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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kitty Canary, by Kate Langley Bosher
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Kitty Canary
+
+Author: Kate Langley Bosher
+
+Release Date: October 25, 2005 [EBook #16946]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KITTY CANARY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: Kitty Canary.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Kitty Canary
+
+A NOVEL
+
+
+BY
+
+KATE LANGLEY BOSHER
+
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+"MARY CARY" ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+
+
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
+
+ESTABLISHED 1817
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1913, by Harper & Brothers
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+Published February, 1918
+
+
+
+
+KITTY CANARY
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+I am in love.  It is the most scrumptious thing I have ever been in.
+Perfectly magnificent!  Every time I think of it I feel as if I were
+going down an elevator forty floors and my heart flippity-flops so my
+teeth mortify me.  He used to be engaged to Elizabeth Hamilton Carter,
+the niece of the lady at whose house I am boarding this summer, but he
+did something he ought not to have done, or he didn't do something he
+ought to have done, and they had a fuss.  No one seems to know the
+cause of it, but it was probably from her wanting him to be blind to
+everything on earth but her, and a man isn't going to be blind when he
+wants to see, and then she got _hurt_.  I'd rather live in a house with
+a cackling hen or a grunting pig than the sort of person who is always
+getting hurt.  But she's very pretty.  Pink-and-white pretty, with
+uplifting eyes and a little mouth that shuts itself when mad and says
+nothing, and oozes more disagreeableness than if it talked.  He still
+thinks there isn't another girl in town who can touch her in looks.  I
+don't suppose a man ever gets over a real case of pink-and-white.  It's
+the kind that makes a tender memory if it isn't the best sort to live
+with, and men like to have a memory to sigh over in secret.  Her
+rejected one may sigh in secret, but in public he does not seem to be
+suffering.  He isn't suffering.  We like each other very much.
+
+The reason I am glad I am in love is that I am sixteen and I was
+getting afraid I wasn't ever going to fall in love.  Three or four
+times I have thought I was in it, but I wasn't, and I was beginning to
+be sure I was the sort of person who doesn't fall.  And, besides, it is
+good for Billy, who, because he is twenty, thinks he is old enough to
+have some things settled which there is no need to settle too soon.
+Settled things are not exciting.  I love excitement and not knowing
+what a day may bring forth.  Billy doesn't.  He wants his ducks to be
+always in a row.
+
+Ever since he fished me out of the water-barrel sunk in Grandmother
+Hatley's garden, when I was four and he eight, he has seemed to think I
+belonged to him; and, though he doesn't imagine I know it and never
+mentions it, he is always around when I am in danger or trouble, to get
+me out.  I suppose saving my life three or four times makes him feel I
+can't take care of myself and therefore he must take care of me, but
+that's a mistake.  I have never had a horse to run away with me but
+once.  Billy did tell me not to ride her, and when she ran and would
+have pitched me over her head and down a gully he caught her in the
+nick of time and caught me, too, but that's the only time a thing of
+that sort ever happened.  He was real nice about it and never said
+anything concerning having told me so and didn't make remarks of the
+sort which other people rub in, but the next day the horse was sent
+away.  That's the thing which makes me fighting furious with Billy
+sometimes. He doesn't say things.  He does them.  I wasn't afraid of
+that horse and was going to keep on riding her, but the next day there
+was no Lady-Bird to ride.  The reason he sent her away was I wouldn't
+promise not to ride her.  Our summer homes are on adjoining places and
+Horson, their stableman, a nice, drinky old person, lets me take out
+anything I want, anything of Billy's, and, knowing he couldn't trust
+Horson any more than me, he lent Lady-Bird to a man miles and miles
+away and I never saw her again until she was a tame old thing I did not
+want to ride.  Billy behaves as if I were a child!
+
+And then the very next winter I fell through the ice and he had to jump
+in and get me out.  He told me not to go to a certain part of the lake.
+He had been all over it and tried it before I got my skates on, but I
+forgot and went.  A boy was with me, a skunky little rat, who, when he
+saw the ice was cracking, tried to pull me back, and then he let go my
+hand and flop I went in and flop came Billy behind me while the little
+Fur Coat stood off and bawled for help and said afterward he didn't
+know how to swim.  Having on heavy clothes, I went down quick and was
+hard to get up, and I would be an angel this minute if Billy hadn't
+been there.  But Billy is always there, which is what makes this summer
+so queer.  He isn't here.
+
+On account of servants and things his mother didn't want to open their
+country place this year, and my mother didn't want to open hers, so two
+houses are closed.  That means a scatteration for both families and is
+why I am here and Billy in Europe; and if he is having as good a time
+as I am he isn't grunting at the change.  He didn't want to go to
+Europe.  His father made him.  His mother and two sisters needed a man
+along and, as Mr. Sloane couldn't go, Billy had to, and he was a great
+big silent growl when he went off.  I wasn't.  I wanted to come to
+Twickenham Town.  We had passed through it once on our way to Florida
+and I have been crazy to come back ever since, and when I found Mother
+was going with Florine and Jessica to a splashy place I didn't want to
+go to I begged her to let me come here and board with Miss Susanna
+Mason and--glory be--she let me do it!
+
+She is a sort of relation, Miss Susanna is, a farback one, but nothing
+is too far back to claim here, and everybody who is anybody is kin to
+one another, or kin to some one else's kin, which makes for
+sociableness, and I am having a perfectly grand time.  In all the world
+there isn't another place like the one I am in this summer, and I am
+getting so familiar with a new kind of natural history that maybe some
+day I will be an authority on it.  Ancestry is the chief asset of
+Twickenham Town, and though you speak with the tongues of men and of
+angels and have not ancestors it profiteth you nothing.  That is, among
+the natives.  Being an outsider, I have decided not to have ancestors,
+and I am going to see if the people won't take me in for myself.  I
+have always believed a nice person was nice if there weren't any family
+shrubs and things, and a nasty one was nasty no matter how many coats
+of arms there were or how heirloomy their houses, so I have asked Miss
+Susanna please to excuse me if I don't call her cousin (we are seventh
+removed, I think she said), and also, unless she has to, I hope she
+won't tell any one my real name is Katherine Bird, but let everybody
+call me Kitty Canary, as everybody does at home.  I think she thought
+it was very queer in me to say such things, but she smiled her
+precious, patient little smile, and, though she didn't promise, she
+evidently hasn't mentioned my sure-enough name, as no one here calls me
+by any other than the one Billy gave me when I wasn't much bigger than
+a baby.  Just Kitty Canary will do for me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The way I met Whythe (he's the one I'm almost perfectly certain I am in
+love with) was this.  When I got to the station in Twickenham Town
+there was no one to meet me and take me to Rose Hill, which is Miss
+Susanna Mason's home and right far out, because the train was three
+hours late, and Uncle Henry, who drives the hack, and Mr. Briggs, who
+runs the automobile, had gone home.  There wasn't even anybody to take
+my bag.  I told Mother I had written Miss Susanna what train I would be
+on, and because she was so busy and Father away she trusted me to do
+things she had never trusted me to do before and didn't write herself,
+which is why I wasn't met.  I did write the letter saying I was coming,
+but I forgot to mail it and found it in my bag when I got off the train
+and was looking for my trunk check.  It was nearly eleven o'clock and
+nobody around but some train people who looked at me and said nothing.
+And then a young man who had got off the same train came up and took
+off his hat and asked if he could not do something for me, and I told
+him I hoped he could and I certainly would be obliged if he would do it
+as quick as possible, as it was getting later every minute and Mother
+would be terribly worried if she knew I hadn't been met.
+
+"But where are you going?" he asked, and his eyes, which are his
+best-looking part, took me in from top to toe.  When I told him I was a
+boarder for Miss Susanna Mason and would like to get to her house he
+said if I didn't mind a pretty good walk he would take me there with
+pleasure, and we started off.  It was a perfectly gorgeous night.  The
+stars were as thick as buttercups in spring, and the moon was
+magnificent and the air full of all sorts of old-fashioned fragrances,
+as if honeysuckle and mignonette and tea-roses and heliotrope were all
+mixed together; and as there didn't seem any real need of grieving
+because there was no one to meet me, I thought I might as well enjoy
+myself.  I did.  I could not help the train being late, and I didn't
+forget to mail my letter on purpose; and it was an accident, or
+coincidence, that a nice man should be on the same train I was, who
+lived in the place I was going to spend the summer in, and knew very
+well the house I wanted to get to.  I didn't know he had been engaged
+to the niece of the house and hadn't been to the latter since the
+engagement was broken, and I must say as we walked along he didn't show
+any evidences of despair or things of that sort.  He couldn't possibly
+have been naturaler or in better spirits, and he laughed from the time
+we left the station until we reached Rose Hill.  Not knowing his
+history, I told him I had come to Twickenham Town because I thought it
+was the most delicious old place in America; the sweetest, slowest,
+self-satisfiedest, cocksuredest place on earth, and everybody in it was
+a character--that is, everybody over thirty.  He said that let him out,
+as he was only twenty-five, but he wasn't sure some under twenty-five
+were not somewhat queer.  They are, I have found out since.
+
+He had left his bag at the station, but he had mine, which was right
+heavy, and seeing there was a good stretch of open road before we began
+to go up the hill on the top of which was Miss Susanna's home, I told
+him he had better sit down a minute and rest, and I got up on the worm
+fence and twisted my feet around the rail below, and looked at him
+before he knew what I was going to do.  He coughed a little and looked
+at his watch and said it was rather late to be resting, as Miss Susanna
+might be going to bed, and that if I were not too tired he thought we
+had better go on; and I told him all right.  And then, because I
+couldn't help it, I stood up on the top of the fence, balanced myself
+on it, and, opening my arms as if I were going to fly, sprang off and
+ran up the road ahead of him.
+
+At the gate, which was open and through which I could see the
+rose-bordered path leading up to the white-pillared porch on which Miss
+Susanna and her niece were sitting, he shook hands with me and told me
+good night and said he hoped he would see me very often while I was in
+town, and I said I hoped he would.  He put my bag down and told me to
+send one of the servants out for it, and went on down the road, which I
+thought was the queerest behavior I had ever seen in my life.  I didn't
+know, of course, about embarrassments and broken engagements and things
+of that sort, and for a moment I stared at his back and then picked up
+my bag and went up to the porch with it.  All the boarders had gone to
+bed and only Miss Susanna and her niece were on the porch, and as I
+came up the steps they got up and stared at me as if I had risen from
+the grave.
+
+I hadn't thought there was anything wrong in my coming from the station
+at that time of night with a strange man until I saw the look on Miss
+Susanna's face when I told her I had done it.  If I had been a brand
+snatched from the burning I could not have been folded to her bosom
+with more fervent thanksgiving or a more pained expression, and at
+first, still not understanding, I thought I had done right off the
+worst thing a person could do in Twickenham Town.  I had walked a long
+way with a man who didn't have ancestors, perhaps.  He had seemed all
+right to me, and I was awfully glad to have him, as otherwise I might
+have had to sit on my suit-case all night, for I certainly couldn't
+have come up with the man who swung a lantern, and he was the only
+other white one in sight.  But I found out later it wasn't lack of
+ancestors that caused the sudden chill which fell over us when I
+mentioned Mr. Eppes's name.  It was something else and--oh, my
+granny!--the look that pretty little pink-and-white person gave me when
+I said what I had done!
+
+"Oh, my dear, my dear!"  Miss Susanna put her arms around me as if I
+were a little ewe lamb that had been lost and was found, and in the
+moonlight her beautiful little wrinkles reddened as if she were
+responsible for a most grievous calamity, "To think of your being alone
+at a public station at this time of night!  A young girl!  And I had
+promised your mother to take such good care of you!  I wouldn't have
+had such a thing occur for--"
+
+"There hasn't anything occurred."  I took off my hat and fanned hard
+and then followed Miss Susanna up-stairs into a big square room with a
+big tester bed in it, and if she hadn't been looking at me I would have
+climbed up in it and gone to sleep in my clothes, I was so tired; but
+she didn't leave me for some time.  She couldn't get over my walking
+two miles with a strange man late at night, and presently I found out
+she hoped I wouldn't mention it to any one in the town, as in a little
+place--
+
+"Oh, I know--"  I sat down in another chair.  "I know little places.  I
+was in one once for a month.  Every one in it knew everything every
+other person did and didn't do, and said and didn't say, and if they
+sneezed what for, and if they didn't sneeze why not, and it was more
+fun!  But I won't tell if you don't want me to, and did my horse come?
+Father had her sent three days ago, and I hope you won't get uneasy if
+I am not always back on time--"
+
+I stopped.  She was putting my hat on the top shelf of the biggest old
+mahogany wardrobe that was ever built for human apparel, and I knew
+right off that was one of the things the matter with pretty Miss
+Pink-and-White.  She was spoiled to death.  I picked up the coat I had
+dropped on the table and hung it up myself, and saw I would have to be
+the thing I hate most on earth--an Example.  I must be careful or that
+precious old soul would be waiting on me just as she waits on everybody
+else, and I wasn't going to stand for it.  And then she asked me if I
+were not hungry--said she knew I must be after such a long trip; and I
+told her I was starving, but I would not eat of a feast of the gods if
+it were right in front of me, as the only thing I wanted to do was to
+go to sleep, and for fear she might keep on inquiring about all my
+relations I kissed her good night and walked with her to the door and
+asked if she would mind if I did not come down to breakfast, and she
+said of course I must not come, that Elizabeth never came if she had
+been up late the night before, and that decided me.  I was the first
+one down the next morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+It was a perfectly grand feeling---the feeling I had the next day and
+have had every day since I got here--that I was in a place where there
+wasn't a single member of my family to tell me not to do things I
+wanted to do or to do what I did not want to do; and usually as I dress
+in the morning I dance a new kind of highland fling which I made up for
+times when I feel particularly happy.  Everybody is well and Mother and
+the girls are having a lovely time in a place where I would have had a
+stupid one, being neither grown up nor a kid, but an in-betweener--too
+young for some ages and not old enough for others; and here in
+Twickenham Town I am as free as air, and Father is coming to see me as
+often as he can.  I can't let myself think much about Father or I would
+take the train straight home.
+
+I had begged him to let me stay with him, but neither he nor Mother
+would agree.  Just because I got the Grome medal at school they
+imagined I had studied too hard and needed a quiet, restful summer in
+the mountains; but I will never study too hard while on this little
+planet called the earth.  I got the medal because Billy said I'd never
+sit still long enough to study for it, and just to show him he very
+often does not know what he is talking about I made up my mind to get
+it.
+
+The only thing I ever expect to work hard over is one book.  I am going
+to write one book that the critics will call a Discovery.  It is to be
+dull and dry and dreary, and therefore it will be thought deep and
+strong and big, and only a few people will know that it has been
+written.  After that I am going to write books that sell, write what
+people want to read--things that make them forget for a few moments
+that at times this world is but a fleeting show and there is a good
+deal of rot in it.  If I can I am going to make people laugh, though I
+don't think I can do much in that line.  I see the funny side of things
+too quickly to ever be able to write them down, as that takes time; but
+I am certainly going to be cheerful, and I am not going to croak.  I
+don't mean I am going to be smiling all the time.  I am not.  Perpetual
+smilers are more than human nature can stand.  Nothing is ever wrong,
+everything is beautiful, their smiles seem to say, which isn't so.
+There is a lot of life that is wrong, and any day horrid, hurting
+things may pop up, but that doesn't mean you've got to sit down and
+make a bosom friend of dolefulness.  Some of the things you can shake
+your fist at, and some turn your back on, and some you have to face;
+but no matter what happens you can buck up and begin again if you get
+knocked out or hit in the back.  And that's what I hope I will have
+sense enough to do--get up and get a move on when things go wrong.
+
+So far nothing has gone wrong in Twickenham.  Everybody has been lovely
+to me, and all sorts of ages have been to see me and asked me to their
+homes, and if they know my name is not really and truly Kitty Canary
+they never say so or mention my family, which is very nice of them, for
+I am sure they must talk of who I am and where I came from, that being
+the first thing done here when a stranger arrives.  The reason I think
+they haven't let me off among themselves is that one of Miss Susanna's
+boarders started to say something to me on the subject one day and I
+told her I was a very plain person, almost common, and she could tell
+any one she chose.  She has never mentioned the subject since.  Just
+Kitty Canary is all I am going to be this summer, and if anybody
+doesn't care for me as Kitty Canary I don't care for them to care for
+me as Katherine Bird.  So endeth that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+I have seen him every day since I came--seen my station help in time of
+need--and I must say he bears bravely the dispensations of a female
+person.  He is not dejected, and he still seems to find life worth
+living; and if he weeps in secret, he shows no sign in public of
+regrets; neither does he hide himself from the gaze of others, but is
+always to be seen when one goes down-town or to the homes of other
+people.  I don't know how we happen to meet so often, but I never go
+out that he doesn't appear; and though he does not come in at Rose
+Hill, he comes to the gate, and I am afraid we stand at it a little
+longer than is necessary, especially if Elizabeth Hamilton Carter is
+sitting on the porch.
+
+I wonder why Satan walks right into me every time I see that piece of
+pretty pink-and-whiteness!  He has never taken possession of me in that
+way before; but something about her just starts him off, and before I
+know it I am doing what I wouldn't think of doing if she were not
+around.  She is perfectly furious with me, and I must say her manners,
+if they are Southern, could be improved.  At best she is not much of a
+talker, I have been told; but since I arrived her little mouth has been
+shut so tight that I wonder how she breathes; and if she has spoken a
+dozen words to me since the night I came, they were too
+between-the-teethy for me to hear.  I didn't want her beau, and I
+wouldn't have dreamed of noticing him if I had known how she felt about
+him; but after she tried the freezing act on me I didn't tell Satan to
+get behind me, as I suppose I should have done.  I just went along and
+took things as they came, and the first thing I knew I was in love
+myself, and from the words of his mouth concerning the meditations of
+his heart he seemingly has recovered from a former attack and is in for
+a new one.  Maybe we were not as considerate of the rejecter as we
+might have been.  Of course, I never knew for a long time why the
+engagement was broken.  He didn't tell me and no one else seemed to
+know, and when I found out--  But that was a long time after--when I
+found out.
+
+His name is Whythe Rives Eppes.  The only things I don't like about him
+are his front teeth and his relations.  He could get three new teeth,
+but nothing in human power could rid him of his relatives.  There are
+four of them--Mother, Sister, Sister Edwina, and Miss Lily Lou, and may
+God have mercy on the girl who marries the male member of the family
+and goes into their home to live!  He is a perfectly grand sort to be
+in love with, and I am almost sure I am in love or I wouldn't feel so
+thrilly when I see him coming.  But being in love is one thing and
+getting married is a very different other, and there isn't a man person
+living I want to think of marrying yet.  It's awfully interesting, too,
+to learn the different ways in which love can be made.  Twickenham Town
+may be slow about many things, but in others it is so quick it takes
+your breath away.  Whythe became personal in conversation the fourth
+time I was with him.  It was at the Braxtons' party and conditions were
+favorable, but, not expecting the turn that was taken, I was as excited
+as if I had never heard remarks of a similar character before, and the
+first thing I knew I had promised Whythe (he begged me to call him
+Whythe) to go horseback-riding with him the next day.  We went--I on
+Skylark, who is the joy of my life, and he on a borrowed horse, and we
+had a perfectly wonderful time.  I don't think Whythe will ever be much
+of a lawyer, but as a love-maker he hasn't an equal on earth--that is,
+any I have ever heard.
+
+As we rode down the main street of Twickenham everybody in the town
+seemed on it.  Princess Street is the only one called by a name, though
+of course the others have names, and it is the place where everybody
+meets everybody else and learns all the news; and if anybody went to
+sleep that night without knowing that Whythe and I had started on a
+ride at ten o'clock in the morning and didn't get back until three it
+was because that person was too deaf to hear and couldn't understand
+the movement of lips.  I didn't know I was doing anything I oughtn't,
+and if I did it I am not sorry.  I had a grand time.  It was a gorgeous
+day and cool enough for me to wear my brown-linen riding-habit and high
+boots, which, with a stock collar and small sailor hat, made me look
+real nice, and the way the people stared at me you would have thought
+they had never seen a divided skirt before, and--oh, my granny!--the
+faces of the family (Whythe's family) as we passed their house!  I
+smiled the politest and properest I knew and they bowed back, but in a
+way that made me laugh out loud when out of sight, and so did Whythe.
+And then we forgot them, forgot everything except it was awfully good
+to be alive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The place we went to is very historic and interesting.  Something
+happened there that was very important in American history, but I have
+forgotten what it was.  Whythe told me, and as it doesn't matter, being
+over for such a long time, I haven't tried to remember.  The sky was so
+wonderful and the river so winding and lovely and the air so delicious
+that yesterdays did not seem important and only to-day counted; and it
+was when we were sitting under a beautiful big water-oak that Whythe
+began to be terribly sentimental and say things that would have been
+more suitable for moonlight and shadows and things of that sort.  But
+suitable or not, they were thrilly to hear, and I would have enjoyed
+hearing them if it hadn't been for an abominable feeling that Billy was
+right beside me hearing every word also, and with a look on his face as
+if he thought my new friend was the foolest yet.  And presently when I
+couldn't stand it any longer (I mean stand Billy standing by) I got up
+suddenly and told Whythe it was time to go home.
+
+I interrupted him in the midst of a beautiful sentence about my
+eyelashes, I think, or maybe it was something else, I don't remember;
+but anyhow when I jumped up he was very much surprised and wanted to
+know what was the matter.  I couldn't tell him, but I was perfectly
+furious with Billy and the look on his face, which seemed to say what
+I'd heard him say often about fool-flum talk and feather-headed fellows
+and things of that sort.  And I was so mad I rode so fast Whythe
+couldn't keep up with me or continue the conversation, but it has been
+continued since.  That is the main theme, though the variations are
+always different.  Whythe never seems to give out on variations.
+
+Of course, all of Miss Susanna's boarders, which are only four besides
+myself, had something to say in general about the faithlessness of men
+and the flirtatiousness of girls, and how times had changed, and how
+you couldn't put your hand on any human being and feel you could trust
+him in these days, and how men were gobbled up before they had got
+their breath good after painful experiences, and dozens of other things
+on that order.  And I had such a good time listening to them, though
+they didn't talk directly to me, that I'd forget at times and nearly
+screech out loud at the tones of voice in which they did me up, and
+then I would remember and try to look serious.  But seriousness doesn't
+seem to fit my face--that is, seriousness over sillinesses--and it
+wouldn't stay on very long.
+
+They thought it very indelicate in me to walk away with Elizabeth's
+sweetheart right before her eyes--that is, Mrs. General Games did, but
+Miss Araminta Armstrong, who is over fifty and by nature sentimental
+and sympathetic, said she supposed it was natural for youth to seek
+consolation, and Whythe, poor dear, had been so heartbroken at
+Elizabeth's behavior that he had been receptive to other influences of
+a pleasing nature, and she didn't think they ought to be so hard on
+him.  And then, after more talk of that sort, she would sigh and look
+away at the mountains in the distance with a loved-and-lost look in her
+eyes, and Miss Bettie Simcoe would sit up and snort.
+
+There's nothing sentimental or sympathetic about Miss Bettie.  Neither
+is there anything in the earth below or the heavens above that she has
+not an opinion of her own about, but the one concerning which she has
+the most decided opinions is Man.  She doesn't mince matters when she
+gets on him.  Also, she is an authority on God.  She can tell you
+exactly why He does things, and she quotes Him as if He were her most
+confidential friend, and the only thing which stumps her is why He made
+such a mess of what is considered His most important work.  Mention a
+male person's name and up go her eyebrows and down come the corners of
+her lips and on the side goes her head, and nothing need be said for
+her opinion to be understood.  She is positively triumphant over
+Whythe.  She goes around with a "Didn't-I-tell-you-so?" expression
+oozing out of every feature of her face, and I think she tells
+Elizabeth she is fortunate to have discovered his fickleness so soon.
+
+If Elizabeth thinks she is fortunate she has a queer way of showing it.
+She must cry a good deal at night, judging by her eyes in the morning,
+but the thing that's most the matter with her is madness.  She can't
+take it in that Whythe is showing no signs of anxiousness to make up.
