CHAPTER XI

KITTY DANCES WITH STRANGE PARTNERS.

“I AM beautiful! Oh, so, so beautiful!” said a hoarse voice.

Kitty, looking round, saw—well, she could not say what sort of a creature she saw—as she had never seen one like it before. It bore a sort of resemblance to a frog, but that was perhaps because it wore a green coat and a bulging shirt-front; then it was a very large frog, as big as herself. It had a human face—a broad, bland, beaming face—with a smile that seemed to curl all round it. In her life Kitty had never seen such a steady, satisfied smile.

The green-coated creature wriggled and twisted itself till Kitty thought it would wriggle and twist itself out of existence. On beholding Kitty it made her a low bow, and said with a flourish of its hand:

“Admire me and I shall admire you.”

“Oh, but I don’t want to be admired,” said Kitty, trying to smother a laugh. “Indeed, indeed, I don’t want to be admired.”

“Not—want—to—be—ad—mired!” exclaimed the frog-like one, throwing itself back, sticking out its left leg, and uplifting its two arms in an elegant attitude of dismay. Yet for all its dismay it continued to smile.

“I think it would be dull,” said Kitty, speaking slowly to keep her voice steady. “It would feel like having one’s best frock always on, and being afraid of jumping about.”

“But that is the very way; the very only way you ought to strive to feel,” cried the frog, wringing its hands in an agony of earnestness; “always as if you had your best frock on.”

“It would be very dull,” said Kitty in a tone of conviction; “very dull! just as if one were always sitting or standing for one’s photograph.”

“But that is just the way one ought always to sit or stand, as if one were having one’s photograph taken. The very, very, very only way.” The force of its conviction affected the frog so profoundly that tears filled its goggle eyes; still it continued to smile.

Kitty was wondering how it could weep and smile, when it put its feet in the third position of dancing and made her a low bow.

“You have summed it all up in two sentences: to feel always as if you were wearing your best frock and having your photograph taken. That is what we ought all to strive to feel. You understand me. Tit for tat, I understand you. Let us dance.”

Kitty felt her finger tips taken by those of the frog. She did not like to withdraw them, and the next moment she found herself dancing a stately minuet. Step, twirl, bow, and courtesy. The brook played the accompaniment, the branches above swayed to the measure of the dance; Kitty and her partner danced on. The naughty sprite twisted and frolicked with them. Step, twirl, bow, and courtesy. In all her life Kitty had never made so many courtesies.

The frog’s contortions grew more and more extraordinary, and still the brook babbled, and still the branches swayed in tuneful accompaniment to the stately dance.

Was it her guardian child who whispered in Kitty’s ear, “Christmas Day! Christmas Day!”

“Dance! dance!” said the sprite, skipping with glee. But Kitty stopped in the middle of a courtesy, the sense of hurry overtook her. “I beg your pardon,” she said; “I must stop dancing now.”

Her frog-like partner took no notice. Step, wriggle, bow, he went on as if he did not hear, and Kitty walked away. When she turned to look the creature was still twisting, stepping, bowing.

“Conceited thing!” she muttered. “He is so filled up with himself he does not miss me. He does not know even that I am gone. I wonder what he is?”

“Goblin Vanity,” whispered her guardian child. “Take care!”

Kitty now gave a cry of surprise as she saw the prettiest garden. It stood to the left in a hollow, away from the path over which brooded the star. It was such a quaint, sweet garden, full of flower-beds and laid out in smooth lawns, and bowers, and lovely hide-and-go-seek places.

A glass palace glittered at a little distance. A fountain tossed its bright waters like a silver plume; swans swam in and out of the spray, peacocks strutted on the greensward. Kitty thought she had never in all her life seen a garden so inviting. The sound of delightful musical boxes tinkled from afar. All at once a crowd of children came dancing out of the glass palace. They looked like fairies, their dresses were so glittering, their movements so graceful. They all beckoned to Kitty.

“Do not look toward them! Look to the star!” whispered the guardian child.

“Bother the star! What harm is there in looking toward that pretty garden and those merry children?” muttered the sprite.

Suddenly there appeared on the path a step or two in front of Kitty—she could not tell how he came there or whence he came—the prettiest little boy. He had a rosy mouth and laughing blue eyes. He wore a white suit all embroidered in flowers of lovely tints; his hair was frizzed and curled.

“We are all waiting for you,” he said in a coaxing voice, stretching out his hand to her.

“For me!” exclaimed Kitty, very much surprised.

The boy took her hand. She was so much astonished that she did not hear her guardian child sighing in her ear, “Beware! beware!” or feel the sprite dancing on her left shoulder.

Before she knew what she was doing she was running down into the garden. The moment she reached it the sound of musical boxes burst out louder; she was surrounded by little boys and girls who looked at her with sparkling eyes. Indeed, it seemed to Kitty that everything looked at her: the peacocks on the sward, the swans on the water, the birds hovering in the air or peeping down from the branches, looked at her; the flowers and grasses stood up on tiptoe to gaze at her. She felt quite uncomfortable at attracting so much attention; she wished she had not gone out in that old school-room blue serge gown, and that the blots on her holland pinafore were not so very conspicuous.

