book?"

Therefore Kitty felt that it was vain to apply to her for intellectual
sympathy.

"I will write to Aunt Kate," said she, "_she_ will understand. Oh, how I
wish I could see her! She must be a dear, soft, pussy, cuddly sort of
person. Why shouldn't I go and see her? I will."

And on this desperate resolve she acted.

Now I find it quite impossible any longer to conceal from the
intelligent reader that the reason why Kitty had never seen Aunt Kate
was that "Aunt Kate" was merely the screen which sheltered from a vulgar
publicity the gifted person who wrote the "Answers to Correspondents"
for the _Girls' Very Own Friend_.

In fear and trembling, and a disguised handwriting; with a feigned name
and a quickly-beating heart, Kitty, months before, had written to this
mysterious and gracious being. In the following week's number had
appeared these memorable lines:

"_Sweet Nancy._--So pleased, dear, with your little letter.
Write to me quite freely. I love to help my girls."

So Kitty wrote quite freely, and as honestly as any girl of eighteen
ever writes: her hopes and fears, her household troubles, her literary
ambitions. And in the columns of the _Girls' Very Own Friend_ Aunt Kate
replied with all the tender grace and delightful warmth that
characterised her utterances.

The idea of calling on Aunt Kate occurred to Kitty as she was "putting
on her things" to go to the Guildhall. She instantly threw the plain
"everyday" hat from her, and pulled her best hat from its tissue-paper
nest in the black bandbox. She put on her best blouse--the
cream-coloured one with the browny lace on it, and her best brown silk
skirt. She recklessly added her best brown shoes and gloves, and the
lace pussy-boa. (I don't know what the milliner's name for the thing is.
It goes round the neck, and hangs its soft and fluffy ends down nearly
to one's knees.) Then she looked at herself in the glass, gave a few
last touches to her hair and veil, and nodded to herself.

"You'll do, my dear," said Kitty.

Aunt Eliza was providentially absent at Bath nursing a sick friend, and
the black-bugled duenna, hastily imported from Tunbridge Wells, could
not be expected to know which was Kitty's best frock, and which the
gloves that ought only to have been worn at church.

When Kitty's music lesson was over, she stood for a moment on the steps
of the Guildhall School, looking down towards the river. Then she
shrugged her pretty should