+She imagined, I suppose, when they had their fuss that it wouldn't last
+very long and that he would give in to whatever she wanted, and now
+that he isn't giving in she is so freezingly furious with me she barely
+speaks to me.  She seems to think it is my fault and that my coming
+just when I did is the cause of the whole trouble.  Though she never
+says anything directly to me, she makes remarks in my presence about
+the way men flirt in Twickenham Town and how dangerous it is,
+especially for young girls who have never had any experience in things
+of that sort and are deceived by it; and as she talks I just rock and
+rock if in a chair, and swing and swing if in a hammock, until she has
+said a good many nasty things, and then I get up and go up-stairs and
+bring down a box of candy Whythe has sent me and offer it to her with
+my most Christian forgiveness and most understanding smile, and,
+strange to say, she never takes a piece!
+
+I don't mind her remarks.  They're natural, and if she wasn't such a
+horrid little teapot I'd do anything I could to straighten out things;
+but until she behaves herself I won't.  I am having a very interesting
+time being in love, and why should I stop just because a man she broke
+with isn't grieving, but is keeping himself in practice saying to me
+what he used to say to her?  I am not going to stop until I think it is
+time and until both have learned a few things they ought to know before
+they get married.  She is a vain, selfish, pretty piece of spoiledness,
+and I don't believe she knows what real loving means.  She is the sort
+that wants what it hasn't got, and all the more if she thinks anybody
+else is apt to get it.  If she had any sense she would get a beau _pro
+tem_.  That is the best thing on earth to bring a man back to the
+straight and narrow, and Whythe is the kind of man who needs to be
+brought every now and then.
+
+I gave her that for nothing one morning--I mean the suggestion in
+general, though of course not personal--and she looked at me as if
+trying to understand.  And then something came in her face that must
+have been an idea in her brain (her brain is slow), for, two days
+afterward, she said she was going away.  A week later she went to see a
+rich aunt on her father's side who has a summer home somewhere and
+corrals young men and compels them to come to it, Miss Bettie Simcoe
+says.  When she was gone a great weight seemed lifted off everybody,
+and even the servants breathed better.  As for Miss Susanna, she was
+that lightened and relieved, though naturally not saying so, that she
+looked ten years younger, and I know now it is true that some people in
+a house are like fruit-cake on a weak stomach.  They make life hard.  I
+didn't say my prayers that night.  I just sang the Doxology three times
+as loud as I could and jumped into bed.  Praise is prayer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+I have been here four weeks to-day.  If there are any people in or
+around Twickenham Town that I do not know, it is because they are not
+knowable.  I love people, and, being naturally sociable and not very
+particular, I have had a perfectly grand time making acquaintances with
+the high and the low and, the in-betweeners; and the sick and well, and
+the dear and the queer, and the ancestrals and up-comers, and the rich
+and the poor, and every other variety that grows; and now I am as
+familiar with most of the family histories as the oldest inhabitant.
+That's the nice part of living in a small place.  Something depends on
+you and you depend on all the rest of the town, but at home you're lost
+in numbers and only a few know you're living.  Here everybody knows,
+also they know some things that perhaps had better be unknown.  As for
+talk, they are the best talkers on earth, and there's no subject under
+the sun they won't talk about.  It's an inheritance, Father says, and
+has been handed down from ages past, and, though they don't read very
+much, they can do more with a little knowledge than most learned people
+with their information, and they make anything they mention interesting
+from the way they mention it.  I love to hear them, and I've heard a
+good deal.
+
+Dear, precious Miss Susanna in the secrecy of my bedroom gave me a
+little talk a few nights ago, and said she hoped I wouldn't mind, but
+as I was young and inexperienced she thought it her duty to tell me
+that I must be careful and not too informal, for certain people
+wouldn't understand; and that while the Holts were a very good,
+respectable family, still they were not--  She stopped and coughed a
+little, and of course I understood, but I pretended I didn't, and told
+her they were perfectly healthy and I had had more fun with the Holt
+children than with any in town, but if she preferred they should not
+come to her house to see me I would just stop in theirs sometimes, as I
+would not like them to think I was afraid to go with them.  I wasn't,
+for while I knew they were not historic, they were the most interesting
+children I'd ever seen, and it seemed pretty cruel that they were left
+out of things because they didn't have forefathers to hang on to, or
+money, which of course would speak for itself.  And dear, angelic Miss
+Susanna, who is so worn out with boarders and their special kind of
+human-nature horridness at times that she's hardly got body enough to
+cover her soul, said I mustn't misunderstand her, but the Holts had
+never gone in the same circles as the other people I had met, and that
+customs, though unkind, were hard to overcome, and the oldest son--
+
+I told her not to worry about the oldest son.  He could go anywhere he
+wanted and with any one he wanted by the time he was through college,
+which his parents were working themselves to death to send him through,
+and it was very probable that several girls in town would be glad to
+add their grandfathers to his natural endowments before many years were
+over.  But if she didn't care for me to accept his attentions, as Miss
+Araminta Armstrong called them, I could always have an engagement when
+he asked me to go anywhere.  She looked so shocked and distressed that
+I told her I didn't approve of telling stories any more than she did,
+and for most sorts people ought to be branded, but I'd much rather tell
+one of that land than hurt a person's feelings.  And it wouldn't be
+untrue to say I had an engagement, for I always had one to go
+everywhere and anywhere, even if I didn't keep it; and again she
+coughed and looked so pained that I took her in my arms and whirled
+around the room with her and told her not to worry about me, either.  I
+wouldn't disgrace her by knowing the wrong people too well, but
+everybody had their peculiarities and one of mine was I was going to
+know anybody I wanted to.  I always thought a lady could, and, besides,
+I liked any kind of person who was interesting, and the best born ones
+were often very stupid, which of course was the wrong thing to say.  So
+I had to give her another whirl, and by the time she got her breath it
+was time to see about supper, and she has never referred to the subject
+since.
+
+Miss Susanna is a darling little lady of the old school (whatever the
+old school was) and I love her, but I am of my time as she is of hers,
+and I don't see her way any more than she sees mine.  She ought to wear
+hoop-skirts and brocaded silks and lace fichus and mits, and sit with
+her beautiful hands folded in her lap and her tiny little feet on a
+footstool, and instead she works from morning to night trying to help
+the good-for-nothingest servants that were ever hired by tired ladies,
+except Uncle Henson, and Aunt Mandy, the cook, who have been with her
+for years and years.  She's worn out.  That's what's the matter with
+Miss Susanna, and that selfish, lazy little piece of pinkness who is
+now away doesn't lift her hand to help her unless it is to make a cake
+occasionally.  I don't know how to make cake and never expect to know,
+as very good kinds can be bought, but I can wash dishes.  I do it every
+morning and she dries them, so limp Eliza can go up-stairs and clean up
+the bedrooms, and we have a beautiful time talking about what a change
+comes over human beings when they board.  That is, I do the talking and
+she shakes her head at me, but it does her good, as it gives sound to
+things she can't say.  Most of her time has to be spent in thinking
+what to put in people's stomachs and fixing it to be put; and, from the
+quantity that goes in, boarders must have much better appetites than
+people who keep house.  They eat and yet are never full.  There'll be
+no hope of heaven for me if I ever have to keep boarders.  I'd sweep
+them out with a broom certainly once a week.  That is, in my mind, if
+my hands didn't.  But Miss Susanna will never sweep them out.  The
+sanctuary in which I let out for her is the pantry, and all the things
+she won't say I say for her.  Yesterday she laughed so she broke a cup.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Father is coming to-morrow!  I am so excited and happy that to-day,
+after I was safely out of Twickenham Town and there was no one to see
+me, I stood up on Skylark's back and held the bridle with one hand and
+waved the other in the air; and then I tried standing on one foot with
+the other one out, but I came near losing my balance and just did catch
+myself in time.  Seeing a woman coming down the road in a buggy, with a
+baby in her lap, I got back in place before she saw what I was doing,
+but I needn't have done it, for it was just Mrs. Pettigrew, and she
+wouldn't have cared whether it was my head or my heels which were on
+the horse.  She has eleven children and no husband to speak of, and
+what people do or don't do doesn't bother her.  We stopped for a little
+talk and she told me about the roof leaking and the pig eating the
+baby's bonnet which Miss Katie Spain had given it last Christmas, and
+which was too small for its head, but was all it had; and that a kettle
+of soft soap had fallen off the stove and burned two toes of Sammy, the
+next to the youngest boy, and she would still be telling me things, but
+I told her Father was coming and I had to attend to something, and so
+she drove on.
+
+I did have something to attend to, but I didn't attend right away, for
+the day was so wonderful I couldn't go in for a long time.  The
+sunshine looked as if it had been washed and ironed, it was so clear
+and clean and crisp, and the wind in the trees said all sorts of lovely
+things to me, and I made up my mind that, no matter what happened in
+life, I was always going to remember that warm and sweet and sunny
+things are sure to come again, if at times they seem dead and buried,
+and that I would try not to see the cranks and queernesses of people as
+much as I was by nature inclined to do; and then I went right back to
+Miss Susanna's, and before I knew it I had said something I oughtn't,
+and to Mr. Willie Prince.
+
+Every time I see Mr. Willie I thank God he is no relation of mine.  He
+is the only man boarder in the house, which is another thing to be
+thankful for; but, though he is hard to stand, he is nearly sixty and a
+human being, and I ought to remember what I forget and yesterday I
+didn't remember.  He was the only son of his mother and should have
+been a daughter, and in trying to make him one his maternal parent
+succeeded better than in anything else she ever attempted, Miss Bettie
+Simcoe says--and she ought to know, being his first cousin.  His
+business is telling people what they don't want to hear; and, though he
+doesn't do any work, a hound dog couldn't run a rabbit down quicker
+than he can a piece of gossip, and when he isn't sitting on somebody's
+front porch fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan, from which he is
+never separated in summer, he is down at the drug-store hearing and
+being heard.  He thinks he is handsome, and he is as proud of his pink
+cheeks as a goose of her gander, and I'm sure he puts something on them
+on cool days.  If he could wear some blue ribbon on his sandy hair and
+have trousers and coats to match his fancy vests he would be perfectly
+happy.  As a man he is a poor job, but as a Miss Nancy he is perfect,
+and when yesterday I came in from my ride he made me so mad that I
+popped out something I shouldn't have popped and before I knew I was
+going to do it.
+
+He was sitting on the porch when I came up, fanning as hard as he could
+fan, and as I went by he stopped me.  "I would advise you to be more
+careful when you go in wading at the creek, Miss Kitty," he said, "It
+isn't customary for young ladies in Twickenham Town to do such things
+and--"
+
+"And where I came from it isn't customary for gentlemen to follow young
+ladies and see what they do," I said, and the minute the words were out
+I knew I shouldn't have said them, for his face got as red as a beet
+and he jumped up and walked into the house.
+
+I don't know that he really followed Sallie Sclater, who's a visiting
+girl, and myself to see if we went wading, but we certainly went and
+had a good time doing it, though we had to dry our feet with my
+petticoat.  But from the way his face went he must have made it
+convenient to walk in that direction and must have seen us, or he
+wouldn't have known anything about our going, as we were careful to
+look around before we took off our shoes and stockings.  I can't endure
+him, but he is nearly sixty and I am only sixteen, and I shouldn't have
+spoken as I did; and possibly because I was so happy over Father's
+coming I told him last night that if I had said anything I shouldn't I
+hoped he would forget it and I, too, would forget what had been said.
+And that, of course, I knew gentlemen in Twickenham Town never did
+anything gentlemen shouldn't, and that my quickness of speech was
+always getting ahead of me; and he looked so relieved that I am
+perfectly certain he followed us.  But, anyhow, he was very pleasant
+last night and told a scream of a story about poor little Miss Lily Lou
+Eppes when she thought she had a beau.  She had almost landed him when
+he got away.  He's never been heard from since.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+It's over--Father's visit is.  He has been gone a week, and it will be
+a whole month before he can come again.  He has to divide up between
+Mother and the girls and me, and he can only get away once in two
+weeks, because his partner is ill and business has something the matter
+with it and has to be watched, which is why he could stay only four
+days in Twickenham Town.  I don't see why fathers have to work so hard,
+and why wives and daughters must have so many unnecessary things, and
+such big houses and so many new clothes and automobiles and parties and
+pleasures, which aren't real fun after you have them.  But most women
+seem to want them, and keep on scrambling for what other people
+scramble for, and only a few have sense enough to see how foolish it
+all is and stop.  Maybe they are wound up so tight they can't stop.  I
+don't know.  I only know I do not want to live the life a lot of women
+I know live, and I am not going to do it.
+
+I wish Father could see it the way I do--about working so hard, I
+mean--and I think he might, for he says I am a chip off the block and
+he is the block, and in almost everything we feel alike; but there's
+Mother and the girls, who care for things I don't care for, and of
+course they must have them.  He gives them everything they want, but he
+looked so awfully tired the day he came I could think of nothing else
+the night he left, which is why I cried so under the sheet, and then
+when the tears were out and I felt lighter I got up and wrote him a
+long letter and told him I loved him so it hurt, and that he was the
+best and dearest father on all this big, big earth, and if he would let
+me come and keep house for him I would fly back.  But he wouldn't let
+me come.  He wrote me a letter, though, that I shall keep with my
+treasures, and I wish what he said was so.  It isn't so.  He just
+thinks it, but it does your heart good to know somebody cares an awful
+lot about you and no matter what you do is going to stand by.  What he
+wrote me was this:
+
+
+_Dear little Nut-brown Maid all mine, of course you would come, but you
+mustn't.  It is too hot and you need what you are getting, and nothing
+could help me here so much as to know of that wonderful color of yours
+and that you are so well and strong again.  That you are getting health
+and happy memories for the winter of work and study ahead is the best
+tonic I can take, and every morning when I go to my desk I get out that
+little picture of you and, nobody being by, I kiss it and send you my
+love, and it is a breath of life-giving air to know you are mine.
+Since the first time I saw you--you were exactly one hour old and
+laughing even then--you have been the joy and delight of my heart, and
+I can't afford to run any risk with summer heat and the joy of my
+heart.  I didn't deserve you, for I wanted a son so badly, and was
+fearfully disappointed that you were not a boy.  You seemed to
+understand and did not get mad about it, and I've often wanted you to
+know that no son could mean to me now what my little harum-scarum
+daughter means.  There has never been a day since you first looked into
+my eyes that I haven't thanked God for you, and the thing I am most
+afraid of in life is that you may get sick or not be strong, and that
+is why I am so glad for you to be in such a charming old place as
+Twickenham Town.  You were wise, little daughter of mine, to choose so
+quaint and queer and dear a place in which to spend your summer, for
+there real things still count, and there is more time for the fine
+courtesies of life, and the hurry and rush of it, the push and scramble
+for place and power, is out of key with its quiet serenity and the
+poise that comes from a sense of values that by many of us is to-day
+forgotten.  I am coming back as soon as I can, for I, too, want the
+refreshment and novelty of being where money is not talked and
+apologies never made for the absence of things that money gets.  Miss
+Susanna Mason is a liberal education in herself and no "Course in
+Culture" could equal the advantage of being in her society.  I have
+written her, of course, but tell her again of my sense of privilege,
+and my great pleasure, in being a guest in her home, and remember
+always you are in your father's heart.  Always he is thinking of you._
+
+
+Now wasn't that a nice letter to get from a father?  I'm nothing to be
+thankful for; but, if he thinks I am, I am thankful for that, and it
+makes life a different thing to know somebody is thankful for you.  And
+another thing I think would make life nicer, make working and living
+not so hard, is to tell people you like them and you believe they are
+trying to do their best, even if their best is powerful poor.  Of
+course, all people don't try to do their best.  Some are by nature and
+practice mean and horrid and ought to have facts handed out to them,
+but most people try to do right, and maybe they would try harder if
+they got a little encouragement now and then.  Anyhow, I've often
+noticed it makes a person take fresh hold again for somebody to give
+them a lift in the way of a friendly word or so, and it doesn't cost
+much--kindness doesn't.  I wonder why we don't have more of it.
+
+The reason why Father liked Twickenham Town so much was that nobody
+talked business to him, and if anybody knew he was the head of Bird &
+Roller, bankers and brokers, they never mentioned it to him or talked
+shop at all, and for four days he forgot stocks and bonds and the ups
+and downs of the money-market and let go.  And yet I am almost sure Mr.
+Willie Prince knows all about him--the business part, I mean--and that,
+of course, will mean everybody in Twickenham will know pretty soon.
+The reason I think he knows is that I went into the bank to get a check
+cashed the morning after Father got here, and I saw Mr. Willie sitting
+at a table in a corner of the bank with a copy of Bradstreet open
+before him and his eyes close to it.  I made it convenient to walk up
+to the table and look down at the book, and I saw he was running his
+finger down the letter "B," and when he saw me he shut the book quick.
+I just smiled and passed on.  But not talking business is only one of
+the reasons Father liked Twickenham Town so much.  Another was because
+everybody was so nice to him.  He had so many invitations to dinner and
+supper, and even breakfast, that he was on a dead go from morning until
+night, and he never ate so much in his life as he ate in those four
+days.  It did him good, and he didn't look tired a bit when he left.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The day Father got here was a beautiful day.  The train was due at
+six-thirty in the morning, but it never hurries and has only been on
+time three times since it has been running, and Uncle Henson said there
+was no use getting to the station until seven o'clock, but I told him
+if he wasn't in front of the porch by six o'clock I'd send for Mr.
+Briggs and go down in his automobile, and there was no need to say
+anything more.  Mention automobile to Uncle Henson and his back begins
+to go up just like a cat's.  There are only a few automobiles in town,
+though a good many people have Fords, and several offered to lend me
+theirs, but not wanting to hurt Miss Susanna, who has been sending the
+same carriage to the station for over thirty years, I didn't accept
+their offers, but went down in the coach, as Uncle Henson calls it.
+Its top is still upholstered in a sun-shaped thing which was once
+yellow satin and now tattered and torn, and hardly anybody ever rides
+in it, but when a new boarder comes Miss Susanna always says, in that
+queenly way of hers, "You will take the carriage to the station,
+Henson," and Uncle Henson's old gray head bows as if at royal orders,
+and they do not know they are playing a part that belongs to the days
+that are no more.  That is what Tennyson, I think, calls a time that
+will never be the same again.
+
+Uncle Henson's coachman's coat, long and faded and once brass-buttoned,
+and a battered hat to match, are always put on to meet the train; and
+when he held the door open for Father to get in the old, ramshackle
+thing he did it in a way that could be sold for big money, if manner
+could be bought, and Father got inside with equal elegance.  After he
+was in and Uncle Henson couldn't see him, he looked at me as if to ask
+if I thought it would stand, and I nodded back yes, and slipped my hand
+in his and hugged him again, I was so glorious glad to see him!  He is
+such a splendid Father--my Father is, I am so sorry for girls who
+haven't one like mine, and not one of them has.  He is the only one of
+his kind on earth.
+
+Everybody was on the porch to meet us when we drove up, and Miss
+Susanna gave him such a gracious welcome, and was so sweet and stately
+and quaint and lovely in her white dotted Swiss muslin dress which Miss
+Araminta Armstrong says she has been wearing for six summers, and which
+has the dearest little darns in it, that Father's face got real
+flushed, and once I really believe there were tears in his eyes.  He
+might have been an ambassador at some court who was being received, for
+at no court in Europe could a lady bow as Mrs. General Gaines bows, and
+she gave her best to Father when he was presented.  I don't like her,
+but she certainly is an old swell.  And then Isham (he's Uncle Henson
+and Aunt Mandy's grandson, and totes water all day long from the well
+up into the house, when he isn't playing a Jew's-harp in the sun) came
+out and got Father's bags and things and took them up-stairs, and a
+little later Uncle Henson brought up on a silver tray one of those mint
+juleps, about which Father told Mr. Willie Prince, who made it, that
+the half could never be told, and at eight o'clock we had breakfast.
+Usually Father doesn't take anything at home but grape-fruit and
+coffee, but that morning, and every morning he was here, he ate
+waffles, and batter-bread, and beaten biscuits, and everything else
+Miss Susanna would urge him to try, and he said he couldn't understand
+how he could eat so much.  I didn't tell him, but I think it was
+because of the juleps.  They're the best things for poor appetites ever
+invented yet, Major Hairston says, and he ought to know, being over
+seventy and never having missed taking two a day since he could fix
+them for himself.  After breakfast we talked for a while on the porch,
+and then I took Father out to show him the town.
+
+I wouldn't have taken him out if the day had been hot, but it wasn't
+hot.  It was one of those gorgeous days that sometimes come in summer
+after a thunder-storm and which have the feel and taste of early
+October; and being in the mountains it was cooler on that account, and
+I could see Father breathe deep, and the tiredness began to go away as
+we walked and talked.  That is, I talked.  He tried to at first, and
+then gave up.  Everybody in town knew he was coming--I had told
+them--and they came down from their porches and shook hands with him,
+and said they were so glad to see him and they hoped he was going to
+stay some time, and that they would call as soon as he was rested, and
+a whole lot of other nice things, so that Father almost got flurried,
+he was so pleased and warmed up.  At home he is always hurrying in the
+morning to get to the office, and at night hurrying to get away, and of
+course we don't have neighbors, and it was so queer to find everybody
+so friendly and interested that by the time we got back to Rose Hill he
+looked like another man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+I took him down Princess Street first, of course, and showed him the
+bank and post-office and moving-picture places, and the court-house and
+churches and stores, and specially the drug-store, which is a sort of
+standing-up club for the men; and I told him whose were the offices;
+and Whythe came out of his and spoke to him in a perfectly perfect way,
+and said he hoped he would be permitted to show him some of the things
+of interest in the neighborhood.  And also he said if it was convenient
+to us he would call in a car (Whythe hasn't even a Ford, but he has a
+Twin-Six manner) in the morning and we would drive to Horseshoe Falls,
+and from there go on to Spruce Mountain, where something historic
+happened during the Revolution, I think; and only once when talking did
+he look right in my eyes.  His sent a message, and my heart flopped
+around so it felt like a frog in a can of milk, and, I was so afraid
+Father would hear, I told Whythe we would go with pleasure and were
+much obliged, but we couldn't stop any longer, as there was a good deal
+to see before dinner.  He shook hands twice with Father, who, when he
+was out of hearing, asked me how a young man could leave his business
+in the morning and go riding.  I told him business could always be left
+in Twickenham Town, and he laughed and said he wished he lived in a
+town of that sort.  I wish he did.
+
+We stopped just a minute to speak to Mr. Bugg, who sells vegetables and
+eggs and things, and whose wife has just had twins again, and this time
+has a milk-leg also, and Father shook hands with him and asked about
+the babies, I thinking just in time to tell him to do it, and then we
+had some soda-water at Mrs. Grump's.  It is the most awful soda-water
+in the world, Mrs. Grump's is, but it is wet and cold, and you can sit
+down when drinking it, and while we sat she touched up the town and
+Father nearly fell out of his chair at the way she did it.  If Mrs.
+Grump were for sale, I'd sell everything I own to get enough to buy
+her, for the way she can put into words what she thinks of human beings
+would make a graven image come to life.  She never smiles herself.
+
+After we got through with Princess Street we turned in by Colonel
+Rixby's and then went down by the Baconses' and into The Court, whose
+trees were planted by order of some lordly person, kin to the Aikens
+who have been sitting under the shade of their greatness ever since,
+and then we strolled by the Eppes house, for I wanted Father to see it.
+It is the stateliest old place in town and its garden of old-fashioned
+flowers makes one think the twentieth century is a mistake and ought
+never to have been, but ordinarily I pass it quickly, as I don't care
+for its owners.  The house has perfect lines and the dearest little
+panes of glass in its deep, wide windows; and inside it has big
+fireplaces and beautifully carved woodwork and wonderful old furniture
+and fearful old portraits, and I certainly wanted Father to see
+everything in it, but I didn't expect him to do it, for the House of
+Eppes doesn't admire me any more than I admire it--and then the
+unexpected happened.
+
+As we reached the gate we saw the whole bunch sitting in the wide, cool
+hall--Sister reading aloud, Sister Edwina making tatting, and Miss Lily
+Lou peeling a peach for Mother from a basket on the table beside her,
+and I was going to pass by and just bow to Mother as pleasantly and
+politely as I could (she was the only one who saw us), when to my
+surprise she got up and ordered me to stop by a wave of her hand.  I
+stopped.  She does not approve of me.  She thinks it very indelicate in
+me to accept the attentions of one whose engagement had so recently
+been broken, and, while she will never recover from stupefaction that
+Elizabeth should disagree with her son, she attributed that action on
+Elizabeth's part to lack of sense and does not hesitate to say so, just
+as she has not hesitated to say things about me that were not as
+Christian as they might have been.  She knew, however, what was
+expected of Twickenham Town and that personal feelings were to be paid
+no attention to where politeness was concerned, and with a sort of
+scepter movement she beckoned to me and commanded us to come in.  We
+went.