But no one seemed to mind her shabby appearance. On the contrary, everybody and everything was bowing to her. The children bowed, the peacocks bowed; the swans, the trees, the flowers, the grass bowed.

“Why are they all bowing?” asked Kitty.

“They are all bowing to you because you are the prettiest little girl in all the world,” answered her guide. He said it very seriously, and he looked at her with admiring bright eyes; everything and everybody murmured, bowing lower and lower before her, “The prettiest little girl in all the world.” Kitty was not sure whether she was standing on her head or on her heels. Her cheeks grew as red as two red roses.

“De—e—light—ful to be so pretty!” murmured the naughty sprite, striking an attitude, setting its left paw on its hip, and rolling its eyes.

“Do not believe what they are saying. You have freckles and a little cocked nose,” whispered the guardian child.

Kitty felt her nose to feel if it was really cocked; it was cocked.

“That glass palace is mine. The walls are made of mirrors. You will see there how beautiful you are,” said the boy, who still held her hand.

“In the glass palace you will see,” cried the children.

They joined hands round Kitty and danced more and more gayly, more and more quickly. The music grew merrier, and the sound seemed to get into Kitty’s head and into her feet. It set them dancing and made her feel giddy. Little joy bells seemed beating in her ears. They were not Christmas bells. “The prettiest little girl in all the world!” they seemed to ring again and again, backward and forward, so that she could not hear the guardian child’s sigh, “Silly, silly Kitty!”

The boy pulled her along, the dancers pressed around her and pushed her softly toward the glass palace.

There came a sound of singing.

“Listen,” said the boy; “everything is singing about you.”

Sure enough, the children, the birds, the breeze, the peacocks, the swans, the grasshoppers, sang, murmured, screamed, hummed:

“Do you know the violet’s hue? Do you know the heart’s-ease dyes? Brighter, deeper is the blue Shining in sweet Kitty’s eyes.”

“Violets!” murmured Kitty; “and Cousin Charlie said they were no bluer than skimmed milk.”

“Have you seen the marigold Glowing in the sunshine fair? It is dim when you behold Sunshine caught in Kitty’s hair.”

“And nurse keeps calling it a mop!” Kitty muttered with some indignation.

“Just like her,” grunted the naughty sprite. “But we are now with people who appreciate us.”

Kitty was so absorbed thinking of how little nurse and Cousin Charlie admired her that she missed the next verse, until it came to the last line, then she heard:

“Oh! I wish I had heard what they sang about my nose,” she exclaimed regretfully.

“Your dear funny cocked nose,” whispered Johnnie’s voice a long way off.

Kitty started. How faint her guardian child had become. He was just a pale, glimmering, hovering figure.

“That is a false song you are singing. My eyes are not violets, my hair is not gold, my nose is not—” Kitty stopped breathless; she had not heard what they had sung about her nose.

“Resist! resist!” cried the guardian child, who had flown back to her shoulder.

“Resist those kind children, who admire you!” growled the sprite reproachfully.

“Pretty Kitty!—our Queen Kitty!” cried all the dancers.

With a laugh they lifted Kitty from her feet and carried her toward the palace. As she approached she caught sight of her face reflected on a sunflower. She saw the sprite standing up very straight on her left shoulder, with chest puffed out, and head perked jauntily on one side. She thought of the vain children in Punishment Land.

“Help me! help me!” she cried to her guardian child, struggling to her feet and beginning to strike out right and left and on every side.

Valiantly the guardian child answered her cry. With his rosy wings, with his tiny hands he fought for her, and the tempting children fell back; sometimes closing round her again to whisper “Pretty Kitty, pretty Kitty.” The sprite whispered, “You are pretty, you are pretty,” and tried to hold back her hands in the fight.

But still she struggled, and still her guardian child helped; until at last she found herself, all bruised, standing in the narrow ascending path over which hung the star.

“We are in time, Kitsy! we are in time!” the guardian child sang happily, pointing to the star, and again there came on her ear that peal of distant Christmas bells.

“Silly!” hissed the naughty sprite.

“I shall never stray from the right path again—never!” said Kitty, wiping away some repentant tears. “I can’t understand myself liking that silly song. I was really beginning to believe I was quite beautiful.”

And Love’s words came to her mind: “If you put off, it may be easy at first to resume the way; but it becomes more and more difficult, and it might be impossible.”

“No. I shall never leave the right path again,” she repeated, with great emphasis. “Never.”

She hurried along once more. She ran, oh, so fast! It was like a race between the star gliding above the tree-tops and the little feet speeding, hastening along the path below.

“Oh, what a delicious smell!” she suddenly exclaimed, opening wide her nostrils and taking a deep sniff. Then she gave a great start.