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“Oh, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!” he said softly, and then the door opened, and suddenly, without the least warning, a middle-aged lady became a spectator of the little tableau. The newcomer wore a mantle with beads on it, a black bonnet wherein nodded a violet flower—and beads and flower and bonnet were absolutely familiar to each of the astonished ones now standing consciously with the breadth of the office between them. For in that middle-aged lady the editor recognised Aunt Kate, the pleasant, sensible, companionable woman who for years had written those sympathetic “Answers to Correspondents” in the Girls’ Very Own Friend. And at the same moment Kitty recognised, beyond all possibility of doubt, Aunt Eliza—her own grim, harsh, uncongenial Aunt Eliza.

Kitty cowered—in her frightened soul she cowered. But her little figure drew itself up, and the point of her chin rose a quarter of an inch.

“Aunt Eliza,” she said firmly, “I know you will”

“Your Aunt Eliza, Kitty?” cried the editor.

“‘Kitty’?” said the aunt.