+
+It is a queer thing how nice disagreeable people can be when they want
+to, and that morning the entire Eppes family (even Sister Edwina, who's
+the limit) were so polite and pleasant that Father never would have
+imagined how cocky and sniffy they usually are.  I behaved as well as
+they did, and when we came away I couldn't remember a thing I had said
+that I shouldn't.  We didn't stay but half an hour.  I wouldn't have
+held out a whole hour, and neither would they, and so, after we had
+seen all the beautiful old things downstairs and been introduced to all
+the painted ancestors, I got away quick, for Miss Anna was showing
+signs I didn't think were safe.  They don't know that they worship
+idols of wood and glass and silver and china, and images in old gilt
+frames, but they do, and the steel trust hasn't money enough to buy
+them.  It's a pity they won't sell a few and put the money in some new
+clothes, for those they wear are a sight to behold.  As we were
+leaving, Mother Eppes invited us to take dinner with her on Sunday in a
+way that was more a command than an invitation and we accepted in a
+manner to match, though inside I was raging to think we'd have to go.
+And then I remembered it would be a regular thriller to be eating at
+the table with Whythe and his family and my family, and I hoped I'd
+remember to call him Mr. Eppes, as down here they do that up to the day
+of the marriage, the first name being thought too familiar until after
+the ceremony, and even then in public.  Grace Marvin, who is engaged to
+Richard Clarke, calls him Dick, but that is because she isn't
+ancestral; just accepted, Mrs. Grump says, and she knows, being
+familiar with the history of everybody in town.
+
+They were perfect days, the four Father spent in Twickenham Town, and
+he was made over when he went away.  Every morning Mr. Willie Prince
+sent him up a mint julep that started the day so cheerfully he was
+happy through its every minute; and Major Roke, who makes the best ones
+in town, would come for him at twelve o'clock and take him to his
+house, and Mr. Letcher always managed to get hold of him about six in
+the afternoon, and at bedtime some one else would send one in.  And
+poor Father, who never drinks anything at home, it not being good for
+him, was in an awful state of mind at first, and then he decided he
+would rather die than hurt the feelings of the senders and he'd take
+the chance on his health.  He took.
+
+I'm a fighting disbeliever in whisky, and if I had any say I'd say it
+couldn't be made except for sickness, but you couldn't get certain
+Twickenham-Towners to believe it is a dangerous thing, and to take a
+little something for the stomach's sake is a recommendation in the
+Bible they approve of and obey.  It doesn't seem to kill people here or
+some would have been a long time dead, but there are one or two it is a
+pity it hasn't killed.  It does much worse than kill; it ruins.  I hope
+next time Father will say the doctor doesn't permit him to touch
+anything.  I didn't tell him so, of course, and I am afraid he will
+manage not to see the doctor before he leaves; but, anyhow, the morning
+and night juleps can be thrown out of the window after a sip to get the
+smell on if he wants to throw.  I wouldn't take a bet that he will
+want, but I'm hoping.
+
+I didn't see much of Whythe while Father was here--that is, by himself.
+He was awfully nice to Father and he liked him very much (Father liked
+Whythe, I mean), but he couldn't understand why he didn't get more of a
+move on and make business for himself.  I told him in Twickenham Town
+people waited for business to come to them, and everybody knew Whythe
+was a lawyer, and if they needed his services they would let him know,
+and if they didn't there was no use waiting around, which was why he
+was out of his office so much of the time.  And then Father asked me
+when I had heard from Billy and when he was coming home; and, thankful
+to change the subject, I told him all I knew and got out the cards and
+showed them to him.
+
+We had so many things to talk about--Mother and the girls and the home
+people and things, and the people he had met in Twickenham Town--that
+he hadn't talked about Billy, and when I showed him the cards he said
+Billy must have mighty little to do but write them, as there were
+fifty-six and he hadn't been gone but five weeks.  He seemed to think
+that right many, so I didn't say anything much about his letters, which
+are long and once a week, but told him Billy would sail on September
+16th, and get back before I did--that is, if I stayed until the 27th.
+He said I could if I wanted to, and that he would come down for the
+last week and take me back with him, and I was so happy I swirled him
+around in my arms and danced a dance I made up as I went along, and
+both Billy and Whythe Eppes were out of his mind when he stopped for
+breath.  And that night he went away.  Also that night I almost cried
+my eyes out for sorrow at his going and for gladness that he was my
+Father.  I wonder if all girls love their fathers as I love mine!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Billy has been pretty good about writing.  Much better than I have
+been.  I told him I would tell him all about Twickenham and the people,
+and what they did and how they did, and I intended to do it, but that
+is my chief trouble.  I'm a grand intender and a poor doer.  Billy
+never promises and always does.  He sends cards from every place, he
+goes to, and a good many from the same place so I can see what he is
+seeing, which I couldn't do if he wrote a book of descriptions.  He
+doesn't tell much about the cities and towns, most of which I have been
+in myself and am glad he leaves out, but he writes awfully interesting
+things about the places he pokes into by himself and the people he
+meets, and I almost die laughing over his accounts of his sister and a
+beau his mother has caught for her.  She is a dandy-looking girl, his
+sister is, and wears the smartest clothes I ever saw except Florine's,
+and if Patricia has really landed a duke or a count or a thing of that
+sort, his mother will have a wedding that will fit the fellow all
+right.  He's apt to be landed.
+
+I never have understood how Billy was born of his parents.  He cares no
+more for flum-foolishness than I do, which is why we have so much fun
+over the efforts certain mothers we know make to help their daughters
+get married, and we've decided to be failures as social successes and
+enjoy ourselves.  My mother isn't at all like his mother.  She is a
+precious mother, mine is, and adores Father and her children, but she
+is in the parade and has to keep step, not having courage to get out,
+and she thinks she must give her daughters every opportunity, and for
+daughters in Mother's world opportunity means marriage.  Until she gets
+us settled she won't feel as if her duty had been done.  That's why she
+has gone with Florine and Jessica to the same place Florine went to
+last summer with the Logans.  Florine has had a good many beaux, but
+none of them has been just what she had set her mind on, and last
+summer she met a man I believe she fell in love with.  Anyhow, she has
+gone where it will be convenient for him to see her if he wants to, and
+he must want, as Mother says in every one of her letters that Mr.
+Jeffry has just come or just gone.  He came to see Florine last winter,
+and a blind person could tell he was worth having.  I hope they will
+take each other.  Mother would be so pleased.  Jessica and I are not
+apt to do much for ourselves in the marrying line, so it is left to
+Florine to make the catch.
+
+She is very beautiful, Florine is.  She knows it and she loves
+beautiful things and wouldn't think of marrying any one who could not
+give them to her.  She wouldn't marry a man who isn't decent and
+straight and all that, not being that kind, but neither is she
+romantic, and nothing on earth could make her lose her head.  She is
+cool and deliberate and far-seeing, and not apt to ask herself too many
+questions about love alone when thinking about marriage.  She is a
+dream to look at, which Jessica isn't, but I love Jessica best.
+
+Last night in bed I got to thinking about old Jess, and wondering how
+she was making out with that bunch up there, and I almost rolled out at
+the way her nose must be turning up inside of her at some of the things
+she was seeing and hearing and had to take part in; and I laughed so
+loud that Miss Susanna came in my room to see if anything were the
+matter.  I told her no, and that I was just thinking of something, so
+she pattered back, and I put my face in the pillow to keep her from
+hearing me again.  But it was hard not to let it come out.  Mother's
+daughters are a mixture all right, and no more alike than if they
+weren't related to one another.  Being a parent must be an anxious job.
+I hope I will have a dozen children, but they'll probably be right much
+to manage.  If I turn out to be a childless old maid, I'll adopt a boy
+and girl, anyhow.  I can do that if I can't do anything else.
+
+Jessica is the clever one of our family.  Florine has the beauty and
+Jessica the brains, and so far nothing has shown signs in me, but
+something may turn up yet.  Jessica is an A.M., and she has Ideas and
+Views and Opinions which she isn't stingy with and lets anybody have
+who is within hearing, and she wanted to be something, have a Career
+and get an Identity, which she says a woman has no chance of doing as
+long as she sinks herself in marriage; but Father said she couldn't go
+to any more colleges until she had had a fling at fun, for it wasn't
+fair to Mother.  She came out last winter and had a fearful rush
+because she was so different from the other girls.
+
+I don't believe Jessica would ever have wasted a winter doing the
+things she did last year if she hadn't wanted to see for herself what
+was in it, anyhow, in society I mean, so she took a header and plunged
+all right.  She says she has a scientific and analytical mind and she
+worked it all out--the number of hours and days and weeks and months
+she had spent flopping around from one party to another, and doing the
+things she was supposed to do, and saying the things she wasn't
+supposed to say, and then she estimated the cost in time and strength
+and money and wear and tear on her character, and announced that it
+wasn't a paying business, and at the end of the year she was going to
+get out.  The year won't be up until October and that is why she is
+with Mother and Florine this summer.
+
+What she is going in for when it is up I don't believe she knows
+herself, yet.  She says woman to-day is in the most unsettled and
+uncertain state that any animal has ever been in since the first one, a
+mollusk, or something without a backbone started to get one.  And that
+it will take time for woman to evolute into being the best kind of a
+human being she is capable of becoming, and that the next step in the
+evoluting is to get out of her head some of the foolishness put in it
+by men people who didn't know what they were talking about.  Mother
+thinks it fearful in her to talk as she does, and can't understand how
+she can be so daring and so indelicate as to speak about coming from
+mollusks and things which don't have spinal columns and nervous
+systems, but Jessica says that is because Mother belongs to a day that
+didn't know about such things, and that the modern woman is shedding
+the shucks which have kept her a caterpillar much longer than was
+necessary.  A good many old ideas she thinks are shucks--that is, she
+pretends to; but she is an old dear just the same, if she does say
+things about people which it isn't polite to say.
+
+I love old Jess.  She isn't but twenty-two, and she will be less sniffy
+some of these days and not so scornful and impatient with repeaters and
+parasiters and people like that, but just now she says they aren't
+worth wasting time on.  She can talk you right into seeing her way, and
+the first thing you know you are agreeing with her, and she has landed
+you before you realized the net was out.  Landed outsiders, I mean.
+She will never land Mother and Florine.  I love to hear her talk,
+though I don't think I am going to be a Careering person.  I'd like to
+be one, but with a dozen children I am afraid there won't be time.  I
+wouldn't tell old Jess, but I don't think she is going to Career very
+long, either.  I believe she is in love with the man who taught her
+some of the ologies she is so interested in.  He is awfully nice, but
+not very practical.  He is a psychological sociologist or a
+sociological psychologist, I don't know which, but it doesn't matter.
+If Jess marries him she will run him and the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+I wonder what made me get on the subject of my sisters when I began
+with Billy and the reason I had not written him as often as he has
+written me, but that is the way I do everything in life.  If I were a
+preacher I wouldn't hold my job long, for the thing I started on would
+have about as much connection with the thing I ended with as the moon
+with milk.  Not that that would be unusual, for a good many ministers
+have the same failing and skip about just as I do, but my trouble would
+be in hopping from one subject to another so fast that the congregation
+would be in Jericho one minute and in Jerusalem the next and never know
+how it made the jump.  As I am never going to be a preacher, I am not
+worrying about my unfitness to be one, but what does worry me sometimes
+is that my hopping habit will be my ruination when I begin to write a
+book.  My characters will never keep together, or do the proper things
+or say suitable ones.  They will probably get so jumbled up no one will
+be able to tell which is the chief hero or heroine, and there will be
+no logical development at all, which my English teacher insists is an
+elemental requirement of fiction if it isn't of life.  I thought this
+summer I was going to begin some sort of book just for practice, but by
+the time I get through putting down the things I scribble about the
+day's doings, and write to Father and send my weekly letter to Mother
+and the girls, and run off something every now and then to Billy, and
+answer the notes I get from Whythe and some of the kiddies around here
+who think they're grown, I don't feel like writing on a book, which is
+why I haven't begun one yet.  I will never be able to write one that
+tells of dark deeds and treacherous doings and love-sick lovers, or one
+which has suspended interest or rapid action and narrow escapes, for I
+know very little of such things, and I will never do much with plots.
+The people I know do not have very exciting lives and here in
+Twickenham they trot along and do the same thing over and over, and one
+day is very much like the other, so there isn't much inspiration for a
+thriller, and thrillers are the style in books to-day.  That is one
+reason I thought I had better wait until the style changes and while
+waiting enjoy myself with the people here who know how to do that
+better than any people on earth.  I'm enjoying myself all right.
+
+Of course, now that I am in love, I could write volumes on how
+scrumptious it is and how floppy I feel whenever I see Whythe,
+especially when he keeps his deep, dark eyes on me as if he were trying
+to read my soul when we happen to meet at the foot of the hill and sit
+on the worm fence for a while.  I don't think he is trying to really
+read my soul, for he isn't much on reading anything, but he certainly
+can say beautiful things.  They aren't so, but they sound well, and I
+must admit I enjoy hearing them.  They make me feel so grown-upy, and
+then, too, it will be a great help when I begin my book to remember
+what a man says on certain occasions and how he says it.  They are
+natural couriers, the men in this town are, but they don't always mean
+to be taken in earnest, and Mr. James Burke came near getting in an
+awful mess by paying a girl a lot of compliments he oughtn't to have
+paid, he being a married man and she not knowing it.  She was a very
+serious person and believed all that was told her and came near
+breaking her engagement with another man on account of the pretty
+speeches Mr. Burke made to her.  She was from Rhode Island and visiting
+May Strudwick, who told her for mercy's sake not to pay any attention
+to speeches of that sort and to hold on to the Rhode-Islander, for Mr.
+Burke said the same fluff to all the girls who came to Twickenham, and
+as long as it was just eyebrows and things of that kind no harm was
+done.  But she couldn't understand and went home sooner than she
+expected.  I understand.  It's lots of fun--the different ways of
+saying the same thing--and all enlightenment is advantageous.
+
+A few nights ago Whythe got fearfully sentimental and said all sorts of
+thrilly, foolish nonsense, and the way he said it certainly added to
+its enjoyment.  He's a corking courter, and if he could teach the way
+he does it he would have crowded classes all right.  We were at Bessie
+Debree's party, and just before supper we went out on the side porch,
+which has bushels of roses on it and no lights, and sat down on a
+rustic bench in the corner where we could hear the music and see the
+moon and not be seen, and the minute we sat I knew what was coming.
+
+Whythe put his elbow on the back of the seat and, chin in the palm of
+his hand, looked at me as if we were on a desert island and there was
+no one else in all the world but me, and he would ask for no one else
+if I alone was there; and then with his other hand he tried to take out
+of my fingers a rose he had just pulled and given me.  I remembered in
+time that Jess had told me to keep my hands to myself if anybody seemed
+interested in them, so I put the rose on the bench and sat on my hands
+and asked him if he did not think Marjorie Graham a perfectly beautiful
+person; and he said he hadn't noticed her sufficiently to know what she
+looked like, as he never saw but one face now.  And then he leaned a
+little closer and asked me if I knew how wonderful I was and what my
+eyes could do to a man's heart if I would only let come in them what
+could come, and which he hoped would some day come only for him; and I
+asked him what it was, not knowing, as it had never been mentioned
+before, and he said it was a thing a man would die for.  And then he
+took the rose up and put it to his lips and asked me if I would marry
+him; asked me if I could never care for him as he cared for me, for he
+knew now that he had never really loved before, and if I would promise
+to marry him he would be in heaven, his happiness would be so great.
+
+It was perfectly thrilling, much better than anything I have ever seen
+on the stage.  He tried to get one of the hands I was still sitting on,
+but I thought I had better not let him have it, as we were not engaged,
+and Jess had said no affectionaries until you are engaged.  And then,
+too, I remembered he had probably said the same things several times
+before, he seemed so familiar with them, and I had a feeling that Billy
+was standing by, perfectly disgusted, but ready to fish me out if I
+fell in.  I came pretty near falling, and then I told Whythe I wouldn't
+be through college until I was twenty and I didn't believe in waiting
+for anything on earth for four years, and though it was awfully nice in
+him to ask me to marry him, my father would have fits if he thought I
+was listening to him do it, and that we had better go in.
+
+I wish I had had a kodak and could have snapped the look that came over
+his face when I suggested going in.  He was perfectly astonished.  Also
+he was indignant and grieved and the look he bent upon me was truly
+burning.  As for his voice--Sothern couldn't have surpassed it.  After
+a while he said he thought I had more sympathy, more understanding of a
+love such as his, and if I realized its depth I would not keep him
+waiting four years, as four years at college was all nonsense for a
+woman; and then he got my hand, anyhow, and I jumped up, for somebody
+was coming, and, besides, if we hadn't gone in we'd have been in an
+argument right off, with love left out, on the subject of education and
+women.  I did not want him to think I was not appreciative, however,
+and though I went in with Mr. Keane, who had come for his dance, I gave
+Whythe a little look that was not unfriendly as I left him.  I am
+afraid it was not even discouraging, but he seemed so mysterious and
+tragic and amazed that I should leave him at such a critical time that
+I thought a little look wouldn't hurt.  I noticed, as we reached the
+door, that he was lighting a cigarette, and I knew his feelings would
+soon be soothed.  Man has no sorrow that smoking may not cure.
+
+When we went home that night other people were in the automobile (I
+always see that that happens, knowing how Mother would feel about it)
+and Whythe, of course, had no chance to continue a former conversation,
+but his silence said a lot, and when he helped me out of the car he
+helped much more than was necessary and held my hands so tight he
+nearly broke my little finger; and the look he gave me was a thriller
+all right.  Every time I've thought of it since my heart has thumped so
+I know I must be in love, for all books say that is a reliable symptom.
+Being proposed to is awfully interesting, and the reason I like it so
+much is that I am not apt to have many proposals of Whythe's sort, as
+that kind has gone out of fashion, owing to golf and tennis and country
+clubs and so much association.  Plain statement is about all a girl
+gets nowadays, I am told.  Jacqueline Smith told Florine Mr. Smith had
+wired her he had to go to South America and asked her if she would
+marry him and go with him, and she wired back she would, and that was
+all the courting they had, though they seem very happy.  And a girl
+Jess knows said the man she married had asked her how he stood with
+her, that she stood all right with him, and that was the way they knew
+they cared for each other.  But I'm not that sort.  I am very romantic
+and I like a lot of words, which is why I am just crazy about Whythe's
+letters.
+
+If Whythe doesn't make a success of law or politics he could certainly
+make a living writing letters of a certain sort.  He's an expert at
+them and greatly gifted, and though I don't say much in mine, thinking
+it safer to telephone than write, I do tell him that his are perfectly
+lovely, at which he doesn't seem displeased.  He still begs me to marry
+him, and is so fearfully polite about it that I don't like to ask him
+what he has to marry on, and so far as I know he has only nerve and his
+mother's home.  I would not like to spend eternity as a maiden lady,
+but I'd much rather so spend it than dwell under the vine and fig-tree
+of the person who would be a mother-in-law to Whythe's wife.  My heart
+goes out to Elizabeth every time I think of the fate that will
+eventually be hers.  Also it goes out to the House of Eppes.  When
+opposing elements meet something usually happens.  I'm betting on
+Elizabeth, but I may be wrong.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Jehoshaphat the Golden!  For two days Twickenham Town has been standing
+on its head and wriggling its heels in the air, and nothing has been
+talked about since it appeared except its appearance.  Every tongue in
+town has had its say, and everybody in town has been on somebody else's
+porch and talked it over; and as for Miss Susanna, I believe she cried
+the whole night through, last night.  The first night she was too dazed
+to take it in.  The Twickenham Town _Sentinel_ had it on its front page
+in the middle column in letters indecently large, Miss Bettie Simcoe
+says, and it certainly did make a sensation: "Mrs. Roger S. Payne
+announces the engagement of her niece Elizabeth Hamilton Carter to Mr.
+Algernon Grice Baker, of Perryville, Wisconsin," was what the
+Twickenham-Towners waked up and read on Wednesday the 1st of August,
+and if the dynamite-plant which has made business so good for Buzzard
+Brothers, the undertakers, had exploded, it couldn't have caused more
+of a stir.  Twickenham wasn't only amazed; it was indignant, and it
+couldn't believe it was true.  But it was true, for the next day Miss
+Susanna got a letter from Elizabeth, telling her all about her
+engagement and that she would be home very soon and bring him with her,
+and it was the night of the day the letter was received that Miss
+Susanna went early to her room and locked her door for a while (that
+is, my door, for she is sleeping in my room during the August rush) and
+cried all night long.  I had to pretend I didn't know, for she didn't
+want me to know how hurt and distressed she was that Elizabeth should
+have so treated her, and as I didn't sleep any more than she did,
+though, owing to very different feelings about Elizabeth, I made up my
+mind as to some things I would say to her when she got back.  And if
+she has never read "King Lear" I will see that she hears it read before
+very long with a glossary, and comments of my own on ingratitude and
+things of that sort.  Also she may hear some other things.
+
+I have been perfectly furious with Elizabeth for the way she has
+treated the aunt who has been mother and father and all things else to
+her, but I can't help laughing at the way Twickenham Town has taken the
+engagement.
+
+As for Whythe--I have wished for Billy a dozen times of late, for only
+Billy could see what a scream it is, the shock to Whythe's vanity that
+Elizabeth's beau is proving.  I can't speak of it to any one else, and
+keeping it to myself is a great strain.  At first he seemed dazed with
+unbelief, and then he became scorny and sniffy and shruggy and smiley,
+and though he says little about his successor, whom he hasn't seen yet,
+his manner indicates that as a substitute for himself he considers him
+an insult.
+
+Last night at the gate he talked to me about it for a while, and then
+he asked me when I was going to tell him I would marry him, and why was
+it I would not engage myself to him and take him out of his miserable
+state of uncertainty and make him the happiest man in the world, and
+why--  Oh, my granny! he spieled it off so beautifully and his eyes
+helped so wonderfully, also the moon, which was half out and half in,
+that I stayed a little longer at the gate than I should, perhaps, and
+let him say things he shouldn't, but his fluency was so enjoyable I
+couldn't get away.  After a while, however, when he had run down a
+little, I told him I didn't think it would be respectful to what might
+have been if I engaged myself to him, and that sixteen was too young to
+be engaged, and then, too, it wasn't positively certain that a certain
+young person was going to marry another young person just because she
+was at present engaged to him.  At which he got perfectly furious and
+said he would not marry that certain person if she was the only woman
+left on earth; that she had treated him as no lady should treat a
+gentleman, and that she was vain and mercenary and ambitious, and he
+was mortified to think he had ever imagined he had loved so shallow and
+weak and changeable a girl, and--
+
+"But you did love her, didn't you?"  I got up on the gate-post, swung
+my feet down, and put my hands in my lap and out of reach, the post not
+being big enough for two.  "Everybody says you were frightfully in love
+with her and you didn't think she was shallow and weak and mercenary
+until you had the break, and maybe you may change your mind back again
+about her some day, and then where would I be?"  I put my chin in my
+hands and my elbows in my lap and looked down at him, and he looked so
+hurt and surprised that I saw he had not thought of his own real gift
+for changing, and I realized that his attention ought to be drawn to
+some things he was apt to forget.  Quick as a flash, though, he said I
+had opened new worlds to him; that I stimulated and inspired him as no
+one had ever done, and that he would never love any one as he loved me,
+and that he would wait forever if necessary for me.  Also he said he
+would never change back again to a certain person, as she had killed
+his love, and would I not promise to be just his?  And I had to sit
+tight on my hands, his manner was so very imploring; and then, before I
+could say anything, I heard Mr. Willie Prince, who was sitting on the
+front porch, fanning, cough rather loud and come down the steps and
+call Ben, who was barking, and I knew Mr. Willie was doing what he
+thought was his duty, and I got down from the post and told Whythe good
+night.  He went away like the young man in the Bible, very sorrowful,
+and I went in.
+
+It wasn't late, but everybody had gone in except Miss Susanna and Mr.
+Willie, and when I sat down in a rocking-chair Miss Susanna looked at
+me as if she didn't know whether to say anything or not, and I saw she
+was worried.  But before I could ask what was the matter she got up and
+kissed me good night and went in, so I asked Mr. Willie.
