Kit Tyler

“ Being a righteous man, he always felt ashamed; but he never was known to retract an expression; though he often declared that his words had been too weak, and he wished he had said what he was charged with saying. But Selsey Bill told me that he had been “just awful,” and they were expecting beer all round, as a token of remorse. “Said a’ would sack every son of a gun of us! Never knowed ’un say that, [271] wi’out sending can out by-and-by. Ah, he is a just man, Master Kit, if ever was one.”
“Glad to see you, Kit,” said my uncle, who was getting, with the aid of a pipe, into his right mind. ”

“ The first laugh she had ever heard came from the Dean’s lips, although it was more of a chuckle. His next question was apparently irrelevant.
“How do you think you’re going to like Hope College?”
“All right,” Kit responded cheerfully. “I only hope it likes me. I’ve met a few of the boys and girls through Rex and Aunt Della, and I like them awfully well. At home they’re nice to you if they know who you are, and all about your family. But here it seems as if they either like you or not. Just when they first meet you, you’re taken right into the fold on the strength of what you are yourself.” ”

“ But when I came to understand Gerty Triggs, and to value her real friendship for my dear one, I acknowledged (as a man should do) that I had been a gaby. Not only had she protected Kitty at school, and even lent her under-clothing when she got no supplies from her step-mother, but she had actually made an inroad into Bulwrag Castle, to try a round with the great lady herself, on behalf of the innocent captive. ”

“ They really seem to take a deeper interest in the family they serve than the one they belong to. So we know all the young ladies know, and perhaps more than their mother knows; for being so masterful she has things kept from her, as is only natural. And I can tell you one thing, Mr. Kit, which you won’t be sorry to hear perhaps, or at any rate didn’t ought to be. Mr. Downy Bulwrag is in more trouble; not about money I mean, but something worse, or at any rate deeper than money is. ”

“ You have no idea, Kit, how I have dreaded going back to the city and leaving things as they are. Dad seems to get so discouraged now when matters go wrong, and that throws the load of keeping up right on mother's shoulders."
"I know it," Kit rejoined, "but if it's anything to you all, I'd be willing to bet anything that right this minute Uncle Cassius is springing some glad tidings down-stairs that will turn the tide of fortune."
"Oh, Kit," begged Doris, "don't you and Jean talk like that, because I can't understand what you're driving at; tell it all out at once." ”

“ Settling them in favour of one most final and lasting disappointment of them all—of that Kitty felt convinced.
"Nan, don't be a fool!" she insisted vehemently. "You'd be wretched if you married the wrong man—far, far more wretched in the future than you've ever been in the past. You'd only repent that last step once, and that would be—always!"
"My dear Kit, I've taken so many steps that I've repented! But when you're in the middle of a staircase you must inevitably continue taking steps—either up or down. ”

“ That’s what I call coming it strong; and upon a Sunday evening! Mother Marker, do you mean to put up with that? See if I don’t tell your Missus. Kit and Kitty! O Lord, oh Lord! ’Tis as good as a play, and we don’t get much of that sort of fun in Sunbury. Holloa! What the deuce—”
His speech was ended, for I had caught up a big dollop of clod from the relics of the flood, and delivered it into his throat so truly that his red satin fall and mock-diamond pin—which were tenfold more sacred to him than the Sabbath—were mashed up into one big lump of mud, together with the beard he cherished. ”

“ If anything can rouse a lover’s indignation—and there are too many things that do so—such a calm assumption of his levity and ferocity is the first to set it boiling. “What are you thinking of?” I asked, without even adding, “Aunt Parslow.”
“I am pleased to see you in that state of mind,” she continued; when gratitude alone preserved me, without even a half-glance at her twenty thousand pounds, from the murderous speech that was on my tongue. “But you are very young, Kit. You will come to know better, when you have had enough of this sweet Kitty. Enough very soon becomes too much. ”

“ I shall go and see her, if I can, and that villain of a son of hers as well. It is my duty to discover where my Kitty’s father is.”
“She won’t see you, Mr. Kit, unless it is to triumph over you. She loves doing that, when any one is down. But you won’t have a chance of seeing Mr. Downy. They say he is out of the country altogether, though my little Teddy swears he saw him Sunday night, and I never knew him go wrong about a face before. But he must be wrong this time, if there is any truth in words. And generally always he comes down this road, whenever he is at home.” ”

