation, an unfamiliar one to Chanters; but she was, as Sarepta said, the most sensible of them, and followed Kitty's lead readily. The trunks had come, Kitty said; they wouldn't begin really to unpack, it was too near supper time, but she must just open the little leather