+
+He wouldn't tell me at first, though I could see he was dying to do it,
+but after a while he said Miss Susanna was the sort that found life of
+the present day a hard thing to accept, and, fanning himself with his
+palm leaf, he looked at me as if I were one of the reasons she found
+life hard.  "Miss Susanna," he said, "is a lady of the old school where
+love and honor were placed above riches and mere material things, and
+it was a blow to her to find how readily young people could change
+their affections and break their plighted vows and be blind to their
+best interests, which was to keep along the same path and not be
+tempted out of it by passing people and worldly ambitions."  And as he
+talked in his fine little cambric-needle voice that sounded as if it
+came out of a squeaky cabinet, I knew he was meaning more than he was
+saying, and I sat up and listened until he stopped for breath.
+
+"Is that all?" I asked, and got up to go in, "for if it is I don't
+think Miss Susanna need worry herself.  People in one generation aren't
+very different from people in another where self-interest is concerned.
+Everybody knows Mrs. Loraine married her husband for his money, though
+loving Mr. Spence, and Miss Susanna was one of her bridesmaids; and if
+Elizabeth prefers to marry a rich man to a poor one, I don't see
+anything new about that."  And also I said it wasn't likely that love
+and honor were ever going to die out, and a few other things would live
+a long time yet, and he need not bother any more than Miss Susanna
+concerning present-day young people; and then to my surprise he asked
+me to sit down and told me what he enjoyed telling very much.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+"Everybody has been talking about the way Whythe Eppes has been rushing
+you," he began, fanning as hard as he could fan, "and several people
+have been to see Miss Susanna and told her they thought your parents
+ought to know--"
+
+He didn't get any further.  I stopped him.  It was silly in me to get
+hot, but I got hot all right, and in all my life I never wanted anybody
+as I wanted Billy right then at my side.  He doesn't get mad the way I
+do.  He would see that talk he did not like was stopped in two minutes,
+but I was too fighting angry to stop my own tongue, and I said things
+to fat Miss Nancy Willie Prince I oughtn't to have said.  Among them
+that my parents would not have permitted me to come to this town or any
+other if not perfectly certain I knew how to behave myself wherever I
+went, and that whatever was advisable for them to know concerning me
+they would know without the assistance of Miss Bettie Simcoe or Mrs.
+Caperton (she is a frisky little widow who has no use for young girls)
+or any other Twickenham-Towner.  And then, perhaps because he was so
+flustered he didn't know what he was saying, he told me riches were a
+great temptation to any young man, and everybody, of course, knew my
+father was wealthy, though he must say it had not been learned from the
+family.  And that Whythe, being poor from a money standpoint, had
+naturally been tempted, especially as his engagement had been so
+recently broken with a girl he had been in love with since childhood,
+and I, being young, didn't understand and was under the impression that
+young men meant all they said, and--
+
+He would be talking now if I had not stamped my foot and stopped his
+rambling.  His insinuations sounded as if I were a feeble-minded
+creature and couldn't tell truth from untruth, or know when a man meant
+or didn't mean what he said, and had never heard things of the same
+sort before.  I've heard them before, and in several different places.
+I am a good many things I ought not to be, but I am not feeble-minded.
+I told him--  It does not matter what I told him, but I made him
+understand I could take care of myself without the help of the town,
+and, while I appreciated his effort to keep me from thinking the men in
+Twickenham did not mean what they said, and were not to be relied on,
+and not to be trusted, and that honor was not held very high by them
+where young girls were concerned, it was difficult to believe it, for I
+had been made to understand by others that certain old-fashioned things
+were still held sacred there, and the dangers and temptations of the
+city were absent.  When I saw how red his fat, round face got and how
+squirmy his legs and how hard he fanned I knew I had better go in.  I
+went, but I didn't say good night.
+
+Mad!  Was I mad?  I was.  For a long time I sat by the window and
+talked to Billy in my mind and told him what I thought of men old-maids
+and prissy places and gossipy spinsters and flirtatious widows, and of
+people who didn't have anything to talk of but one another; and then,
+as the moon came out clearer, I seemed to see myself clearer also, and
+after a while it came over me that maybe I had been a little nicer to
+Whythe than was necessary just to see if a man couldn't get comforted
+sooner than he thought.  I had been doing a little scientific
+experimenting along a different way from Jess's way; and then my eyes
+got open wide and I saw what Mr. Willie had been trying to tell me,
+which was that Whythe was probably taking practical consolation and was
+not ignorant of the fact that my Father was not a poor man.
+
+At the thought something got into my backbone and I sat up.  I had been
+fooling myself and didn't know it.  I don't mean I had believed all the
+thrilly love things Whythe had been saying.  They came natural to him
+and he might have said them to some other girl if not to me, but I had
+not dreamed he had any thought of an advantageous alliance, as Billy
+calls the thing his mother is hoping his sister will make, or that any
+one could associate such a thought with me.  It didn't seem possible,
+and I don't believe Whythe is that sort.  Still, men are queer ducks,
+Jess says, and one never can tell what is in the back of their brain
+from the words of their mouth, and if Whythe was imagining I had any
+value outside of my own self I would like to find it out.  How I was
+going to find out I did not know, and when I said my prayers I started
+to pray that a rattling good way would turn up, but I remembered it
+wasn't exactly a thing to pray about and that watching might be better.
+
+I had had a grand time being in love.  Every day there was some new
+evidence of how nice a beau is, and though the other boys didn't let
+Whythe have it all his own way, as they called it, and we had a jolly
+time together and I danced and rode and picnicked and pleasured with
+all of them, still, it was understood that Whythe was my steady and
+they gave him right much chance.  It had been loads of fun having a
+steady, and I knew now how excited Mazie, one of our maids at home,
+must have felt the day she became engaged to hers, who was the milkman.
+But I had somehow thought that nobody but girls of Mazie's sort had
+steadies, and I had wished I could be a maid for a few weeks just to
+find out how it would feel to possess some one and be possessed by him.
+I guess it amounts to about the same thing, though, love does, no
+matter in what way it comes to one or by what name we call it, if it is
+the genuine thing.  I have certainly never felt about Whythe in the way
+Mazie must have felt about her milkman, judging by her face, but I had
+been enjoying myself and I didn't intend to stop with too much
+suddenness.  Mr. Willie had warned me and I would remember, but it is
+against the law to condemn a man unheard.  The Bible says so.  I would
+go slowly for once in my life and give Whythe a chance to conduct his
+own defense.  It wouldn't be necessary to mention that a case was being
+tried or that I would be both judge and jury.  There are times in life
+when it is well to keep some things to oneself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Yesterday it poured in torrents all day.  None of us could get out of
+the house, so while Miss Araminta darned my stockings, which hadn't
+been touched since I came to Twickenham Town, I read aloud to the whole
+bunch in the library and we had a very nice time.  Miss Araminta has
+tried to teach me to darn since I have been here, but she has not
+succeeded in doing it!  I will never be a darner.  I have asked Mother
+not to get me all-over silk stockings, as the Lisle-thread feet last
+much longer, but she doesn't seem to remember, and one of my charities
+is giving my nice stockings away when they can no longer be worn with
+self-respect.  Clarissa, Mother's maid, is supposed to keep them in
+order, but she doesn't do it, and she has headaches so often I don't
+like to say anything to her, with the result that Mother thinks I wear
+out an awful lot, and yet I know she wouldn't want me to wear stockings
+with holes in them.  I found out early in life that it is foolish to
+try to do things you are not by nature fitted to do, and I am not
+fitted by nature to sit still for hours and fill up a little hole in a
+stocking to save a few cents or a dollar or so.  I don't do it.  I
+would rather save in some other way.
+
+Miss Araminta loves to darn.  Also she loves pretty clothes in a way
+that is truly pitiful, not having the means to get them, and she has
+about as much idea how to have her few things made as a Comanche Indian
+has of _vers-libre_.  If she would wear those that suited her style she
+would look dear, but she wears clothes of many colors made, as she
+thinks, in the prevailing fashion, and of course she is a sight for all
+beholders.  While I was reading _Pendennis_ out loud I was wondering at
+the same time what Miss Araminta was going to wear to the reception
+Judge and Mrs. Maclean are going to give to their two married daughters
+and their husbands on the 17th of August, which is the big thing of the
+year for Twickenham Town; but of course I couldn't ask her.  I knew she
+had nothing suitable or that had not been the subject of nudges and
+remarks under the breath, and smiles that could be heard.  And I also
+knew nothing could keep her away, for she dearly loves to go to parties
+and is not often invited, being of an inconvenient age for
+entertainments, and I wished something could come to pass that would be
+to her interest.
+
+As I read I poked around in my mind trying to think what might be done,
+and suddenly something came to me, and after a while I put the book
+down and began to talk of the different things that were going on in
+town and the many visitors who were already there, and then I asked
+Miss Araminta if she didn't think lavender was a lovely color.  She
+said it was the one she loved best and all her life she had longed for
+a lavender satin with everything to match, but she knew now she would
+never have it and she rarely let herself wish for things any more.  And
+she sighed the softest little sigh, like a mother whose baby had died a
+long time ago, but who always kept it in her heart, and I said to
+myself, "Go up-stairs, Kitty Canary, and think out a way," and
+up-stairs I went.
+
+August is The Season in Twickenham Town, and there is hardly a family
+in it that doesn't have company or boarders, or whose sons and
+daughters don't come home for their holiday, and Miss Bettie Simcoe
+says it's perfectly scandalous, the flirting that goes on.  Miss Bettie
+thinks anything matrimonial is close to scandalous, and she is
+continually raising her eyebrows and making a half moon of her mouth at
+what she says is the forwardness and freeness of present-day young
+people.  Miss Susanna always has a crowded house in August.  A Doctor
+Macafee and his wife and two daughters are here from Florida, and a
+Miss LeRoy from New Hampshire, and Judge Lampton and his wife from
+Alabama, and how she manages to put them away is known only to herself.
+
+When I heard she was going to give up her room and take a tiny one in
+the garret I made up my mind I would have an awful dream that night, a
+regular nightmare, that would scare her to death and make her come in
+my room to see what was the matter.  I had it and she came, and I told
+her I was subject to nightmares and ought not to sleep in a room by
+myself, though I hadn't mentioned it before, and I wished she would
+please sleep in mine with me and take the four-poster, which I thought
+gave me bad dreams, as I wasn't accustomed to such high beds.  And if
+she would I would take the cot, as I liked cots much better.  I am
+subject to nightmares, or anything else that is advisable to have at
+the proper time, and if I had known how many people were coming and
+that Miss Susanna was going to give up her room, I would have had one
+before, so she wouldn't think they had come on pretty sudden.  But she
+is not apt to think.  She is a darling little old lady, not brought up
+to think, and now too busy to do it, and she just works herself to
+death with her head up and a smile on her face, and doesn't realize she
+is spending all she makes in good things for the people who come here
+and nearly kill themselves eating.  She never buys herself any
+clothes--that is, until Elizabeth has all she needs--and when I went up
+to my room yesterday to think out a way of getting that lavender satin
+for Miss Araminta, another thought came into my head, which was a black
+satin for Miss Susanna.
+
+Feelings are things one has to be awfully careful about in Twickenham
+Town, and not for a billion dollars put in my pocket would I hurt
+anybody's here, and I couldn't let Miss Araminta or Miss Susanna think
+for a moment that their dresses were not all right, and how to get them
+new ones I couldn't imagine.  I started to pray about it, and then I
+remembered I was in an awful hurry and it would be better to get to
+work, and, going over to the bureau, I opened its top drawer, and there
+looking up at me was my bank-book lying on a pile of handkerchiefs.
+Father had put a very respectable sum of money in the Twickenham bank
+for me and told me to use it whenever I could do it in the right way,
+and he would trust me to find the right way; but though I had tried to
+get rid of some of it, there were few opportunities (so it wouldn't be
+manifest, I mean), and now one popped right up in my face.
+
+For fear it might pop out again I ran downstairs as quick as I could,
+and, seeing Miss Susanna and Miss Araminta were by themselves, I began
+to talk about the Pettigrew children and what they had told me they
+wanted Santa Claus to bring them Christmas.  And that reminded me
+suddenly that Christmas would soon be here, and I told them that in
+August I always began to think about what to get Mother and Aunt
+Celeste, who were my chief Christmas worries, and I wondered if they
+thought I could get something in Twickenham that I could take back with
+me.  I felt, as I talked, that I was on a tight rope forty feet in the
+air and mighty little to balance myself with, but I managed to put in
+words what I wanted to say, and like little angels they fell in and
+never dreamed I had thought the thing out before I spoke.
+
+I told them that Mother and Aunt Celeste had much more than they needed
+in life, and it was hard to get anything new and different for them, as
+there were so many to give them presents, and that I liked to get
+something odd if I could.  The things they were crazy about were old
+silver and old jewelry, especially old settings, and it was hard to
+find them in our town, and I wondered if they could help me get a piece
+of silver like one of Miss Susanna's pitchers for Mother, and a set of
+sapphires like Miss Araminta's for Aunt Celeste.  Also I said I didn't
+want to trouble them and I hoped they wouldn't mind my asking them.
+
+Miss Araminta said no indeed, she didn't mind, and that she had got
+into the state of mind Miss Virginia Hill was in, and she wasn't going
+to keep on keeping a lot of things that were no use just because they
+had belonged to long-dead grandmothers.  And while she wouldn't go as
+far as Miss Virginia, who would sell every ancestor she had for a
+million dollars, she would part with some other things for much less,
+and if I wanted to buy the sapphire set (pin and ear-rings) she would
+be glad to sell them.  She would have to tell me, though, they had been
+her great-grandmother's, and not her great-great's, as the pearls were,
+and that she would take forty-five dollars for them, and if that was
+too much she would take forty.
+
+I almost lost my breath at her good sense, not expecting it, but I told
+her it would be cheating if I paid less than seventy-five for them (I
+had calculated that it would take about that to get the lavender satin
+with things to match), and if she would get them for me I would take
+them right away, and I was awfully obliged to her, as it would be such
+a relief to get Aunt Celeste off my mind.  I admitted I didn't always
+pay as much as seventy-five for her present (I usually give her a
+five-dollar one which Mother pays for), but Father wanted me to bring
+her something quaint from Twickenham if I could find it, and he would
+be delighted to know of the sapphires.
+
+I fiddled along about other things for a moment or two and then I asked
+Miss Susanna if she would think me a very piggy person to want to buy
+one of those precious old silver pitchers of hers, as Mother would love
+so to have one of that pattern (Mother had never mentioned it, but I
+knew she would long for one of that pattern if she could see it), and I
+waited with terrible anxiousness in my heart and a hot face for her
+answer.  Miss Susanna's got a lovely pinky color, and for a moment she
+didn't say anything, and then Miss Araminta spoke for her and showed
+more sensibleness than I thought was in her.
+
+"Why don't you, Susanna?" she said, and nodded at her.  They are first
+cousins and very good friends.  "Why don't you let the child have one
+of those old pitchers?  You have too much silver, anyhow, and with
+servants of the present day any sort of silver is too great a burden to
+be borne, much less ancestral sort.  Young people want to buy their own
+things, and reverence for the past is a thing of the past; and besides,
+you have no one to leave yours to except some one who won't appreciate
+it.  Why don't you let her have it?"
+
+"I would be glad for her to have it.  Glad to help her out with her
+Christmas difficulties, but"--Miss Susanna bit her lip and the pink in
+her face became rose--"I have never done anything of this sort, and it
+does not seem just right.  I would be pleased for her mother to have
+one of the pitchers.  In a sense they are connected with her family as
+our great-great-great-grandmothers were the same, and--"
+
+"Oh, you precious person!"  I jumped up and took Miss Susanna in my
+arms and whirled around the room with her.  I was afraid she would get
+on the grandparent subject, and I didn't want to hear it.  To head her
+off I gave her a squeeze and a skip or two and then I sat her down and
+kissed her, and asked her if she thought seventy-five dollars was
+enough for the pitcher, and if so I would get the checks while Miss
+Araminta got the sapphires.  And before they had time to change their
+minds their things were mine and my money (Father's) was theirs, and we
+were all a little more excited than we were willing to admit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+They are in my trunk, the two Christmas presents, and we have had a
+grand time, Miss Araminta and Miss Susanna and I, buying their party
+dresses and things, and it is as true as Scripture that at times there
+is nothing better for the soul than pretty clothes for the body.  And
+nothing so chirps up a woman as to have on becoming ones that fit and
+are fresh and make her feel she can walk across the floor without
+wishing she had a shawl on.  The way Miss Araminta has bloomed out is
+as amazing as a moon-plant.  And Miss Susanna has such a pleased smile
+on her boarder-tired face that I have been up in the air just from
+looking at her, and the best time I've ever had in my life has been in
+taking charge of their money and spending it for them.  The way they
+agreed to get the dresses was this:
+
+I told them it would be awfully exciting to have a secret and spring a
+surprise on Mrs. General Gaines and Miss Bettie Simcoe and a few others
+in town, and if they were willing I would design a dress for each of
+them and Miss Fannie Cross would make the dresses, which would be of a
+kind to suit their particular styles, and they could have them for the
+party on the 17th.  And if they didn't get them at once something would
+happen to make them spend the money and it would be gone and they no
+better off than before.  And I mentioned that there was the loveliest
+piece of black charmeuse at Mr. Peter Smith's, and that he was
+expecting a piece of lavender satin on Thursday.  I had been to see Mr.
+Peter and the lavender was ordered before I told them it was coming.
+Also a few other things had been ordered by wire, I going with him to
+the telegraph-office to see him do it, being afraid to trust his
+memory, which, like his methods, is right put-offy.  Also I told them
+there would be no time to hesitate.  They got so flustrated at being
+managed and so dazed by the pictures I showed them of the dresses I had
+drawn that they were lambs, perfect lambs.  They let me do everything I
+told them ought to be done.
+
+It was a real relief to them to have some one go ahead and decide
+things and not give them time to think whether they should do this or
+do that, or whether they had not better spend the money some other way.
+Miss Susanna said, feebly, something about the roof needing to be
+fixed, and that the cellar ought to have a new floor, but I told her it
+would be sacrilegious to put a great-grandmother's silver pitcher on
+the roof or in the cellar, and that it would mortify her heavenly
+ancestors to know such a thing was being done, and I was surprised at
+her mentioning it.  The only suitable way in which it would be proper
+to use the pitcher was in something personal, and as I was afraid Mr.
+Peter Smith would sell the satin, it was so lovely and only a little
+more than enough for a dress, I had told him to put it aside and I had
+to let him know that afternoon if it was wanted.  And another thing I
+told her was that all her life other people had been getting her share
+of nice things, and practicalities had eaten up everything pretty she
+had wanted for years, and there was an end to making over, and that she
+owed it to memories of the past to have a new dress for herself and not
+let all the newness always appear on a certain person's back just
+because that certain person happened to be young.  Uncle Henson would
+be at the door with the carriage at four o'clock, I told her, to take
+us down-town, and she must be ready in time, as there was a good deal
+to do.  I wouldn't take a mint of money for the look that came in her
+face as I talked.  I have put it away for low-down days.
+
+As for Miss Araminta--I wish I could write a book and put Miss Araminta
+Armstrong in it.  If the lady who wrote _Cranford_ had known her she
+would have put her in, and it is a loss to literature that no one can
+do again for little places and the Miss Aramintas of life what the
+_Cranford_ writer did.  She has told me right much about herself, and I
+don't smile any more, even to myself, as I couldn't help doing at first
+in the dark when I was so afraid I would roll on the floor and whoop
+that I had to hold on to my chair with both hands.  It is still funny
+to hear her tell of her beaux who never quite came to the point, and
+who were always snatched away at the critical moment by a
+jealous-minded person who was close kin but whose name she never
+mentions.  But it isn't as funny as it used to be.  It's queer how much
+tragedy there is in the comic things of life.  Ever since she was born
+Miss Araminta has been a pieced-and-patched-up person, and never once
+has she had everything new and to match at the same time.  When I told
+her about some of the things that must go with the lavender satin she
+began to cry a little and said she oughtn't to let herself think about
+indulgences of that sort, as her poor brother was not in business at
+present and needed--
+
+"Now look here, Miss Araminta," I said.  "The first preparation you
+have got to make for the party is to forget you have a brother and
+remember your own body, which needs attention.  It has come down from a
+long line of people who took very good care to put expensive things on
+theirs.  And another thing you ought to remember is that if your
+brother didn't know he could call on you every time he lost his job--"
+
+"My brother has never had a job."  Miss Araminta sat up at once and
+wiped her eyes and left, unknowing, a streak of white down a pink cheek
+that turned purple at the word "job."  "He has been unfortunate in not
+being able to retain certain positions he has once held, but his
+health--"
+
+"Rats!"  It came out without thinking, but when a man has a worn-out
+wife and seven children and won't do this and won't do that because it
+is beneath his lordly ideas of what a well-born person should do, it is
+better for me not to speak of him out loud.  I told Miss Araminta she
+must excuse me, but there were some sorts of men I couldn't mention
+with safety and I thought "job" was a very good word, and I would
+rather have one that paid a dollar a day than borrow money to pay my
+bills, and that I'd sweep the streets before I would sit down and do
+nothing if I had a wife and seven children.  The look on her face I
+tucked away, too, to take out on days when there isn't a thing in sight
+to laugh at.  She can't help it, Miss Araminta can't.  She was born
+that way and, not being an evoluting kind, words are wasted when it
+comes to trying to make her see what she doesn't want to see.  There is
+a lot of bummy rot in this world which has nothing to do with the
+proper kind of pride, and it's my belief we are mighty apt to fill the
+place in life we are fitted to fill.  If a dollar a day is all I am
+worth it is all I ought to get until I make myself worth more.  Of
+course if people are feeble-minded that's a different thing.  When they
+are, the State ought to step in and take charge of them in order to
+protect itself, Jess says, and also she says feeble-mindeders always
+have the largest families, and even a feeble-minded person knows that
+is not right.
+
+I didn't mean to hurt Miss Araminta's feelings, but that brother of
+hers is a snuff-the-moon old snob, and I was determined he shouldn't
+get a penny of that sapphire money if I could help it, and I told Miss
+Araminta a few firm facts.  After a while she blew her nose and wiped
+her eyes and I had no further trouble.  But I was afraid to trust
+either her or Miss Susanna with their money, so I took the checks back
+and told them it was better for me to keep them, as money had such a
+queer way of disappearing.  Any that was handy was used when needed,
+and when the time came to get the things the money was for there might
+not be any to get.  They handed it back as meek as little lambs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Miss Susanna and Miss Araminta are crazy about the designs I have
+sketched for their dresses, and so is Miss Fannie Cross.  It is the
+only talent I have, designing clothes is, and if I ever have to earn my
+living I am going to be "Katrine" and have a shop on a fine street and
+charge like old glory for my things.  That will make them wanted, and
+those who think a gown is desirable according to its price can pay
+enough to make up for those who can't pay much, and I'll have a great
+time charging the payers.  I am going to get ready to earn a living,
+anyhow, because every girl ought to, Fathers or Billys notwithstanding.
+Life is a very up-and-downy thing, and it is good to know, should it
+get down, that you can give it a lift up yourself and not have to wait
+for a shover.
+
+It was a private matinée, watching Miss Susanna and Miss Araminta buy
+the things that Mr. Peter Smith had ordered and which they couldn't
+understand his having in stock.  The trimmings and linings and gloves
+and stockings were exactly what was needed and they couldn't get over
+how fortunate it was.  They paid for them themselves, as I had handed
+their money to them when we started out, holding back only enough to
+pay Miss Fannie Cross; but though they took some time to do the buying,
+and felt and smoothed everything they bought and put the satin to their
+cheeks to be sure of its quality, and looked at each other every now
+and then as if what they were doing was wicked, perhaps, but fearfully
+enjoyable, still in two days everything was at Miss Fannie's, and it
+was then I had to be awfully firm with Miss Araminta.
+
+There are some things some women can never take in, and one is that an
+old sheep should never dress lamb fashion.  It was all Miss Fannie
+(she's a corking-good dressmaker for a small place) and I could do to
+hold Miss Araminta down when it came to colors, and the cut of her
+skirt, and some trimmings she wanted to put on the waist.  She thinks
+she loves lavender, but Joseph's coat would have been a colorless piece
+of apparel beside her dress if we finally hadn't sat on her and told
+her certain things couldn't be done.  She was crazy to pile on a bunch
+of ancestral lace, yellow and dowdy; but we told her not much, told her
+freshness and daintiness suited her style much better, and she wasn't
+old enough to emphasize ancestral lace, and she blushed and gave in.