“ She lived each day as it came with an unconquerable optimism, such as no one else except Cousin Roxy seemed to possess in the family.
"Don't worry, Kit," Mrs. Ellis was wont to say to her, cheerily. "Good works and an abiding faith yoked up with a sense of humor will carry any one to the golden gates."
And perhaps secretly Kit had always considered personal ambition a little private form of selfishness. As she ransacked her mind now, trying to find her own ambition and get it safely on a pin for examination like one of Billie's specimens, only her old-time love of forestry answered her. ”

“ Tabby always leaves it in this cupboard. Ah, that was a fine tree, that old Jargonel! It lived on its bark, I believe, for about a score of years, and you helped to split it up, when you were courting Kitty. You shall court her again, my boy, and have another honeymoon, as they’ve cut yours short in this confounded way. Now, make a good fire, while I put my breeches on. You look like a ghost, that has never had a bit to eat. And I don’t suppose you have touched a morsel to speak of, since breakfast. ‘Never say die’ is my motto, Kit. ”

“ Whenever they halted to change, there he was—out of the carriage without letting down the steps, bursting about the inn-yard like a lighted cracker, pulling out his watch by lamp-light and forgetting to look at it before he put it up again, and in short committing so many extravagances that Kit’s mother was quite afraid of him. Then, when the horses were to, in he came like a Harlequin, and before they had gone a mile, out came the watch and the fire-box together, and Kit’s mother as wide awake again, with no hope of a wink of sleep for that stage. ”

“ The flap of the tent lifted towards the roadway, and Mr. Ormond sent a hail across the twilight gloom.
"Is that you, Shad?"
"No, sir, it's just us girls," answered Kit. "We're going down to the mill."
"Would you mind so very much, Miss Kit, asking if any one has telephoned a telegram up for me from the station? I am expecting one."
"There, you see," Helen said, dubiously, as they went on down the road. "We just get rid of one mystery, and he hands us another one to solve. Who on earth would he be getting a telegram from?" ”

“ By Gosh, I mean it,’ says he; ‘and the sweetest young filly as ever looked [87] through a riband. Rejoices in the name of Kitty Fairthorn, just the very name for the winner of the Oaks. Ha, ha, wish me joy, old chap. She was down your way, I am told, last week. But I had spotted her before that, Sam.’ I was thrown upon my haunches, as you may fancy, Kit; but I did not let him see it; though to think of old Crumbly Pot going in for such a stunner—‘Rhino, no doubt,’ I says; and he says, ‘By the bucketful! Her dad is a buffer who can sit down and coin it in batteries. ”

“ Mars spent most of the time in sleeping. Never did patient meet with care and attention more tender, more constant. Either Pauline or Kit was at his bedside. The old judge would come in with every hour or so. Vinton galloped over from camp and spent the afternoon; and as for myself, I was becoming vastly interested in helping Kitty, when, as bad luck would have it, old Jake brought me what he termed a "tallygraff" when he came back from Sandbrook late at evening with the mail; and the tallygraff sent me hurrying back to Holly Springs by first train the following day. ”

“ We have no law in the wilderness, nor law officers. But we know what we want, and somebody always comes forward to put a thing right. In this case it is Kit Carson.”
Having saddled his pony to his satisfaction, he took out a heavy dragoon pistol and looked at its priming with much care. This he placed in his belt, then swung himself into the saddle. And as Kit rode out from the line of the lodges, the sound of hoofs came to him. His quick eye turned in the direction of the sound; and he saw the Frenchman mounted on a powerful horse, a rifle in his hands, riding toward him. ”

“ Ah, but Uncle Corny has a nephew—
“Kit, I am sorry for you, my boy;” he came up to me, as I was thinking thus, even before he went to his tobacco-jar; “you are hard hit, my lad; I can see it in your face; and you shall have no more chaff from me. Very few girls, such as they are now, deserve that any straight and honest young chap, like you, should be down in the mouth about them. But your mother did, Kit, your mother did. And I am not sure but that this Miss Fairthorn does; though you can’t judge a girl by her bonnet. ”

