"_Caed mille afaltha_? Oh, they are the Irish for a hundred thousand welcomes. We put them over our arches and everything when people are coming home. Oh, they don't speak a half nor a quarter of what our hearts are full of. Oh father, father, the joy--the joy your poor little Kitty feels at the thought of seeing your darling face again!" That night again Kitty lay awake, although Elma slept. Strange thoughts, strange and new, were coursing through the young girl's brain. Everything had been a failure, and yet she felt bright and happy and like her old self once more. "It is the thought of seeing father," she said to herself. "I was never fit for England. England and its ways will never suit me, never, never; but when I see father I shall be all right. Oh, to think that he is really coming, and that Laurie is saved! I must, of course, tell father everything; but he won't be angry with Laurie when I tell him the story in my own way." Accordingly early the next morning Kitty dressed herself in the fascinating leghorn hat and slipped on the pink muslin dress, and, with a bunch of roses at her belt, sallied forth to the railway station. She soon found the right platform, and paced up and down in a fever of impatience waiting for the train. As she was doing so, flaunting her pretty little person in a somewhat aggressive way and causing some prim-looking ladies to gaze at her with anything but approval, a hand was laid on her arm, and turning she saw, to her amazement, the extremely indignant faces of Miss Sherrard and Miss Worrick. "Well, Kitty, after this!" said Miss Sherrard, "Oh, please don't scold me just now!" said Kitty, with a little gasp; "wait until he comes." "Until who comes?" "Father. I am expecting him by this train." "I am relieved at that," said Miss Sherrard. "I shall have a painful tale to tell him." "So you may, Miss Sherrard. You may tell him everything; but please let me tell him my story first. You must, you shall; I insist." The girl's eyes were flashing; she was trembling all over. Just when her happiness seemed to be at its height, for Miss Sherrard and Miss Worrick to appear! "Oh, and there's the train!" she cried. "He will be here in a minute; let me see him first. Oh, the train, is stopping, and there he is; I see him at the very end; there he is with his white hair and--let me go, let me go!" She rushed from Miss Sherrard's retaining arm and flew up the platform, and a moment later the owner of the pink dress and leghorn hat was being clasped tightly, tightly to the breast of the magnificent-looking old gentleman, almost a king in his way, who had suddenly stepped on to the platform. "Father, you'll protect me--they have come, they have followed me. You will let me tell you my story first? Father! father! oh, feel how my heart is beating!" "Why, Kitty, asthore; Kitty, Kitty, my own. What is it, Kit? I say, Kit, what is wrong?" "Nothing, nothing now that you have come; but let me tell you my story first."