+But nothing would have made her do it if Miss Fannie hadn't thought to
+throw out the age-line.  She caught on and agreed, and after that we
+did not have a great deal of trouble.
+
+Miss Susanna was a little crankier than I thought she was going to be,
+and wanted a practical dress that she could wear anywhere at any time,
+and we had to argue with her a good deal.  I told her a train was the
+thing for her, and I intended to walk behind her the night of the party
+and keep everybody back far enough to see how grand she looked.  When a
+woman is sixty-six and pretty worn, short skirts for evenings are not
+impressive, and, though we didn't mention age, we said finally she owed
+it to her mother's memory to dress in a style suitable to the position
+into which she had been born, and that settled it.  She's the real
+thing, Miss Susanna is.  She doesn't have to play a part.
+
+I had told Miss Fannie on the quiet that the price of making the
+dresses would be doubled if she would have them ready for the 17th of
+August, and they were ready.  Miss Araminta and Miss Susanna thought it
+was a bad example to set, as it might not be just to the other
+Twickenham-Towners to pay more than they could pay, and it stuck Miss
+Araminta pretty deep to hand out more than was necessary.  But I told
+her it was an emergency operation and that kind always came high.  And
+also I told them that Miss Fannie charged entirely too little for her
+work, and it was poor religion to go to church on Sunday and sing
+praises to God and underpay a poor little dressmaker.  They said they
+supposed it was, but I don't think they thought it very reverential in
+me to speak of God in connection with a dress-maker and what she got
+for sewing.  I gave each one a list of their expenditures, with the
+cost of everything on it, and each had a little left over after getting
+their slippers and some sachet powder and a bottle of violet-water
+apiece, and, after all, that brother of Miss Araminta's got a little of
+the sapphire money.  But it wasn't much.  I saw to that.  It's been
+awfully exciting in Twickenham lately.
+
+The event of the year is the MacLean party and the best of everything
+is saved for it, and in itself it makes every tongue in town talk until
+you wonder why tongues are the only things that never tire, and then,
+lo and behold! two days before it came off back comes Elizabeth
+Hamilton Carter, bringing her beau behind her, and off start the same
+tongues on a new lap and no breath taken in between.
+
+I wish Billy could see it, the thing Elizabeth brought back!  He wears
+men's clothes (very good ones) and he is twenty-seven years old, and
+has large hands and feet and ears and a feeble mustache, but as a man
+he isn't much.  He looks like a hatter and is seemingly dumb, and he
+blinks his eyes so continually that no one can tell their color.  Also
+he bites his finger-nails.  I advised Elizabeth to get a beau _pro
+tem._, but I didn't mean anything like that.  If she wants jealousy to
+bring Whythe back to her she should keep something on hand to be
+jealous of.  Elizabeth has an iron will and a copper determination, but
+about as much judgment as a horse-fly.
+
+Miss Bettie Simcoe's eyebrows haven't come down good since the night
+the _engagées_ arrived.  She has an explanation for the situation, as
+she calls it, there never yet being a situation she couldn't explain,
+and she says the engagement is a piece of management on the part of
+Elizabeth's aunt on her father's side, the aunt she has been visiting.
+This aunt is society crazy, and, knowing you can't keep step in society
+without money, she arranged the whole thing.  Anyhow, Elizabeth has a
+gorgeous ring and a magnificent pin, and of course she ought to be
+happy if diamonds and things mean happiness, but she isn't happy, and
+for the first time since I met her I can't make her out.  Before I know
+it I am going to feel sorry for her, and then good-by to in-loveness
+for me!  I have very little sense at times, and no hold-outness at all
+when certain things come to pass.
+
+Elizabeth still loves Whythe.  Engaged or not to some one else, she
+still cares only for him.  I don't want him.  I wonder how it might be
+managed--getting them to take in how silly they have been.  I believe
+I'll try and see if something can't be done.  Watchful waiting may be
+all right in some cases, but I never cared for waiting.  Milton says
+all things come to him who hustles while he waits.  You get a move on,
+Kitty Canary, and see what you can do!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+The party is over.  Everybody who is anybody was at it and we had a
+perfectly scrumptious time.  I never saw so many good things to eat on
+a hot summer night in all my life, but the heat didn't affect
+appetites, and Miss Kate Norris, who lives in the Wellington Home
+(memorial for a dead wife or a live conscience, I don't remember
+which), ate three platefuls of supper and three helpings of ice-cream.
+She is fearfully ancestral and an awful eater, and also a sour
+remarker, and I stay out of her way, but that night I couldn't help
+seeing the way she made food disappear.  No low-born person could have
+done it quicker.
+
+It was a perfectly beautiful party.  The two married daughters of Judge
+and Mrs. MacLean, who live in the city and always come home for August,
+were as dear and lovely as if they had never left old Twickenham Town,
+and their clothes were a liberal education to the stay-at-homers.  They
+were well taken in by the latter, but the sensation of the evening was
+the arrival and appearance of My Girls, and--oh, my granny!--I was so
+excited I couldn't stand on both feet at once, and I had to get in a
+corner and put my back against the wall to keep from making movement.
+When they came in the room there was a little hush, and then there were
+so many exclamations of surprise and admiration that I had to fan as
+hard as Mr. Willie Prince to keep down the blazing red in my face which
+was there from pride in the dear old darlings and not from heat.  And I
+saw clearer than I had ever seen before that fine things behind one
+count a good deal, and ancestors of the right kind leave something to
+their descendants that comes out when needed, and at that party the
+desirable things came out.
+
+They looked like pictures--Miss Susanna and Miss Araminta--for the
+prevailing modes, as Miss Araminta calls them, and which she loves so
+dearly and hits at but never touches, had not been paid very particular
+attention to, and the thing that suited each had been made for them.
+They were as becoming to the dresses as the dresses to them.
+Twickenham nearly lost its breath as they came into the long
+drawing-room of the MacLean house and walked through it after speaking
+to the receiving party, and I know now how a mother feels when her
+debutante daughters are a success.  I will have more sympathy with
+Mother than I used to have, and I will try to behave myself and do the
+stunts all right for the first year.  But she already knows I do not
+expect to keep on doing them.  I have told her.
+
+Nobody can say again that women can't keep a secret, for not even Miss
+Bettie Simcoe, who knows what the Lord is going to do before He does
+it, had any idea of the dresses; and though I don't think she or Mrs.
+General Gaines liked not being told, they were very nice about it and
+said much kinder things than I thought they were capable of saying.
+And I really think Elizabeth was pleased also.  She actually smiled
+when she saw her aunt come in with Miss Araminta.  Smiles of late have
+been faint and feeble on the face of the affianced young lady, who
+isn't playing her part as a person with ancestors ought to play it.
+She bounced her old beau and took unto herself a new one, and what I
+can't understand is, having done it, why she doesn't carry it off with
+a rip-roaring bluff that might fool even herself for a while.  But
+Elizabeth isn't that sort.  Everybody is talking about how miserable
+she looks.  I'm afraid I put the beau idea in her head, and the idea
+has got her in a hole and she doesn't know how to get out of it.  I
+wish Billy was here.  He can get a person out of any sort of hole.
+
+I went to the party with Whythe.  He has been away for a week, and
+while away got a new dress suit, which, of course, he wore to the party
+and looked perfectly grand in it.  I think his mother gave the suit to
+him, though he didn't say, but he was off attending to some business
+for her, and I'm sure he took it out in the new clothes.  It would have
+been more sensible to have had his teeth fixed, or gotten three new
+ones, the rest being all right, but it was natural to prefer the suit,
+and much less painful.  Whythe is never going to do anything
+disagreeable that he can keep from doing.
+
+He was so nice the night of the party that I hadn't the courage to
+begin finding out the truth or untruth of what Mr. Willie Prince had
+mentioned as the reason of the rush he had been giving me, and as I
+don't believe Whythe has ever thought of Father's money, there was no
+need to be in a hurry to learn whether he had or not.  I've had a jolly
+good time being in love with him, and being made love to, and as an
+experience it may come in when I begin to write my book.  I always did
+want to know how many ways love can be made in, which, of course, I can
+never know, for there are as many ways, I guess, as there are men to
+make it, and the variations on the main theme are as infinitesimal as
+the tongues that tell the story.  It is truly wonderful how differently
+the same words can be trimmed up and handed out, and I like the
+crescendoes and diminuendoes and shades of feeling which give emphasis
+and expression, as my music teacher says I must be careful of when
+playing.  There is never going to be any crescendo or diminuendo
+business about Billy's love-making, and I might as well make up my mind
+to that in the beginning.  It's going to be pure staccato with
+him--short and quick and soon over.  But it will last forever, Billy's
+will.  He isn't going to stand for foolishness about it when he starts,
+either.  He has two more years at college and then he is going in his
+father's office.
+
+I don't know what's the matter with Billy.  I haven't had a letter from
+him for a week, or a single card.  He must be crazy.  I've been so busy
+I have not written for ten days, and if I don't get a letter soon he
+won't get one from me for another ten.  He can't expect me to do what
+he doesn't do, and besides, a man doesn't want what he gets too easy,
+even letters.  I don't suppose he could be sick.  If he was--  I am not
+going to let myself think sickness or automobile accidents or sliding
+off mountain peaks (they are in Switzerland now and Billy would get to
+the top of anything he started for or die trying).  And though I say to
+myself forty times a day he is all right, I wake up at night and wonder
+if anything could be the matter.  I am wondering all the time.
+
+Maybe that is why I was a little nicer to Whythe at the party than I
+need to have been, because I wanted to forget something it was not well
+to remember if I was out to enjoy myself.  After I had danced with half
+a dozen boys and spoken to everybody on the place, we went out on the
+lawn, Whythe and I, and sat on a rustic seat under a great maple-tree
+to cool off and rest awhile; and though everybody could see us and
+several couples were under several other trees (a number of cases being
+on hand and apt to culminate in August), Miss Bettie Simcoe had remarks
+to make, of course.  She made them the next day at breakfast.
+
+I wish I could buy a beau for Miss Bettie and make a present of him to
+her, but, being a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
+to Animals, I couldn't very well do it.  I never yet have seen a man I
+would be that hard on.  But it would be the only way she could be made
+to see some things, and maybe it might make her feel young again.  Jess
+says there's nothing so kittenish as a spinster who's caught an
+unexpected beau.  He is the most rejuvenating thing on earth to a woman
+who wants one.  All don't want them.  There are a great many more
+sensible women in this world than people realize, but in certain small
+places matrimony is still the chief pursuit in which women can engage
+without being thought unwomanly.  Miss Bettie doesn't pursue, and men
+are good dodgers in this part of the world, but if one of them would
+say a few things to her of the sort that Whythe knows how to say so
+well, her sniffing and snorting and seeing might grow less.
+
+I don't like her, but I feel sorry for her, for nobody really loves
+her, and it must be awful to have nobody to love you best of all on
+earth.  I couldn't live if nobody loved me.  I could not.  I might live
+without food and live without drink, and do without clothes and do
+without air--the right kinds of those things, I mean--but I couldn't
+and I wouldn't live without loving.  As long as I am on this little
+planet I expect to love a lot of people and I hope they will love me in
+return.  When Miss Bettie makes me so mad I have to go out of the room
+to keep from saying things I shouldn't, and Miss Araminta simpers so
+when any one mentions Mr. Sparks's name (he's the new widower minister
+of the Presbyterian church, with no chance of escape), and Elizabeth
+Hamilton Carter makes me ashamed of my sex, and I feel like I have
+swallowed concentrated extract of Human Peculiarities, I remember that
+not one of them has a father of any sort, much less my sort, or a
+precious mother and two dandy sisters and a good many nice relations
+and some bully friends--when I remember all that, remember how many I
+have to love me, I spit out the peculiarities and try not to mind them,
+try to see how funny they are.  But sometimes the taste sticks right
+long.  I don't suppose I spit right.  What I can't understand is that
+if people want to be loved--and everybody does--why in the name of
+goodness don't they do a little loving on their own account?  You
+needn't expect to get what you don't give.  I'm glad I was born with a
+taste for liking, though I don't like every one, by a jugful.  When I
+come across a righteous hypocrite I get out of the way, if it isn't
+convenient to make the hypocrite get out of mine.  There are some
+people I could never congeal with and I am never even going to try.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+I wonder what made me waste time thinking about Miss Bettie Simcoe and
+human peculiarities when I started to say something about sitting under
+the trees with Whythe at the MacLean party, but, born a rambler, I will
+ramble unto death, and there's no use wasting time lamenting natural
+deficiencies.  Whythe, of course, couldn't very conveniently make
+personal remarks, as people were passing pretty close, though he did
+say I looked like a dream, which I did not, being too brown for a
+dream; but I did look real nice.  I fished out one of the party dresses
+Mother made Clarissa put in my trunk, which I haven't worn since I have
+been here, and I suppose it suited my brownness, as it was creamy and
+stuck out in the silly way skirts stick now, and it was new-fashioned
+enough to make everybody look at it and nudge a little.  Whythe thought
+it was lovely, and told me so sixteen times, which was tiresome, and
+then I saw he was watching Elizabeth, who was on the porch with her new
+beau and did not know really whether my dress was blue or pink.  The
+only thing he was thinking of was that not far from him was a
+superseder in possession of something which was once his.  Whythe
+doesn't like to be superseded in anything affecting his personal
+estimate of himself.
+
+The Lord certainly let loose a lot of contradictions when he started
+the human race.  When I saw the way Whythe was watching Elizabeth, and
+remembered how she had looked at him when he passed her a few minutes
+before, I knew two specimens of a common variety were before me, and I
+made up a parable as I watched them watch each other.  The two
+specimens had been in love and been engaged.  They had a fuss.  The
+engagement was broken.  She was mad, and he was mad, and each thought
+the other would make the first advance to own up and make up; but
+before it could be done a young person appeared and distracted
+temporarily the attention of the man, and the girl went away to see
+what she could do.  The man repaired the damage done unto him by saying
+pretty things to the new person, which was good for his pride and kept
+him in practice, and all was going well when the first maiden returned
+with a new possession.
+
+The new possession was a son of great wealth, but the Faithless One was
+made to understand, without words, that his Cruelty was driving the
+Maid to Marriage with another, and his Vanity was appeased, and in his
+heart he rejoiced and said unto himself: "It is even as I thought, and
+that piece of punk she has brought back is bitter unto her, and in
+comparison to me he is nothingness indeed.  And I would arise and punch
+his head if it were not for the New Person who may love me very much."
+And the young man was sorrowful when he thought on these things and yet
+glad also, for the heart of man is receptive to the love of all kinds
+of women, and it is pleasing unto him to believe he is pleasing unto
+them.
+
+And seeing that which had come to pass, the New Young Person made up
+her mind that the Young Man and the Young Maid who had once loved must
+love again, and in her heart she said it is a vain thing to believe in
+the words of a man.  They cometh out as cometh breath, then pass away
+and are remembered by him no more.  And she took counsel with herself
+as to how she might bring to pass that which the simple souls knew not
+how to bring, and, lo! as she thought it came unto her.  That's a true
+parable!
+
+
+What came was the thought of a picnic.  Whythe and Elizabeth must
+accidentally have a chance to come across each other and have it out,
+and the best way they could do it would be outdoors, where it is
+convenient to wander off and get away from nudgers and commenters; and
+being nothing but impulse, I turned to Whythe, who was still
+unconsciously watching Elizabeth, and asked him if he would help me
+with something I was anxious to do.  He said of course, and wanted to
+know what it was.  When I told him I would tell him the next day he
+asked me to drive with him in the morning, and didn't like it because I
+declined.  That is, he didn't like my reason, which was that, as he had
+been out of his office for some time, his business must need attending
+to, and I didn't think it ought to be left any longer.  He seemed to
+think that a very unnecessary remark, and I realized he liked
+Elizabeth's kind better.  She would never have dreamed of telling him
+his business needed attention.  Elizabeth is the Admired and Honored
+type of Womanhood which does not think it is ladylike to have knowledge
+of business matters.
+
+Seeing the look on his face, I said to myself: "Kitty Canary, it is all
+over.  A pin has been stuck in your balloon and the air is out."  And I
+got up and went in and danced with every man dancer in the room, and
+hardly knew who they were, the breaks were so often.  I had a good
+time, but also I had a right sinky feeling, for it's pretty wabbly to
+realize that nothing human is to be depended on very long, and that a
+girl may be engaged one day to a man and not speaking to him the next.
+Not that I had ever been engaged.  I hadn't, not caring for what goes
+with engagements, but I might have been if I hadn't remembered about
+the different things I have fallen in and been fished out of when there
+was some one by to haul me out.  Nobody being by, I had to take care of
+myself, and I thought it best to go only so far and no farther.
+
+On the way home Whythe tried to say some things pretty low about how he
+had missed me while away, but Miss Susanna and Miss Araminta were in
+the back seat of the car (it was Mr. Lipscomb's Ford, and borrowed, of
+course), and he had to be so careful it was a strain, and as I didn't
+answer he stopped after a while.  It takes two to do more things than
+make a bargain, and to battledore love without having it shuttlecocked
+back isn't much fun.  He wanted to know what was the matter when I got
+out, and I told him it was sleep.  He didn't seem to like that, either.
+It's hard to please men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+I didn't see Whythe for the next few days, as I thought it best not to,
+and, besides, I had bushels of letters to write and a very special one
+to Father, and I had no time for him.  The thing I had to write Father
+about was money.  I wanted five hundred dollars, and the only way I
+knew how to get it was to ask him to give it to me; so I asked.  I
+always did believe that the person who gives the money ought to be told
+what is to be done with it, and that is why I wrote Father as I did;
+and, besides, he likes to hear little bits of news about the
+Twickenham-Towners, and asking for the money gave me a chance to tell
+him.
+
+He had told me, when he was here, that if there was any way in which I
+could be of service in the right way to let him know and he would put
+up the money part, if I would manage the other part, and it would be a
+little secret between us and nobody else need know anything about it.
+When, last week, I heard Mrs. Richard Stafford say she would rather go
+to a hospital for a month than do anything on earth, I thought my
+chance had come.  At the hospital, she said, a person had the right to
+be waited on and do nothing, and not think about food or servants, and
+not feel they were bothering other people by being sick; and while she
+wasn't sick exactly, a hospital would seem like heaven if she could be
+in one for a little while.  She had laughed when she said it, and
+didn't dream of its being taken in earnest, but I took it in earnest,
+for the tiredness in her face makes me ache every time I see her, and
+right up in my mind popped the little secret Father and I and Miss Polk
+could have.  What I wrote was this:
+
+
+_Father dear, will you please send me five hundred dollars, and if you
+can do it by return mail I will be very much obliged.  The person I
+want part of it for is so tired that she might not be able to ever get
+rested unless she has a chance pretty quick to lie down and do nothing
+for a month, anyhow, and that is why I am in a hurry.  Tiredness is a
+very wearing disease and if it runs on too long it runs a person into a
+state that is almost impossible to get out of, and the whole family has
+to pay up for letting it go on.  Home gets hell-y when there's too much
+tiredness in it.  What I want the money for is this: Mrs. Stafford is
+worn out.  You know her.  She was Miss Mary Shirley, and married a
+perfectly useless man when she was eighteen, and she is now the mother
+of seven children, and has a mother-in-law living with her, and also
+Miss Lou Barbee, who won't go away.  And, of course, the man whom she
+can't turn out.  He isn't bad.  Just lazy, with nothing to him, but she
+loves him and I will skip over that part.  She needs a rest and ought
+to have it.  It's nothing but scrimp and scrape and strive to keep up
+appearances day in and day out, year in and year out, until she is all
+to pieces and the children don't realize what is the matter.  And, of
+course, the Male Person doesn't, for he says that Woman's Place is in
+the Home.  When he told me that yesterday (his heels were on the
+railing of his porch, where he generally keeps them, and his pipe in
+his mouth) I thought to myself that if he were mine he would have to
+get out of my home or prove he had a better right to share it with me
+than he had ever proved to his wife.  But I won't get on that, either.
+I'll go back to Mrs. Stafford._
+
+_Half the time she doesn't have a servant, and all the time she has a
+mother-in-law, who is pie crust, and Miss Lou Barbee, who's a bagpipe,
+and with the doors locked and windows shut so no one can see, she has
+worked herself to death.  What I want done is to have an invitation
+sent her from an old friend to be the guest of the hospital here for a
+month, and you will be the friend and she will never know it.  Miss
+Polk, the superintendent of the hospital, will manage things.  I've
+talked it over with her, and she understands.  Miss Polk is a perfectly
+grand person.  For Simon-pure sense there isn't her equal on earth.
+She and I have decided on what we would do if we had money.  We'd have
+a Fund for Tired Mothers and Fathers.  It would be used to give them a
+Rest before Death._
+
+_I hope you won't mind sending the money.  I don't think you will, for
+everybody says business is so prosperous it's actually unrighteous, and
+it's in the Bible that you ought to put your treasures where you can
+find them again, or something like that.  If you can't send it I know
+there will be a good reason for your not sending it, but I would like
+to have it by Monday if possible, so Mrs. Stafford can go to the
+Hospital the next day.  Later, four other people can have their turn.
+It is to be used not for illness, but for Tiredness; for broken-downers
+and worn-outers who need being waited on and fed up and allowed to keep
+still.  Miss Polk and I are going to decide on who needs a rest the
+most before I go away, and I send you for it, Father dear, an armful of
+squeezes and the biggest bunch of kisses the mail-man can take._
+
+
+That was all I told him about the Rest money, but I said a little
+something about the picnic I thought I ought to give.  Everybody in
+town has given something, and, having accepted, I have to return, and
+the picnic will be the best thing for Whythe and Elizabeth.  I didn't
+mention the ex-lovers to Father, of course.  Even to a father one
+doesn't have to tell everything in life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+I haven't seen Whythe alone but once since the night of the MacLean
+party, and then I stopped any tendencies that showed signs of being
+personal, and talked most of the time about the picnic which we can't
+have until late in the month.  Every day is engaged up to the
+twenty-fourth.  Whythe tried to talk of Mr. Algernon Grice Baker, but I
+cut that out also.  Sarcasm doesn't suit him, and some day he might be
+sorry.  The Superseder has gone, however, and every day Elizabeth
+passes Whythe's office, and every day Whythe happens to be at his
+window at the time of passing.  They speak, but so far that is all.  I
+am sorry the picnic has to wait so long.  They are two silly children.
+Their fingers aren't in their mouths, but their heads are on the side
+when they see each other, and the thing's getting on my nerves.  Almost
+any kind of sin is easier to stand than some sorts of silliness.
+
+I wonder why I stay awake so much at night!  It's very unusual, and I
+try my best to go to sleep, but I can't sleep.  Always I am thinking of
+Mr. William Spencer Sloane and the things I would say to him if he were
+in hearing distance.  Not one line have I had from him for more than
+two weeks.  Not a card or a little present, which he usually sends from
+every place he goes to, or any sign to show he is living.  I got so mad
+when I realized he hadn't noticed me for fourteen days that I couldn't
+keep in things which had to come out, and, seeing Miss Susanna was
+sleeping the sleep of worn-outness, I got up the other night and
+lighted a candle behind the bed, and on the floor I wrote a letter that
+maybe wasn't altogether as accurate as it might have been.  I wouldn't
+have sent it the next day if it hadn't been for a letter I got from
+Jess, but after I read hers I sent mine flying.
+
+I haven't cooled down yet from reading Jess's letter.  I am not going
+to cool down until I see the cause of it face to face, and if Billy
+thinks it makes the least difference to me how he amuses himself or
+with whom he spends his time sightseeing he thinks Wrong!  I was going
+to tear up the letter I had written him in the middle of the night for
+the relief of indignations and because in the middle of the night
+things seem so much bigger and harder and stranger than in the
+daylight; but after I read the letter from Jess I added a postscript to
+mine and almost ran down to the post-office to mail it, for fear if I
+didn't do it quick I mightn't do it at all.  Ever since I sent it off I
+have been perfectly horrid, and I can hardly stand myself.  I have put
+off trying to make Whythe and Elizabeth see how stupid they are, and as
+Elizabeth hasn't been very nice to me I haven't felt it to be my duty
+to show her what a goose she is.  Neither have I told Whythe that
+almost any girl who adored him would do for his wife.  As I don't adore
+I wouldn't do, and I think he is beginning to take it in.  A dozen
+times of late he has told me he doesn't understand me.  He does not.