“ Could you have a snugger place on earth to pass your honeymoon in?”
“Twig,” said Sir Cumberleigh, “twig’s the word, with a little quiet prodding, and a special license. But won’t she cut up rough, my boy? We must not have abduction. It has been done in my family; but the times were better then.”
“Kitty is not the one to cut up rough. My mother has drilled her a lot too well for that. And if I come with her, and you are not seen till the last, there can be no talk about abduction. All little particulars must be left to me. ”

“ He will fall into a decline, if he stops here; and then what will become of his darling Kitty? What chance has he here in this wretched little room, like a frog, or an empty bucket hanging in a well? And here you are giving him gruel and tapioca! Has he ever had a pint of real turtle? Just answer me that, Mr. Orchardson.”
“Well, no,” replied my uncle, looking at her with surprise; “I never heard that turtle was for any but Lord Mayors. Kit has had everything regardless of expense, that our skilful Dr. Sippets recommended him. Perhaps you know better than he does, Miss Parslow. ”

“ And that makes you slow to look into women. If I may be so bold to ask, how do you take the meaning of it for that sweet Miss Kitty to be fetched home so promiscuous?”
“Mrs. Cutthumb,” I answered, with a penetrating look, to show her that she underrated me, “I fear it must be that some mischief-maker has written up to say that I, that I—you know what I mean, Mrs. Cutthumb.”
“Yes, sir, and you means well so far, and everything straight-forrard; but you ain’t got near the heart of it, Master Kit; nor your Uncle neither, I’ll be bound. Wants a woman’s wits for that.” ”

“ You have a duty towards Jack. Do it; above all, keep on doing it, every day and always. Consider whether there are not many things, harmless in themselves, which lead to things not harmless. Avoid them."
"Don't flirt, you mean?" said Kit quite sincerely.
Lily paused a moment. There was a certain coarse simplicity about Kit which was at once embarrassing and helpful. Never were appearances more misleading; for Kit, with her pallor and exquisite face, looked the very image of a refined woman of the world, one who lived aloof from the grossness of life, yet of fine and complicated fibre. ”

“ Let's sit down over the falls and eat some. If Piney's waiting for me to kneel in front of her, she'll wait all night. I'd like to see myself kneeling in front of a girl!"
The words had hardly left his lips, before Kit played an old-time schoolgirl trick on him. Catching him by his collar, she twirled him about with an odd twist until he knelt in front of her. Although they were just about of an age, she was taller and stronger, and Billie shook himself ruefully when he rose.
"You always catch a fellow off guard," he said. ”

“ A shouting wind swept down Piccadilly, hats flapped and struggled, errand-boys whistled and chaffed, buses towered and nodded, hansoms jingled and passed, but for once Kit was blind to this splendid spectacle of life. Her own brougham moved noiselessly and swiftly on its India-rubber tires, and she knew only, and that with a blank heaviness of spirit, that each beat of the horses' hoofs brought her a pace nearer to her home, to her husband—a step closer to what she was going to do. ”

“ Miss Keating shut her eyes to keep out her vision of Kitty's face with the look it wore when her voice went high.
She was roused by the waiter bringing coffee. Kitty Tailleur had come out on to the veranda. She was pouring out Grace Keating's coffee, and talking to her in another voice, the one that she kept for children and for animals, and for all diminutive and helpless things. She was saying that Miss Keating (whom she called Bunny) was a dear little white rabbit, and she wanted to stroke her.
"You see, you are so very small," said Kitty, as she dropped sugar into Miss Keating's cup. ”

“ And all being on the right side, of course, they backed it up with buttresses.
“Think of that poor man,” said Kitty, who was always first to see things; “from what you say of his sad condition, and his size, and figure, I am quite sure it is the afflicted prisoner we rescued from the savages. You may talk of things not being guided by a Higher Power, and you may look black if it is hinted that a man shouldn’t shoot his father, and then try to kill my darling Kit ”