+And never will.
+
+The thing in Jess's letter which made me hot was this: "What is the
+matter with you and Billy?  Pat says (Pat is Patricia, Billy's sister)
+that you've been pretty horrid about writing him, and he's been
+blue-black at not getting letters from you; but at present he is having
+a good time with a very jolly girl from the West who is at their hotel.
+Chirp him something cheerful, Canary Bird.  If I were younger or Billy
+older you shouldn't have him.  I'd have him myself.  I'm not going to
+stand for bad treatment of him, and if those Southern boys who make
+love to every pretty girl they see, and make it better than any boys on
+earth, have made you forget an old friend, I'm coming down and take you
+back home.  Behave yourself, Kitty Canary, and write Billy the sort of
+letter we scream over up here."  And then she went on with other things.
+
+It is ridiculous in Pat to say I haven't written Billy!  I have.  Three
+long letters and three cards, and certainly he can't expect more than
+that, as he hasn't been gone but two months and five days; and,
+besides, friends ought to have such confidence in each other that they
+don't need letters to prove their friendship.  Not a word have I had
+from him in more than two weeks, and if Jess thinks I am going to write
+him a chirp letter (which he won't have time to read if he is going
+around so much with a Western girl and having so much fun) she, too,
+thinks Wrong.  That Westerner explains why I haven't heard from him for
+so long.  It is outrageous in Billy to behave as he has been behaving.
+All men are alike.  Every one of them.  It was ignorance in me to
+imagine Billy was different.  He isn't.  The more I thought of how
+mistaken I had been in him the madder I got, and I just wrote a
+postscript to my letter and flew to the post-office with it.  It seemed
+providential that my letter was ready to send.  I hope he will read it
+while on one of his joyous excursions with the Western Woman, who is
+doubtless twenty-five, maybe thirty, and just making use of Billy, who
+hasn't sense enough to see it.  I nearly cried my eyes out last night,
+before Miss Susanna came up to bed, because it was necessary to send
+him such a letter.  Still, Billy has to learn things in life and he
+might as well learn them early.  What I wrote was this:
+
+
+_Dear Billy,--I have been having such a perfectly grand time lately
+that it has been impossible to squeeze out a scrap in which to write
+you, and yet I have wanted to do so, for I am sure you will be glad to
+know how fearfully happy I am and what is causing the happiness.  I am
+in love.  It is the most wonderful thing I have ever been in, and
+thrillingly interesting.  I suppose you have been in it many times, but
+not my way, or you would have mentioned it, just as I am doing to you,
+as we are such old friends, and friends have the right to know of
+important happenings.  I hope you will like each other when you meet,
+for, though you are very unlike, you are both made of male material,
+and I have often noticed that men have many peculiarities in common.
+One of them is out of sight out of love, and a great readiness to be
+admired and entertained.  He is a lawyer and couldn't be better born,
+though he might be better educated; still, one mustn't expect all
+things in one man, and his eyes are so wonderful, and he uses such
+poetic prose, that the lack of money and a few other lacks shouldn't
+count.  He lives in a beautiful old house which has proud traditions
+and no bathrooms, and his family is one of the oldest and most
+disagreeable in America; still, we would not have to live with them if
+we were married.  Nothing on earth could make me sleep under the same
+roof with his sisters, who are so churchy that the minister himself is
+subject under them.  And neither would it be safe for me to be too
+closely associated with his mother.  However, things of that sort are
+in the distance, which may be far or may not, and I am not thinking of
+immediate marriage, but just how magnificent it is to have somebody in
+love with you who knows how to say so in the most delicious way, and
+with a voice that, when the moon is out, is truly heavenly.  I am
+telling you about it because I thought you might be interested and
+would like to know of my happiness; but, of course, I don't want you to
+tell any one else, as it is still a secret and all so indefinite that
+it wouldn't do to speak of it to any one but you.  I am scribbling this
+in the middle of the night, because I can't sleep for thinking of some
+one, and because there is no time in the day in which to write.  I hope
+you are having a great time.  Give my love to the family and write me
+of your gladness at knowing of mine._
+
+  _As ever,
+    Kitty._
+
+
+Now what do you suppose made me write such slush as that?  And why is a
+female person born with such horridness in her that she can say things
+that are not so with a smile in public and cry her eyes out when alone?
+That's what I have been doing lately, though I can't let tears have
+much time, for I am not by nature a crier, and they would disturb Miss
+Susanna at night.  In my secret heart I just wrote that letter to Billy
+because I was indignant with him for not writing to me for more than
+two weeks, and I didn't intend to let him think I was sitting on a
+tombstone waving a willow branch in one hand and wiping tears away with
+the other.  And, besides, I have been in love.  Summer love.  And it
+has been exciting.  No one could expect me to go through life and not
+have but one experience in love making and hearing, and because a girl
+enjoys the different manners of expression it doesn't mean she is not
+particular about the story not being illustrated.  I don't illustrate
+or allow illustrations, which, of course, lessens some of the thrill,
+but I promised Jess I would always draw the line at the right time, and
+I have.  I have not been engaged for half a minute, and I wouldn't have
+added the postscript if it hadn't been for her letter and what she told
+me about that girl from some Western town who is no more his sort than
+I am her brother's.  Billy is perfectly blind about some things, and
+has no discrimination where it is most needed.  Anyhow, I added the
+postscript:
+
+
+_P.S.--By the time you get this I may be engaged.  Thank you for what
+you would say if here._
+
+_K. C._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+It was after I sent the letter that I got so restless I couldn't sit
+still, and as there was nothing I enjoyed doing I spent a good deal of
+my tune at the hospital with Miss Polk, who is a very splendid person,
+and every day I went in to see Mrs. Stafford.  She is having the
+grandest rest, with rubs and good eats and nothing to do but be waited
+on and cared for, that a tired person ever had, and I am the only one
+who is allowed to see her, which is beyond the understanding of
+Twickenham Town.  I'm cheerful is the reason I'm allowed to see her,
+the town is told, and that's enough for it to know.
+
+It certainly is queer how some things happen in the nick of time.
+Father sent me the money, but told me to try to be as practical as
+possible, knowing I am given to doing impractical things; and I took it
+to Miss Polk, and nobody but she and I know where it came from.  And
+then she invited Mrs. Stafford to be a guest of the hospital for a
+month.  I happened to be at the house when the note came.  I thought it
+best to be there accidentally, in case there should be argument and
+talk, and the Man of the House should still think Woman's Place was in
+the Home, and sure enough there was.  Mrs. Stafford read the note, and
+her face got as white as death, and after a minute she said it would be
+heaven to go, but of course she couldn't.  And the noble creature who
+is her husband said it was very presumptuous in whoever had invited her
+to be the guest of the hospital, and that he wasn't in the habit of
+having his wife visit such places on the invitation of unknown
+interferers, and of course she couldn't go.  And just as he said that
+Mrs. Stafford keeled over in a dead faint right at his feet, as if
+something had given out at the thought of rest.  I knew that was my
+chance, and I took it.
+
+"Stop that automobile!"  I waved to a man who was coming down the
+street, and as he stopped I knelt and did the things Billy had made me
+learn how to do the first year we went to camp.  And seeing the poor,
+tired soul had just fainted, and would come to in a minute, I spoke
+quick to the man looking down at her, scared to death, as were the
+children, who began to cry, and told him he wouldn't have a wife much
+longer to be interfered with if he didn't come down from that horse he
+thought he was riding and have some common sense.
+
+"Don't you see she is worn out," I said, "and got nothing to go on
+with?  Everything has given out, and the next time she drops over in
+this way she may never get up again."  I was putting some water on her
+face as I spoke, and, seeing her eyes begin to open a little, I called
+to Mr. Everett, who had gotten out of his car and was on the porch, to
+help Mr. Stafford put his wife in and take her to the hospital, and the
+frightened husband for once did as he was told.  I hopped in with her
+and held her up and told Mr. Everett to drive like old Scratch, and he
+drove.  It was all over so quickly nobody knew what had happened.
+
+It was like somebody being kidnapped and dragged off by highwaymen,
+taking her away so hurriedly, but if it hadn't been done that way there
+would have been endless talk and a thousand reasons why she couldn't
+go; and if she hadn't she would have soon gone for good.  Sometimes
+somebody has to be high-handed, and even if that billy-goat of a
+husband pretends to resent what I did his wife isn't resenting it, and
+she is the one that counts.  I always agree with her that it was such a
+strange thing I happened to be there the day the note came.  And also
+she thinks it strange I decided so quickly to take her to the hospital,
+when she had just said she couldn't go.  I tell her I do a good many
+things on the spur of the moment, and getting the men to pick her up
+and hurry away with her was just another case of spur, and she shuts
+her eyes when I say that and looks as if she is praying.  The lucky
+part was her fainting at the right time.  Anyhow, she is at the
+hospital, and that old rooster of hers is finding out a good many
+things it took her absence from home for him to learn.  I never expect
+to get married.  NEVER!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+I have just found out why Elizabeth and Whythe had their break.  Miss
+Bettie Simcoe told me.  It took Miss Bettie some time to get at the
+bottom of it, but Elizabeth told her last night, and this morning I was
+given the information at the first moment Miss Bettie could get me to
+herself.
+
+Elizabeth was dead right in the stand she took, but her little spurt of
+independence didn't last long, and she is now ready to give in when the
+chance comes to give.  Miss Bettie added that on her own account.
+Whythe couldn't afford to be married, but that wasn't to interfere with
+his marriage.  He had expected to take Elizabeth to his mother's home
+and plant her in it, but when he told her Elizabeth balked.  She
+preferred to stay with her aunt Susanna after her marriage to going to
+Whythe's home, and when she so informed him he said things he
+shouldn't, and then both sent off skyrockets and the whole thing went
+up in the air.  And then I came.
+
+She has now changed her mind and is willing to follow her husband
+wherever he leads.  She is truly womanly, also she is still wearing the
+ring of the beau with whom she sought to bring Whythe to terms, and to
+please her worldly aunt.  But she will return the ring when it is
+proper to do so.  She is waiting to find out.
+
+Elizabeth had more sense than I gave her credit for in refusing to live
+in the House of Eppes; but it's either live there or not live with
+Whythe, and she evidently can't live without him.  I'd hate love to
+make me lose the little gumption I was born with, and even my little
+knows no house is big enough for a son's wife and a mother-in-law and
+three in-law sisters.  It won't be a Home, Sweet Home, place when
+Elizabeth enters the Eppes house, and it will be nip and tuck as to who
+wins out, but that's not my business.  I'm sorry for both sides, and
+thankful I'm not related to either.  Also, I will get out of the way as
+soon as possible, but until the picnic there doesn't seem a possible
+way.
+
+There is nothing in life that is not over if life is long enough, and
+my little love affair with Mr. Whythe Rives Eppes belongs to the past.
+Elizabeth can have him any minute she wants, and unless actions do not
+speak louder than words she wants him right away, and he her.  I do not
+see how she is possibly going to stand his teeth.  Still, there are a
+great many things I do not understand in life.
+
+
+The picnic is over.  By giving it I brought down a good deal of comment
+and criticism on my brown and curly head, but it does not matter.
+Nothing except sin really matters if we have sense enough to see it.  I
+invited everybody in Twickenham Town that I liked to the picnic, and
+some few I didn't, the latter being relations of those I did.  I don't
+think a person ought to be punished for their relations, any more than
+being held responsible for them, and so I included them, too.  What I
+was criticized for was asking to the picnic quite a number of people
+who don't usually go to the same places at the same time the
+Historicals go, and it made talk.  That night Miss Araminta Armstrong,
+on the quiet, told me she knew I meant to do right, but one had to use
+judgment in life, and it wasn't well to put ideas in some people's
+heads.  I told her I knew it, knew certain kinds of heads couldn't take
+in certain ideas, one of which was that people could enjoy friendliness
+and outdoorness and a lunch they didn't have to prepare for themselves,
+even if they were not high-born, and as the ones referred to did not
+have contagious diseases their presence wouldn't prove dangerous and
+the Ancestrals needn't be uneasy.  Also I told her I didn't care for
+judgment as much as I ought, and if human beings knew one another
+better they might find they were not as unlike as they thought.  She
+didn't say anything more.  Neither did any one else say anything to me.
+To one another they said a good deal.
+
+It was at the picnic I had a little talk with Whythe.  We went down to
+a stream under a big willow-tree, and he started on the usual, but I
+told him he must not say anything more to me on that subject, and if he
+were the man I thought him he would not allow Elizabeth to marry the
+Compensator she was no more in love with than I was.  Also, I said a
+few more things that were pleasant for him to hear, such as Elizabeth's
+heart was breaking (it was, as much as her kind of heart could break),
+and I told him it was foolishness to ruin one's life because of a
+misunderstanding, and that both had doubtless been in the wrong.  And
+incidentally I let drop that if, after years of preparation, I ever got
+married I would have nothing to bring my husband but myself, as my
+father had made up his mind that young people should make their own way
+in life (he ought to have so made it up if he hasn't), and Whythe said
+that cut no figure with him, and asked me point-blank if I did not love
+him.  It didn't sound polite to say no, and yet I couldn't truthfully
+say yes, so I just sighed and shook my head.  When he asked me if I
+could give him no hope, I answered _no_ with such uncomplimentary
+quickness that I had to cough to overcome it, and then I told him it
+was impossible for a girl of Elizabeth's taste and training and
+character, who had once loved such a man as he, to really care for any
+one else.  And the blackness in his face, caused by my unnecessary
+emphasis, died out, and I saw he was agreeing with me concerning
+Elizabeth, and that I would not have to insist on what I said being so.
+A man's appetite for flattery is never poor, and usually it is hearty.
+When we got up to go back to where lunch was being served Whythe had
+quite a determined air about him.  I told him if I could help in any
+way to let me know.  An hour later I saw him and Elizabeth going down
+to the same stream and the same old willow tree.
+
+When the time came to go home I pretended I had to see Florence Kensey
+about something that was important, and in the confusion of getting the
+people in the cars I managed to have Whythe put Elizabeth in his, and
+told them to get away quick and I would come on with Mason Page.  They
+got.  And the next day Elizabeth looked like some one who had been
+unbandaged and was letting out breath that for a long time had been
+held in.  Also, she looked pinker and whiter than ever, and so Pure
+that it was not possible for me to stay close to her, so I got away.
+No longer Hurt and Misunderstood, she went about smiling in sweet
+triumphantness that was not put in words, but oozed without them, and
+her manner to me was one of deepest sympathy.  Poor Whythe!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+There are some things not required of human nature to stand.  Elizabeth
+Hamilton Carter is one of them.  I was glad to give her back her beau.
+I felt truly Virginian in doing it, for Virginians always say, when
+giving you something, that they don't want it; I certainly didn't want
+Whythe.  I wouldn't have known what to do with him after the summer was
+over, and I was conscious of great relief in getting him off my hands
+without further loss or trouble.  I couldn't tell Elizabeth this, of
+course, though there were times when it took a good deal of something I
+did not know I had to keep from doing so.  Also, it took more strength
+to keep several other things to myself than I knew I possessed.  It
+took praying and the end of the sheet to do it, but I did it, and I'm
+getting encouraged about K. C.
+
+What encourages me is this: Two nights after the picnic Elizabeth came
+to my room and asked if she might have a little talk with me, as she
+felt she ought to.  I told her she could, and she sat down and began.
+Miss Susanna was back in her own quarters, the people from Florida
+having gone, and I had just finished saying my prayers and was ready to
+hop into bed when Elizabeth knocked at my door.  I knew what was coming
+from the look on her face and her manner of walking, and the way she
+held her head.
+
+If ever I write that book I am always thinking about I am going to put
+Elizabeth in it as well as Miss Araminta Armstrong, and if I could get
+some men to match them I would have some corking characters to begin
+with.  But no kind of pen-and-ink picture of Elizabeth would do her
+justice.  Her sweetness of speech when she is particularly nasty is
+beyond the power of human portrayal.  I got in bed quick when she said
+she wanted to talk, because I was afraid I might have to hit something,
+and the pillow was the only thing I could manage without sound.  I put
+it where I could give it a dig when politeness required control, and
+told her to go ahead.
+
+In her last sleep Elizabeth will pose.  She took her seat near the
+window where the moonlight could shine on her (she looked very pretty
+in her pink-silk kimono, a hand-over from her rich aunt, and shabby but
+becoming in color), and for a moment she didn't say anything, just
+fooled with the pink ribbon on her hair.  And then she said she had a
+secret to tell me; said it so soft, with her head on the side, that I
+had to ask her to speak louder please, and I got nearer the edge of the
+bed.  Elbow on it and chin in the palm of one hand, I prayed hard to be
+polite in my own room, and reached out for an end of the sheet with the
+other.  Again I told her to go ahead.  After a minute she went.
+
+"You and Whythe have been such friends that I think you should be the
+first to know that--"
+
+"Have you and Whythe made up?"  I stuck my bare foot over the edge of
+the bed and wriggled it.  "If you have you had better be married quick
+and not take any more chances.  I'm awfully glad if things are settled.
+Have you bounced the other fellow yet?"
+
+It was cruel in me to take out of her mouth what she was moistening her
+lips to say, but I was sleepy and I didn't want details.  She had no
+idea of being cut out of saying what it was her determination to say,
+however, considering I had been responsible for some unhappy days
+during the past two months, and before she got through she had said all
+she wanted me to hear.  If it hadn't been for the pillow I would have
+rolled out of bed.  The nerve of her!  The belief of her!  And, oh, my
+granny! the punishment, as she imagined, of me!
+
+Before she left the room she told me she could no longer hold out
+against Whythe's pleadings.  Told me he had suffered so during the
+summer she was uneasy about him, and, though he had tried to forget, it
+had been useless, and, unable to endure it any longer, he had come to
+her and told her he could stand no more, and if she did not promise to
+marry him at once he would--he would--  Her voice trailed, but I said
+nothing, the end of the sheet being stuffed into my mouth for
+politeness' sake, and when her tears had been wiped away she began
+again.
+
+"It is hard to forgive Whythe, because you are so young, and he knows
+how fascinating he is and how little experience you have had with young
+men, but his father was a flirt before him" (poor Father!  I thought of
+the retribution that had come to him in Mother, and I pushed in more
+sheet), "and it is natural in a man to seek amusement and entertainment
+when he is suffering as Whythe was.  I hope you will forgive him.  It
+is because he may have made you imagine things that were not so, and
+because you have been so nice to him, that I thought you should be the
+first to know."
+
+I rolled back to the side of the bed facing her, from which I had
+rolled the other way for safety, and took the end of the sheet out of
+my mouth.  "Have you told IT?" I asked.  "It doesn't make any
+difference about my knowing as I knew before you did, but something is
+due that which you brought back with you.  Have you told IT, Elizabeth?"
+
+"Told who?  I don't understand."  She sat up.  "I don't know who you
+are talking about."
+
+"Don't you?"  I too sat up and swung my bare feet over the side of the
+bed.  "I am talking about the person to whom I read in the Twickenham
+Town Sentinel that you were engaged.  He dresses like a man, and he may
+be one, but even if he isn't he deserves to be treated decently by the
+lady who had promised to marry him.  I suppose he knows."  I nodded to
+her hand, on which was the ring he had given her and which she had been
+twirling as she talked.  "That is, if you have had time to tell him."
+
+"That is entirely my affair!"  When not hurt or injured Elizabeth is
+superior, and she added scorn to the tone of her voice, but stopped
+fooling with the ring, which I know she hated to send back.  "I see you
+do not appreciate the confidence I am putting in you or the compliment
+I am paying you by telling you first, and if that is the case I will
+go."  She made movement as if to get up, but she had no idea of going,
+so I didn't notice it, but kept on swinging my feet, and then I asked
+her if she had told Miss Susanna, and if she hadn't she ought to at
+once, Miss Susanna being closely related and I nothing but a summer
+boarder.  And I said I hoped she would be married right away, as I
+would love to be at the wedding, and if she would ask me to be one of
+the bridesmaids I would be one with pleasure.  But she wouldn't answer
+me.  Seeing she still had something to say, and wouldn't leave until
+she said it, I put my feet back in bed and lay flat with my hands under
+my head and my eyes shut, and when at last I was fixed and quiet she
+began for a third time.
+
+I don't remember a thing after that except a sort of monotone voice and
+something about people talking about me because I had accepted Whythe's
+attentions when everybody knew--I didn't hear what everybody knew, and
+not until I did hear a sound at the door did I wake up good, and then I
+jumped as if shot and asked her, half-asleep, if she were going to live
+with Mother and Sister and Sister Edwina and Miss Lily Lou when she was
+married, but she answered not.  And since her midnight confession she
+hath not opened her mouth unto me and her little lips get together when
+she sees me coming, and from her friends I have learned that she is
+deeply distressed at my treatment of her.  And to her friends I have
+said Rats! and so endeth the efforts at friendship which she imagined
+she had made.  I am never going to pretend to be friends with a person
+who is not truthful, and whom I understand as I understand Elizabeth
+Hamilton Carter.  I don't like her, and though it is not necessary to
+say so unless occasion requires, neither is it necessary to appear to
+be what I am not.  I like Whythe, and when I saw him a few days after
+Elizabeth gave herself the satisfaction of communicating to me the
+return of his tempted affections, I shook hands with him good and hard
+and wished him all the happiness I knew there was little chance of his
+getting.  If I were a man and had to live in the house with a female
+who shut her mouth tight every time she got mad and was continually
+hurt and always sensitive, there would likely be in that house battle,
+murder, or sudden death.  Any kind of outspokenness is better to be
+endured than silent offense.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+This is the last day of August, and it is a day
+Twickenham Town is going to remember for
+a long time.  I have done again that which I
+should not have done, and I guess I had better go
+home.  I had expected to stay until the twenty-seventh
+of September and return with Father, who
+was to spend a week here with me, but he can't come.
+
+I suppose it was the awful disappointment of
+knowing Father couldn't come, and being so miserable
+myself (not one line yet from that person named
+William Spencer Sloane, who is probably married
+to an elderly woman by this time), and because
+of my sureness that no human being could be
+depended on in time of temptation, especially
+vigorous, aggressive temptations that come out
+of the West, that I gave help where help seemed
+to be needed, and now again I am in everybody's
+mouth.  Also my ankles are still a little sore from
+the weight of the window being on them as I hung
+out, but they are nearly well, and even if they
+were not it would not matter.  Two young hearts
+are happy and a proud person is not, and the
+blame is on me.  That also doesn't matter.  I am
+soon going away.
+
+The thing I did, which maybe I shouldn't have
+done, was to help little Amy Frances Winston
+get married.  She is the property of her
+grandmother, who is a very important part of
+Twickenham Town.  Having no parents or sisters or
+brothers, and only enough money of her own for
+her keep, and no spunk or spirit, she has gone on
+for years loving an awfully nice chap named
+Taylor French, with little chance of ever marrying
+him, and then in hops this Miss Frisk, who asks
+her why she doesn't quit fumbling and stop fearing,
+and the thing is done.
+
+There is nothing the matter with Taylor French
+except he is not Ancestral.  Mrs. Brandon, Amy's
+grandmother, is diseased on the subject of
+ancestry, and the first thing she asks about a man
+is who is he.  Knowing she would want to know
+who I was, I mentioned to her one day that I
+had never had any grandparents on either side
+(living ones I meant), and that we were not
+historic, and no member of our family had ever
+been distinguished (for righteousness, though I
+didn't use the word), and that we had made our
+own way in life, which was true, for Father didn't
+have a thing but what he was making when he
+married Mother.  I also told her I did not mind
+in the least, and if I did I would try to remember
+that Christ was a carpenter and St. Paul a
+sail-maker, though I'd never care to be intimate
+with St. Paul.  And I told her I thought it was
+yourself that counted most, after all, and not dead
+people, though it must be nice to know somebody
+in your family had been something if you were not.
+All she said was, "Are you a suffragist?"  When
+I said I was and I hoped I didn't look as if I
+were not, for I wouldn't like anybody to be
+mistaken about it, she gave me a long look and left
+the room.
+
+She did not exactly draw her skirts aside with
+her hand as she passed me, but she did it inwardly;
+that is, I imagined she did from the expression
+of her face, and the next day she must have
+fumigated the house, for when I went by an awful
+smell of sulphur was coming from it.  She is a
+low bender and bower in church at the mention
+of a name belonging to one she believes a Prince
+in disguise, who in another life will receive her
+into His kingdom, and whom she professes to
+follow in the expectation of being rewarded for so
+doing, but her head is held high when she doesn't
+care to see the lowly ones He came to give light
+and life to.  I don't mean she doesn't give old
+clothes and food and sometimes a little wood to
+old Mrs. Snicker, who can't move, from
+rheumatism, but she would no more speak other than
+stiffly to some of the people I know here than she
+would go in for suffrage.  She doesn't realize she
+is a living woman.  She thinks she is an Ancestor.
+For years she has forbidden Taylor French to
+come to her house, and Amy has to see him elsewhere.
+
+She has seen a good deal of him lately, Amy
+has.  Taylor doesn't live in Twickenham Town
+now.  He is living in North Carolina and has a
+good position, and is able to get married (I know
+because I asked him), and any minute day or
+night in the past eighteen months in which Amy
+would have agreed he would have married her
+and taken her away, but Amy wouldn't agree.
+Things have been dragging along this way so
+long that the nerves of both are frazzled out, and
+there's nothing to hope for but death, and, of
+course, it isn't respectful to think too hopefully
+of death and a grandmother.  And then I popped
+in and gave things a little push and the curtain dropped.
+
+The way it dropped was this.  I mean the way
+they got married.  Taylor was in town the last
+two weeks in August, and, as everybody invited
+him to their parties, he and Amy managed to see
+a good deal of each other (also the seeing wasn't
+altogether at places where other people were
+around).  But she wasn't allowed to meet him
+on the square or to receive letters from him
+straight.  And sometimes, if he wanted to say
+something in a hurry, or send her candy or a new
+book, or any of the usuals, he had to give a signal
+by throwing pebbles on her window at night,
+and then she would throw out a string and he
+would tie the thing to it and she would haul
+up, and the Personage, who was usually asleep,
+would be none the wiser.  The Personage is deaf,
+which is a great help.
+
+Well, one night three of the town girls and
+myself, with a boy apiece, had been to see Amy,
+and when we went up-stairs (just the girls) to
+see a new hat a city cousin had sent her, we heard
+a little tap at the west window.  It had been
+raining, which accounted for our being indoors
+with the windows lowered, and when we heard
+the tapping we were so excited we could hardly
+breathe.  It was fearfully thrilly, just like things
+one reads about in books, and I told the girls
+to put out the light quick, and when it was out
+I went to the window and saw Taylor standing
+in the shadow of a big tree.  He signaled me to
+drop the line, but when I threw the piece of
+twine Amy gave me I threw it wrong and it got
+caught in a broken piece of shingle on the edge
+of the porch and hung there.  I couldn't get it
+back and Taylor couldn't get it down, and,
+seeing it was necessary for something to be done, I
+pushed aside the curtains (they were made of
+striped calico, blue and white) and told the girls
+I was going to lean out of the window on the roof
+of the porch to get the string loose, and they
+must hold on to my feet, for the roof sloped and
+I might slip if they didn't.  They tried to stop
+me, and Amy wrung her hands, being very
+nervous from living on a strain and loving in
+secret, but I was out head foremost in a jiffy,
+and all four made a grab for my feet and legs.
+Being flat on my stomach, and having long arms,
+I got the string off from the piece of shingle, and
+just as I did it and threw it to Taylor I heard
+a noise and a little cry from the girls, something
+about, "Oh, my goodness! here she comes!" and
+I knew what had happened.
+
+"Pull the window down on my feet and let
+go," I called, as loud as I dared, "and draw the
+curtains so she won't see my shoes.  If she asks
+where I am, tell her I am outdoors.  Quick!
+Let it down!"
+
+They got it down and drew the curtains just
+as her Royal Highness walked in, and as she went
+toward the window Katherine Hardy says that
+never before had she prayed as she prayed that
+minute, and then she thought of mice, which was
+a quick answer.  She gave a little scream and
+jumped with her hands over her eyes and bumped
+into the lady, who, being a woman first, was also
+afraid of mice, and she moved, too.  Seeing the
+girls flying around, she told them to stop, told
+them Maud Hendren's mother had telephoned
+that she must come home at once and, not
+missing me, owing to the girls moving about so
+she wouldn't notice, she went out of the room,
+skirts still held up, and the minute she was out
+they rushed for the window and pulled me in.
+
+My dress was a sight when I got in, and I
+didn't have much skin on my elbows, and my
+hands were stuck up with splinters, as I had to
+hold on to anything I could clutch, being afraid
+the window would not hold my feet and the
+shingles being rotten.  But otherwise no damage
+was done, and I got the note Taylor had tied
+to the string, which I had pulled up by the time
+the Ogress had departed.  I gave it to Amy and
+told her to read it quick.
+
+She read it, and after doing it turned so white
+and looked so queer we were frightened.  For a
+minute she couldn't speak, then she handed me
+the note, and when I asked if I must read it
+aloud she nodded her head and sat down, as if
+to stand up was impossible.  I glanced over it
+first so as to leave out the little love decorations
+and just read the practical part, and what
+Taylor told her was that he had just gotten a
+telegram from his house (it's iron-works I think)
+saying he must leave on important business for
+South America on the 6th of September.  The
+house had been talking of sending him for some
+time, and had been waiting for certain developments
+which had suddenly developed, and he
+would have to go.  Would she go with him, and
+if she would not he never expected to come back
+again, but would stay over there and take charge
+of the South-American branch of the house he was
+going to establish.  She would have to decide
+at once, as he couldn't stay a minute later
+than the 30th.  They could be married anywhere
+she said, only it must be quickly done.  He had
+gotten the telegram an hour before, and in the
+morning she must get Kitty Canary to fix things
+so he could see her and talk more fully.  Kitty
+could be depended on and would manage
+somehow.  The rest being private and personal, I
+skipped it and gave the note back to Amy, who
+was as white as the dress she had on, and her
+hands as limp as wet kid gloves.
+
+Excited!  To my dying day I will never
+forget the thrill of it.  Being in love myself, as I
+had once thought, wasn't a circumstance to it,
+and the other girls were as bad as I.  To help
+a heart-yearning, backboneless young girl
+escape from the captivity of a cast-iron
+grandparent was something no red-blooded person
+could refuse, and every one of us agreed that the
+only thing for Amy to do was to walk into the
+den of lions and tell the head lioness the truth;
+ask her permission to many the man she loved,
+and, if she would not give it, to take it, anyhow,
+and tell her farewell and leave at once for South
+America.  That, at least, was what I thought
+ought to be done, and after a while the others
+thought so, too.  At first there was a lot of
+argument, but I told them I would never agree to
+Amy's running away to be married without her
+first telling her grandmother she was going to do
+it.  That is, if she would not let her be married
+at home.  If the G. M. would not let, then Amy
+could take the first train out, but she mustn't
+take it until she had shown her grandmother the
+respect she did not deserve.  I never could bear
+runaway marriages.  There's always something
+so common about them, and I wasn't going to be
+party to one if I could help it.
+
+All the time we were talking we left Amy out
+of it, and never once asked her what she
+preferred in the matter.  The reason we didn't was
+the poor little thing was so frightened and
+distressed that she could not open her lips.  We
+would not let her come down-stairs with us, and
+when we said good night I whispered that I would
+see Taylor on my way to Rose Hill, and at ten
+o'clock the next morning we would meet her at
+the back of Miss Susanna's vegetable garden
+under the big locust-tree, and that she mustn't
+worry, we'd fix it, he and I.  Also I told her she
+might bring up some toilet things and little
+traveling necessities and leave them with me;
+and though she clung to me like a frightened
+child and didn't speak, she was down by the
+barn the next morning at ten, and so was Taylor.
+I let them get there a little ahead of me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+They are married and gone, and for two days Twickenham Town has talked
+of nothing else.  It made a regular soup of the marriage.  The bride
+and groom were the stock, the grandparent and maiden aunts were the
+thickening, and I was the seasoning; but all that does not matter now.
+The ancestralized person has learned that the twentieth century sees
+some things clearer than the eighteenth did, but she will never admit
+that she has learned it.  Taylor and Amy were not unmindful of what was
+due her, however.  Taylor wrote her a very nice letter, asking her
+permission to marry her granddaughter and take her to South America,
+and her answer was low-down.  He wrote as a gentleman should, and she
+answered as a lady shouldn't, for her answer was insulting, and a real
+lady never humiliates any one.  After reading it Taylor told Amy to
+meet him at seven o'clock on Wednesday morning, and they would be
+married in the church with no one present but his brother (the only
+relative Taylor has in town is a bachelor brother), and the sexton, the
+minister, and me.  She met and the marriage took place.
+
+We didn't tell a soul about the marriage.  The night before Amy spent
+with me at Rose Hill, and, thinking it best Taylor should not be there,
+I told him not to come, and sent the other boys home early.  In my room
+I packed my suitcase and put in it two dresses I had never worn, which
+I was glad to do, as it would mean that much less to pack when I went
+home, and also I put in some other things; and though Amy cried a good
+deal and didn't think she ought to take them, she was very particular
+about how they went in.  She is very neat and careful, and I'm
+fearfully quick, so it was well she watched me.  I told her she was
+doing me a favor to dispossess me of what I didn't want and what was in
+my way, and as we were the same height, though Amy is a little thinner,
+owing to secret love and distress of mind, I knew the things would fit
+her, and I was more than glad to get rid of them.  Also she didn't have
+any of her own convenient, and she might as well be sensible.  She was,
+and put in her own tooth brush and powder and left the rest to me, and
+by eleven o'clock everything was ready.
+
+When the next day the news flew around that the marriage had taken
+place and I had been the leading spirit in it, I went to bed and stayed
+there until the town had finished chewing me up, and then I came out
+again.  It was the most sensible thing I ever did and saved a lot of
+talk and argument.
+
+Another reason I went to bed was because I was so homesick and so
+lonely, and so something I had no name for, that I knew it was wiser to
+be by myself.  I can't be much in life, but I can keep from being a
+nuisance, and when you feel you haven't a friend on earth outside of
+your family, who sometimes are queer also, you're apt to be a trial to
+those you come in contact with.  For two whole days I stayed in my room
+and thought of nothing but a big, brawny, domineering, dictating girl
+from the West who was giving Billy no time to write letters; and though
+I would die before I would let anybody know it, even Jess, I nearly
+cried my eyes out under the bedclothes the day of the marriage.
+
+Life is a poor thing at times.  And it is never so poor as when you
+think a friend has failed you.  There was nothing on earth that could
+have made me believe Billy would ever fail me when we had known each
+other since children, and he had saved my life three or four times; but
+how can I help believing it when he is letting a perfectly ordinary,
+straight-haired, large-footed girl from the West make him forget that I
+am living and spending the summer in Twickenham Town?  If he had not
+forgotten, would he not write?  He would.  I am miserable and I will
+never be happy until I can say some things to William Spencer Sloane
+that he ought to hear.  But I'm trying to keep my miserableness to
+myself.  People aren't interested in other people's miseries.  I wonder
+if I will ever again get a letter from Billy!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+It is a perfectly magnificent thing to be alive!  And this world is a
+perfectly glorious place to be alive in!  There isn't a bird in
+Twickenham Town that isn't singing to-day, or a flower that isn't
+blooming, and, owing to the rain last night, the dust is laying.  As
+for the sun--there couldn't be a more shining one, and the sky is a
+blue so gorgeous that it seems heaven turned inside out, and in the air
+is the snap of coolness that makes one want to walk and walk and walk,
+and its crispness means fall is coming.  I love the fall.  I can't
+think of anything I do not love to-day except Elizabeth Hamilton Carter
+and Grandmother Brandon, and I don't exactly abhor them.  I just don't
+like them, and prefer to stay out of their way.  But everybody else in
+town is a dear, and I wish I knew I was coming back next summer.  That
+is--
+
+It doesn't matter what is or what isn't.  The thing that matters is
+that this morning I went to the post-office, as usual, but, what was
+not as usual, I got what I had long been looking for, and which had
+come not for endless, endless days.  When I saw the big batch of
+letters and things from Billy, and knew that all my fears were at an
+end, I was so excited I could not speak without signs that shouldn't
+show, and, lest some one stop me, I put the mail inside my shirt-waist
+and hopped on Skylark and flew out of town.
+
+I didn't stop until I got to a big chestnut-tree about three miles from
+Rose Hill, and there I took off Skylark's bridle and let her have all
+the grass she could eat, and then I sat down and sorted the letters
+out.  There were four from Billy and twelve cards and two packages, and
+at first I couldn't understand why they had been held up, why I hadn't
+gotten them before; and then I saw they were postmarked from the same
+place, and had been mailed within three days of one another.  That
+puzzled me, so I decided to open them and find out what was the
+matter--whether it was the Western girl or something else.
+
+I ought to have known it was something else!  And I have been
+wondering, ever since I read the letters and found out about the
+accident to Billy's eyes, when he came near being shot and the powder
+got in them and nearly put them out, why it is that people are so
+mistrusting and why we let one thing we can't understand make us forget
+what we ought to understand very well.  Ten thousand kind things, right
+things, nice things we take for granted, and then at the first thing we
+think isn't kind or right or nice we forget the others and howl and
+snort about the one we do not like.  At least that is what I did.  Not
+outwardly, of course, but inwardly, for I'm pretty toplofty about being
+treated right, and I flare out and say things I shouldn't at times, and
+afterward I am so ashamed of myself that a worm of the dust is a perky
+animal to me for a few minutes.  That condition of mind doesn't last
+very long, however.  I am not by nature a humble-minded person.  While
+it does last it is awful.  Perfectly awful.
+
+When I read Billy's letter I laid right down on the grass and put my
+face deep down in it, and there wasn't anything abominable that anybody
+could have said about me that I would not have agreed to.  All the time
+I had been furious with him for not writing as usual, he had been shut
+up in a dark room, not able to see the food he was eating, much less
+able to write letters, and then when they took the bandages off he
+wrote so much they had to be put back again, and he was forbidden to
+write more than a few lines, which accounted for so many cards.  He
+wouldn't let any one else write me, and I don't understand exactly how
+it happened except he saw a drunken man on the street waving a pistol,
+and there were some children around, and before the policeman could get
+to him Billy had caught his hand and the thing had gone off and some of
+the powder got in his eyes.  He made light of it, but I know exactly
+what he did.  I thought it was a Western product that was engrossing
+him, and it was the children he was trying to save.  Oh, Billy, I'm a
+pig!  A perfectly horrid pig!
+
+And then I suddenly thought of the astonishing letter I had written
+about being in love and maybe engaged, and I prayed hard that he would
+never get it; but I knew it was too late for prayers.  And then I got
+mad with Pat for writing to Jess about the girl from the West, and with
+Jess for writing what Pat had written, and not for some time did I come
+to my senses and realize I was the only person I had any right to get
+mad with.  I got, all right.  And then I wondered what to do.  Billy
+said they would sail on the 21st and reach New York on the 29th, so I
+decided to go back to Rose Hill and begin to pack.
+
+Father could not come to me, so I would go to Father and be home by the
+time Billy got there.  It was only the 3d of September, but I decided I
+would leave as soon as I could do so without remarks being made about
+my going sooner than I expected, and to prevent remarks I would have to
+invent a good reason for getting away.  Father's loneliness would make
+a perfect reason for Twickenham Town, and a most dutiful one, and no
+one would be apt to ask me why I hadn't thought of his loneliness
+before; but it wouldn't do for the family.  They wanted me to stay out
+of the city as long as possible, and while I was wondering what I could
+do to get back, Mrs. Pettigrew passed with five of the children in the
+buggy and asked if I knew there was a telegram for me at the station.
+I told her I did not, and my heart got right where hearts always get
+when telegrams are mentioned, and in the twinkling of an eye Skylark's
+bridle was on and I on Skylark, and we raced like mad to town.
+
+On the way I was thinking all the awful things that telegrams start one
+to thinking, and I remembered it was just eleven days since I had sent
+the letter to Billy, who had, of course, gotten it by this time, and,
+not realizing how fast I was going, I was at the station before it
+seemed possible to get there, and so out of breath I could not speak.
+I slipped off the horse and held out my hand to Mr. Pepper for the
+telegram, and when he handed me the yellow envelope I slid down on a
+bench and held it as if it were a death-warrant, and not for some time
+could I open it.  I was positive it was about Mother, who wasn't very
+well when she last wrote, and everything I had ever done that I ought
+not to have done, and everything I had left undone which I should have
+done, walked right up in front of me and clutched me by the throat, and
+I had to shut my eyes to keep my head steady.  I had inside the same
+sinky feeling I felt the first time I went to Europe, on the first day
+out.
+
+Mr. Pepper was looking at me, and so were several other people who
+happened to be standing around, so I tried to get a grip on, and after
+awhile I opened the envelope; but at first I couldn't see the words on
+it.  Finally I took them in after three times reading them over, and at
+last I understood.
+
+
+Cut it out.  You are engaged to me.  Sailing to-morrow.  See you
+September fifteenth.--BILLY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+There never was a sinner saved by grace who so wanted to make a noise
+as I wanted to make one when I got into my head what had happened.  The
+relief from fear and the joyfulness of knowing I had been pulled out of
+another ditch made me dizzy for a moment, and down went my elbows into
+my lap and down my face into my hands, and not until Mr. Pepper said
+something to me did I lift my head and get up.  Then I threw my
+riding-crop in the air, tossed up the Pepper baby, danced around with
+him, and, suddenly seeing all present were watching me, and knowing
+they felt they had a right to hear what was in the telegram without
+waiting for Mr. Pepper to tell them, I said an old friend of mine, who
+was anxious to know Twickenham Town, was coming to see it when he got
+back from Europe.  After which I gave Mr. Pepper a little wink which he
+understood, and I am sure no one was told the wording of the message I
+had received.  Mr. Pepper has a good deal of sense.
+
+Happy?  I was the happiest girl in all the world that day.  I nearly
+sang my throat off when I got to my room, but I did not mention the
+telegram to anybody save Miss Susanna, and I didn't go into details
+with her about it.  I just said a friend was coming to see me when he
+got back from Europe, and I said it in such a way she didn't think I
+was interested very much.  She is so astonished by Elizabeth's
+behavior, and so surprised at her marriage, which is to be in November,
+that I don't think she paid any attention to what I said and got the
+impression it was a friend of Father's who was coming to Twickenham
+Town.  I let her keep it.  I did not give it to her knowingly, but
+there was no need to take it away.
+
+And last night, not being able to sleep, I knew I had not been in love
+with Whythe at all.  I don't know a thing in the world about being in
+love.  I had tried to think I knew something, but I was mistaken.  I
+must say I enjoyed hearing Whythe's crescendo, obligato, diminuendo way
+of making it, but I realize now I am not the sort of person to really
+fall in love with strange men.  Certainly I could never do it with a
+wabbly, changery, one-or-the-othery kind of man that Whythe is, and
+while it was pretty scrumptious thinking a twenty-five-year-older was
+in love with me, I soon found out it was a summer case and not at all
+serious.  And I am thankful I never thought I was enough in love to
+become engaged.  There might have been things to remember that one
+likes to forget when the real one comes along, and I have nothing of
+that sort to be sorry for.  I'm right particular at times.
+
+If I am ever really and truly engaged I wonder if I will be as
+particular as a sixteen-year-old person, a girl person, ought to be?  I
+guess it will depend on whom I am engaged to, but, of course, not being
+in love, I couldn't be engaged, and there is no use in thinking what I
+might do under circumstances that might warrant the doing of it, and
+when I see Billy I will just shake hands; that is--
+
+Every time I think of his coming I feel like opening my arms so wide I
+could take the whole world in, but I don't open them.  I just go look
+at the calendar to see if another day hasn't gone by yet.  When this
+morning I saw it was the 14th and realized there wasn't but one more
+day to wait, I went to the window and did open my arms, and I sent a
+message into the air.  And then, because I felt so sorry for Miss
+Araminta Armstrong, who has nothing to wait for but older age, and for
+Miss Bettie Simcoe, who has long since stopped hoping, I went
+down-stairs and asked them if they wouldn't like to motor to Glade
+Springs, and they said they would, and we went.  Also Mr. Willie
+Prince.  I didn't want to ask him, but I couldn't leave him out, and of
+course he wanted to go.  The going made the day pass a little quicker,
+but it has been a long day!  Awful long!
+
+For the last week I have been going around to almost every house in
+town to say good-by.  I don't know the exact day I will leave, as that
+will depend on when Mother says I must be home; but I didn't want to go
+away and not say good-by to everybody and tell them what a good time I
+have had, and I started telling very soon after I got Billy's message
+saying he was coming.  I have thanked everybody for their niceness and
+kindness to me, and told every one I hope to come back next summer, and
+sometimes we have had little weeps, for they put their arms around me
+and held me so tight I could hardly breathe.  And I know now there is
+nothing as good as friendliness, and loving-kindness is more to be
+desired than all things else on earth, and I am going to try to make it
+grow wherever I live.  I will have a garden of it--have it in my heart.
+
+I am afraid I will always have some practical things in my heart, too,
+for of late I've been thinking about all that money Billy had to spend
+in cabling me from Europe.  When Billy wants to do a thing he never
+lets obstacles stand in his way, and he would have sent that cable if
+he'd had to borrow the money from the Bank of England at an awful rate
+of interest.  What he did do I guess was to get it from his mother.
+She would take her head off and her heart out and hand both over if he
+wanted them, and it isn't her fault that William, as she calls him,
+isn't a ruined person.
+
+I know she hated him to leave ahead of time, which he had to do to get
+here on the 15th, the rest not sailing, Jess says, until the 20th; but
+that's William again.  He doesn't waste time when he has anything to
+attend to, and I know exactly what he said to his mother.  He will make
+every arrangement and fix everything for them and then tell them
+good-by.  He isn't much with words, Billy isn't.  He acts.  There's no
+fumble in him, and even his mother, who thinks his mold was broken when
+he was born and that the Lord never made but one like him, has to admit
+he is a high-handed person when occasion requires.  I don't agree with
+his mother in a good many things concerning William, but in some I do.
+I wish he wasn't an only son.  An only son for a husband is hard on a
+wife.
+
+The thing I have been thinking about most since I got his cable,
+however, is a certain thing that was in it.  I've worn the paper out
+reading it, and at first there was no argument in my mind, but it is
+coming, argument is.  And though I know it is a bad habit, especially
+in girls and women and disliked by the other sex, how can you help it
+when things are said that are not so?  Billy said, "You are engaged to
+me."  How does he know?  I never told him so.  He hasn't exactly asked
+me--that is, in a way that I would answer him--and he always got so
+choky when on such subjects that I changed them quick, and yet he
+announces that I am his, and with never so much as by your leave!
+
+I am afraid, I'm terribly afraid, I am going to agree with him.  It's a
+relief to have some things settled for you, and as he imagines I will
+always be falling overboard, he doubtless thinks he had better keep a
+life-preserver on me in case he isn't near enough to jump in after me.
+He knows if I ever agree to put one on I will keep it on.  I have a
+good deal of Father in me, and when I give my word I stick to it.
+
+If any one had told me when I came to Twickenham Town that the chief
+thing I would find out before I went away was that I wouldn't really
+mind owning a life-preserver, my head would have gone up and I would
+have been as chesty as a hen who tries to crow; and now I'm nothing but
+a humble-minded person waiting for a high-handed one to come and take
+me back home.  And I am perfectly willing to go.  Another thing I have
+found out this summer is that it doesn't much matter where you are or
+what you are doing; whether there is purple and fine linen or just
+ancestors, or both together, or neither; if the one you want most isn't
+with you, you will be pretty lonely after a while.
+
+I have had a grand time in Twickenham Town, but I don't want to come
+here again by myself.  If Mrs. William Spencer Sloane wants to take her
+son away with her next summer, she won't be able to do it.  Her son
+will be twenty-one next summer, and though I hope he will always be
+respectful and obedient, as far as possible, to his mother's wishes,
+still, she will have to remember there are other wishes in this world
+besides hers.  I trust she will be nice about the discovery.  Mrs.
+Sloane is a very handsome woman, but spoiled.  And very fond of having
+her own way.
+
+We are not apt to have much money, Billy and I.  We have often said we
+thought young people ought to do their own scrambling, and I think
+that's what we'll have to do, as our fathers think much the same way.
+I'm not fond of herbs, but I can stand a dinner of them if Billy can,
+and besides, it will be nice for us to work up together and not have
+too quick a shove.  And another thing we agree about.  We know the
+thing that counts most, and we are going to keep a good deal of it on
+hand.  Father says neither poverty nor riches can kill love if it is
+the right sort.  I know Billy's is the right sort, but I am crazy to
+hear him put it into words.
+
+He will have traveled thousands of miles to say something he could have
+written, to tell me I am engaged to him and I might as well understand
+it; but there won't be an extra sentence in the way he says it.  He
+will be here to-morrow, and I bet the best thing I've got that all he
+will say is: "Kitty Canary, we are going to decide right now on the day
+and the month and the year.  I will wait until you get through college,
+as you say I've got to, but I won't wait a day longer.  Let's get a
+calendar and work it out."
+
+And I, being a weak-minded person at times, will say, "All right,
+Billy," and then--
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Kitty Canary, by Kate Langley Bosher
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+Kitty Canary
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kitty Canary, by Kate Langley Bosher
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Kitty Canary
+
+Author: Kate Langley Bosher
+
+Release Date: October 25, 2005 [EBook #16946]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KITTY CANARY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<A NAME="img-front"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="Kitty Canary." BORDER="2" WIDTH="364" HEIGHT="518">
+<H4>
+[Frontispiece: Kitty Canary.]
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+Kitty Canary
+</H1>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+A NOVEL
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+BY
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+KATE LANGLEY BOSHER
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+AUTHOR OF
+<BR><BR>
+"MARY CARY" ETC.
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+HARPER &amp; BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+<BR><BR>
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, NEW YORK
+<BR><BR>
+ESTABLISHED 1817
+<BR><BR><BR>
+Copyright, 1913, by Harper &amp; Brothers
+<BR><BR>
+Printed in the United States of America
+<BR><BR>
+Published February, 1918
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<CENTER>
+
+<TABLE WIDTH="80%">
+<TR>
+<TH ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" COLSPAN="4">CONTENTS</TH>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap01"> Chapter I </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap08"> Chapter VIII </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap15"> Chapter XV </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap22"> Chapter XXII </A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap02"> Chapter II </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap09"> Chapter IX </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap16"> Chapter XVI </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap23"> Chapter XXIII </A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap03"> Chapter III </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap10"> Chapter X </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap17"> Chapter XVII </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap24"> Chapter XXIV </A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap04"> Chapter IV </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap11"> Chapter XI </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap18"> Chapter XVIII </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap25"> Chapter XXV </A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap05"> Chapter V </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap12"> Chapter XII </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap19"> Chapter XIX </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap26"> Chapter XXVI </A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap06"> Chapter VI </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap13"> Chapter XIII </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap20"> Chapter XX </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap27"> Chapter XXVII </A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap07"> Chapter VII </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap14"> Chapter XIV </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap21"> Chapter XXI </A></TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"><A HREF="#chap28"> Chapter XXVIII </A></TD>
+</TR>
+
+</TABLE>
+
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+KITTY CANARY
+</H1>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER I
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+I am in love.  It is the most scrumptious thing I have ever been in.
+Perfectly magnificent!  Every time I think of it I feel as if I were
+going down an elevator forty floors and my heart flippity-flops so my
+teeth mortify me.  He used to be engaged to Elizabeth Hamilton Carter,
+the niece of the lady at whose house I am boarding this summer, but he
+did something he ought not to have done, or he didn't do something he
+ought to have done, and they had a fuss.  No one seems to know the
+cause of it, but it was probably from her wanting him to be blind to
+everything on earth but her, and a man isn't going to be blind when he
+wants to see, and then she got <I>hurt</I>.  I'd rather live in a house with
+a cackling hen or a grunting pig than the sort of person who is always
+getting hurt.  But she's very pretty.  Pink-and-white pretty, with
+uplifting eyes and a little mouth that shuts itself when mad and says
+nothing, and oozes more disagreeableness than if it talked.  He still
+thinks there isn't another girl in town who can touch her in looks.  I
+don't suppose a man ever gets over a real case of pink-and-white.  It's
+the kind that makes a tender memory if it isn't the best sort to live
+with, and men like to have a memory to sigh over in secret.  Her
+rejected one may sigh in secret, but in public he does not seem to be
+suffering.  He isn't suffering.  We like each other very much.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The reason I am glad I am in love is that I am sixteen and I was
+getting afraid I wasn't ever going to fall in love.  Three or four
+times I have thought I was in it, but I wasn't, and I was beginning to
+be sure I was the sort of person who doesn't fall.  And, besides, it is
+good for Billy, who, because he is twenty, thinks he is old enough to
+have some things settled which there is no need to settle too soon.
+Settled things are not exciting.  I love excitement and not knowing
+what a day may bring forth.  Billy doesn't.  He wants his ducks to be
+always in a row.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Ever since he fished me out of the water-barrel sunk in Grandmother
+Hatley's garden, when I was four and he eight, he has seemed to think I
+belonged to him; and, though he doesn't imagine I know it and never
+mentions it, he is always around when I am in danger or trouble, to get
+me out.  I suppose saving my life three or four times makes him feel I
+can't take care of myself and therefore he must take care of me, but
+that's a mistake.  I have never had a horse to run away with me but
+once.  Billy did tell me not to ride her, and when she ran and would
+have pitched me over her head and down a gully he caught her in the
+nick of time and caught me, too, but that's the only time a thing of
+that sort ever happened.  He was real nice about it and never said
+anything concerning having told me so and didn't make remarks of the
+sort which other people rub in, but the next day the horse was sent
+away.  That's the thing which makes me fighting furious with Billy
+sometimes. He doesn't say things.  He does them.  I wasn't afraid of
+that horse and was going to keep on riding her, but the next day there
+was no Lady-Bird to ride.  The reason he sent her away was I wouldn't
+promise not to ride her.  Our summer homes are on adjoining places and
+Horson, their stableman, a nice, drinky old person, lets me take out
+anything I want, anything of Billy's, and, knowing he couldn't trust
+Horson any more than me, he lent Lady-Bird to a man miles and miles
+away and I never saw her again until she was a tame old thing I did not
+want to ride.  Billy behaves as if I were a child!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then the very next winter I fell through the ice and he had to jump
+in and get me out.  He told me not to go to a certain part of the lake.
+He had been all over it and tried it before I got my skates on, but I
+forgot and went.  A boy was with me, a skunky little rat, who, when he
+saw the ice was cracking, tried to pull me back, and then he let go my
+hand and flop I went in and flop came Billy behind me while the little
+Fur Coat stood off and bawled for help and said afterward he didn't
+know how to swim.  Having on heavy clothes, I went down quick and was
+hard to get up, and I would be an angel this minute if Billy hadn't
+been there.  But Billy is always there, which is what makes this summer
+so queer.  He isn't here.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On account of servants and things his mother didn't want to open their
+country place this year, and my mother didn't want to open hers, so two
+houses are closed.  That means a scatteration for both families and is
+why I am here and Billy in Europe; and if he is having as good a time
+as I am he isn't grunting at the change.  He didn't want to go to
+Europe.  His father made him.  His mother and two sisters needed a man
+along and, as Mr. Sloane couldn't go, Billy had to, and he was a great
+big silent growl when he went off.  I wasn't.  I wanted to come to
+Twickenham Town.  We had passed through it once on our way to Florida
+and I have been crazy to come back ever since, and when I found Mother
+was going with Florine and Jessica to a splashy place I didn't want to
+go to I begged her to let me come here and board with Miss Susanna
+Mason and&mdash;glory be&mdash;she let me do it!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She is a sort of relation, Miss Susanna is, a farback one, but nothing
+is too far back to claim here, and everybody who is anybody is kin to
+one another, or kin to some one else's kin, which makes for
+sociableness, and I am having a perfectly grand time.  In all the world
+there isn't another place like the one I am in this summer, and I am
+getting so familiar with a new kind of natural history that maybe some
+day I will be an authority on it.  Ancestry is the chief asset of
+Twickenham Town, and though you speak with the tongues of men and of
+angels and have not ancestors it profiteth you nothing.  That is, among
+the natives.  Being an outsider, I have decided not to have ancestors,
+and I am going to see if the people won't take me in for myself.  I
+have always believed a nice person was nice if there weren't any family
+shrubs and things, and a nasty one was nasty no matter how many coats
+of arms there were or how heirloomy their houses, so I have asked Miss
+Susanna please to excuse me if I don't call her cousin (we are seventh
+removed, I think she said), and also, unless she has to, I hope she
+won't tell any one my real name is Katherine Bird, but let everybody
+call me Kitty Canary, as everybody does at home.  I think she thought
+it was very queer in me to say such things, but she smiled her
+precious, patient little smile, and, though she didn't promise, she
+evidently hasn't mentioned my sure-enough name, as no one here calls me
+by any other than the one Billy gave me when I wasn't much bigger than
+a baby.  Just Kitty Canary will do for me.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER II
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+The way I met Whythe (he's the one I'm almost perfectly certain I am in
+love with) was this.  When I got to the station in Twickenham Town
+there was no one to meet me and take me to Rose Hill, which is Miss
+Susanna Mason's home and right far out, because the train was three
+hours late, and Uncle Henry, who drives the hack, and Mr. Briggs, who
+runs the automobile, had gone home.  There wasn't even anybody to take
+my bag.  I told Mother I had written Miss Susanna what train I would be
+on, and because she was so busy and Father away she trusted me to do
+things she had never trusted me to do before and didn't write herself,
+which is why I wasn't met.  I did write the letter saying I was coming,
+but I forgot to mail it and found it in my bag when I got off the train
+and was looking for my trunk check.  It was nearly eleven o'clock and
+nobody around but some train people who looked at me and said nothing.
+And then a young man who had got off the same train came up and took
+off his hat and asked if he could not do something for me, and I told
+him I hoped he could and I certainly would be obliged if he would do it
+as quick as possible, as it was getting later every minute and Mother
+would be terribly worried if she knew I hadn't been met.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But where are you going?" he asked, and his eyes, which are his
+best-looking part, took me in from top to toe.  When I told him I was a
+boarder for Miss Susanna Mason and would like to get to her house he
+said if I didn't mind a pretty good walk he would take me there with
+pleasure, and we started off.  It was a perfectly gorgeous night.  The
+stars were as thick as buttercups in spring, and the moon was
+magnificent and the air full of all sorts of old-fashioned fragrances,
+as if honeysuckle and mignonette and tea-roses and heliotrope were all
+mixed together; and as there didn't seem any real need of grieving
+because there was no one to meet me, I thought I might as well enjoy
+myself.  I did.  I could not help the train being late, and I didn't
+forget to mail my letter on purpose; and it was an accident, or
+coincidence, that a nice man should be on the same train I was, who
+lived in the place I was going to spend the summer in, and knew very
+well the house I wanted to get to.  I didn't know he had been engaged
+to the niece of the house and hadn't been to the latter since the
+engagement was broken, and I must say as we walked along he didn't show
+any evidences of despair or things of that sort.  He couldn't possibly
+have been naturaler or in better spirits, and he laughed from the time
+we left the station until we reached Rose Hill.  Not knowing his
+history, I told him I had come to Twickenham Town because I thought it
+was the most delicious old place in America; the sweetest, slowest,
+self-satisfiedest, cocksuredest place on earth, and everybody in it was
+a character&mdash;that is, everybody over thirty.  He said that let him out,
+as he was only twenty-five, but he wasn't sure some under twenty-five
+were not somewhat queer.  They are, I have found out since.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had left his bag at the station, but he had mine, which was right
+heavy, and seeing there was a good stretch of open road before we began
+to go up the hill on the top of which was Miss Susanna's home, I told
+him he had better sit down a minute and rest, and I got up on the worm
+fence and twisted my feet around the rail below, and looked at him
+before he knew what I was going to do.  He coughed a little and looked
+at his watch and said it was rather late to be resting, as Miss Susanna
+might be going to bed, and that if I were not too tired he thought we
+had better go on; and I told him all right.  And then, because I
+couldn't help it, I stood up on the top of the fence, balanced myself
+on it, and, opening my arms as if I were going to fly, sprang off and
+ran up the road ahead of him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the gate, which was open and through which I could see the
+rose-bordered path leading up to the white-pillared porch on which Miss
+Susanna and her niece were sitting, he shook hands with me and told me
+good night and said he hoped he would see me very often while I was in
+town, and I said I hoped he would.  He put my bag down and told me to
+send one of the servants out for it, and went on down the road, which I
+thought was the queerest behavior I had ever seen in my life.  I didn't
+know, of course, about embarrassments and broken engagements and things
+of that sort, and for a moment I stared at his back and then picked up
+my bag and went up to the porch with it.  All the boarders had gone to
+bed and only Miss Susanna and her niece were on the porch, and as I
+came up the steps they got up and stared at me as if I had risen from
+the grave.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I hadn't thought there was anything wrong in my coming from the station
+at that time of night with a strange man until I saw the look on Miss
+Susanna's face when I told her I had done it.  If I had been a brand
+snatched from the burning I could not have been folded to her bosom
+with more fervent thanksgiving or a more pained expression, and at
+first, still not understanding, I thought I had done right off the
+worst thing a person could do in Twickenham Town.  I had walked a long
+way with a man who didn't have ancestors, perhaps.  He had seemed all
+right to me, and I was awfully glad to have him, as otherwise I might
+have had to sit on my suit-case all night, for I certainly couldn't
+have come up with the man who swung a lantern, and he was the only
+other white one in sight.  But I found out later it wasn't lack of
+ancestors that caused the sudden chill which fell over us when I
+mentioned Mr. Eppes's name.  It was something else and&mdash;oh, my
+granny!&mdash;the look that pretty little pink-and-white person gave me when
+I said what I had done!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, my dear, my dear!"  Miss Susanna put her arms around me as if I
+were a little ewe lamb that had been lost and was found, and in the
+moonlight her beautiful little wrinkles reddened as if she were
+responsible for a most grievous calamity, "To think of your being alone
+at a public station at this time of night!  A young girl!  And I had
+promised your mother to take such good care of you!  I wouldn't have
+had such a thing occur for&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There hasn't anything occurred."  I took off my hat and fanned hard
+and then followed Miss Susanna up-stairs into a big square room with a
+big tester bed in it, and if she hadn't been looking at me I would have
+climbed up in it and gone to sleep in my clothes, I was so tired; but
+she didn't leave me for some time.  She couldn't get over my walking
+two miles with a strange man late at night, and presently I found out
+she hoped I wouldn't mention it to any one in the town, as in a little
+place&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I know&mdash;"  I sat down in another chair.  "I know little places.  I
+was in one once for a month.  Every one in it knew everything every
+other person did and didn't do, and said and didn't say, and if they
+sneezed what for, and if they didn't sneeze why not, and it was more
+fun!  But I won't tell if you don't want me to, and did my horse come?
+Father had her sent three days ago, and I hope you won't get uneasy if
+I am not always back on time&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I stopped.  She was putting my hat on the top shelf of the biggest old
+mahogany wardrobe that was ever built for human apparel, and I knew
+right off that was one of the things the matter with pretty Miss
+Pink-and-White.  She was spoiled to death.  I picked up the coat I had
+dropped on the table and hung it up myself, and saw I would have to be
+the thing I hate most on earth&mdash;an Example.  I must be careful or that
+precious old soul would be waiting on me just as she waits on everybody
+else, and I wasn't going to stand for it.  And then she asked me if I
+were not hungry&mdash;said she knew I must be after such a long trip; and I
+told her I was starving, but I would not eat of a feast of the gods if
+it were right in front of me, as the only thing I wanted to do was to
+go to sleep, and for fear she might keep on inquiring about all my
+relations I kissed her good night and walked with her to the door and
+asked if she would mind if I did not come down to breakfast, and she
+said of course I must not come, that Elizabeth never came if she had
+been up late the night before, and that decided me.  I was the first
+one down the next morning.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER III
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+It was a perfectly grand feeling&mdash;-the feeling I had the next day and
+have had every day since I got here&mdash;that I was in a place where there
+wasn't a single member of my family to tell me not to do things I
+wanted to do or to do what I did not want to do; and usually as I dress
+in the morning I dance a new kind of highland fling which I made up for
+times when I feel particularly happy.  Everybody is well and Mother and
+the girls are having a lovely time in a place where I would have had a
+stupid one, being neither grown up nor a kid, but an in-betweener&mdash;too
+young for some ages and not old enough for others; and here in
+Twickenham Town I am as free as air, and Father is coming to see me as
+often as he can.  I can't let myself think much about Father or I would
+take the train straight home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I had begged him to let me stay with him, but neither he nor Mother
+would agree.  Just because I got the Grome medal at school they
+imagined I had studied too hard and needed a quiet, restful summer in
+the mountains; but I will never study too hard while on this little
+planet called the earth.  I got the medal because Billy said I'd never
+sit still long enough to study for it, and just to show him he very
+often does not know what he is talking about I made up my mind to get
+it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The only thing I ever expect to work hard over is one book.  I am going
+to write one book that the critics will call a Discovery.  It is to be
+dull and dry and dreary, and therefore it will be thought deep and
+strong and big, and only a few people will know that it has been
+written.  After that I am going to write books that sell, write what
+people want to read&mdash;things that make them forget for a few moments
+that at times this world is but a fleeting show and there is a good
+deal of rot in it.  If I can I am going to make people laugh, though I
+don't think I can do much in that line.  I see the funny side of things
+too quickly to ever be able to write them down, as that takes time; but
+I am certainly going to be cheerful, and I am not going to croak.  I
+don't mean I am going to be smiling all the time.  I am not.  Perpetual
+smilers are more than human nature can stand.  Nothing is ever wrong,
+everything is beautiful, their smiles seem to say, which isn't so.
+There is a lot of life that is wrong, and any day horrid, hurting
+things may pop up, but that doesn't mean you've got to sit down and
+make a bosom friend of dolefulness.  Some of the things you can shake
+your fist at, and some turn your back on, and some you have to face;
+but no matter what happens you can buck up and begin again if you get
+knocked out or hit in the back.  And that's what I hope I will have
+sense enough to do&mdash;get up and get a move on when things go wrong.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So far nothing has gone wrong in Twickenham.  Everybody has been lovely
+to me, and all sorts of ages have been to see me and asked me to their
+homes, and if they know my name is not really and truly Kitty Canary
+they never say so or mention my family, which is very nice of them, for
+I am sure they must talk of who I am and where I came from, that being
+the first thing done here when a stranger arrives.  The reason I think
+they haven't let me off among themselves is that one of Miss Susanna's
+boarders started to say something to me on the subject one day and I
+told her I was a very plain person, almost common, and she could tell
+any one she chose.  She has never mentioned the subject since.  Just
+Kitty Canary is all I am going to be this summer, and if anybody
+doesn't care for me as Kitty Canary I don't care for them to care for
+me as Katherine Bird.  So endeth that.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IV
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+I have seen him every day since I came&mdash;seen my station help in time of
+need&mdash;and I must say he bears bravely the dispensations of a female
+person.  He is not dejected, and he still seems to find life worth
+living; and if he weeps in secret, he shows no sign in public of
+regrets; neither does he hide himself from the gaze of others, but is
+always to be seen when one goes down-town or to the homes of other
+people.  I don't know how we happen to meet so often, but I never go
+out that he doesn't appear; and though he does not come in at Rose
+Hill, he comes to the gate, and I am afraid we stand at it a little
+longer than is necessary, especially if Elizabeth Hamilton Carter is
+sitting on the porch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I wonder why Satan walks right into me every time I see that piece of
+pretty pink-and-whiteness!  He has never taken possession of me in that
+way before; but something about her just starts him off, and before I
+know it I am doing what I wouldn't think of doing if she were not
+around.  She is perfectly furious with me, and I must say her manners,
+if they are Southern, could be improved.  At best she is not much of a
+talker, I have been told; but since I arrived her little mouth has been
+shut so tight that I wonder how she breathes; and if she has spoken a
+dozen words to me since the night I came, they were too
+between-the-teethy for me to hear.  I didn't want her beau, and I
+wouldn't have dreamed of noticing him if I had known how she felt about
+him; but after she tried the freezing act on me I didn't tell Satan to
+get behind me, as I suppose I should have done.  I just went along and
+took things as they came, and the first thing I knew I was in love
+myself, and from the words of his mouth concerning the meditations of
+his heart he seemingly has recovered from a former attack and is in for
+a new one.  Maybe we were not as considerate of the rejecter as we
+might have been.  Of course, I never knew for a long time why the
+engagement was broken.  He didn't tell me and no one else seemed to
+know, and when I found out&mdash;  But that was a long time after&mdash;when I
+found out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His name is Whythe Rives Eppes.  The only things I don't like about him
+are his front teeth and his relations.  He could get three new teeth,
+but nothing in human power could rid him of his relatives.  There are
+four of them&mdash;Mother, Sister, Sister Edwina, and Miss Lily Lou, and may
+God have mercy on the girl who marries the male member of the family
+and goes into their home to live!  He is a perfectly grand sort to be
+in love with, and I am almost sure I am in love or I wouldn't feel so
+thrilly when I see him coming.  But being in love is one thing and
+getting married is a very different other, and there isn't a man person
+living I want to think of marrying yet.  It's awfully interesting, too,
+to learn the different ways in which love can be made.  Twickenham Town
+may be slow about many things, but in others it is so quick it takes
+your breath away.  Whythe became personal in conversation the fourth
+time I was with him.  It was at the Braxtons' party and conditions were
+favorable, but, not expecting the turn that was taken, I was as excited
+as if I had never heard remarks of a similar character before, and the
+first thing I knew I had promised Whythe (he begged me to call him
+Whythe) to go horseback-riding with him the next day.  We went&mdash;I on
+Skylark, who is the joy of my life, and he on a borrowed horse, and we
+had a perfectly wonderful time.  I don't think Whythe will ever be much
+of a lawyer, but as a love-maker he hasn't an equal on earth&mdash;that is,
+any I have ever heard.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As we rode down the main street of Twickenham everybody in the town
+seemed on it.  Princess Street is the only one called by a name, though
+of course the others have names, and it is the place where everybody
+meets everybody else and learns all the news; and if anybody went to
+sleep that night without knowing that Whythe and I had started on a
+ride at ten o'clock in the morning and didn't get back until three it
+was because that person was too deaf to hear and couldn't understand
+the movement of lips.  I didn't know I was doing anything I oughtn't,
+and if I did it I am not sorry.  I had a grand time.  It was a gorgeous
+day and cool enough for me to wear my brown-linen riding-habit and high
+boots, which, with a stock collar and small sailor hat, made me look
+real nice, and the way the people stared at me you would have thought
+they had never seen a divided skirt before, and&mdash;oh, my granny!&mdash;the
+faces of the family (Whythe's family) as we passed their house!  I
+smiled the politest and properest I knew and they bowed back, but in a
+way that made me laugh out loud when out of sight, and so did Whythe.
+And then we forgot them, forgot everything except it was awfully good
+to be alive.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER V
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+The place we went to is very historic and interesting.  Something
+happened there that was very important in American history, but I have
+forgotten what it was.  Whythe told me, and as it doesn't matter, being
+over for such a long time, I haven't tried to remember.  The sky was so
+wonderful and the river so winding and lovely and the air so delicious
+that yesterdays did not seem important and only to-day counted; and it
+was when we were sitting under a beautiful big water-oak that Whythe
+began to be terribly sentimental and say things that would have been
+more suitable for moonlight and shadows and things of that sort.  But
+suitable or not, they were thrilly to hear, and I would have enjoyed
+hearing them if it hadn't been for an abominable feeling that Billy was
+right beside me hearing every word also, and with a look on his face as
+if he thought my new friend was the foolest yet.  And presently when I
+couldn't stand it any longer (I mean stand Billy standing by) I got up
+suddenly and told Whythe it was time to go home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I interrupted him in the midst of a beautiful sentence about my
+eyelashes, I think, or maybe it was something else, I don't remember;
+but anyhow when I jumped up he was very much surprised and wanted to
+know what was the matter.  I couldn't tell him, but I was perfectly
+furious with Billy and the look on his face, which seemed to say what
+I'd heard him say often about fool-flum talk and feather-headed fellows
+and things of that sort.  And I was so mad I rode so fast Whythe
+couldn't keep up with me or continue the conversation, but it has been
+continued since.  That is the main theme, though the variations are
+always different.  Whythe never seems to give out on variations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of course, all of Miss Susanna's boarders, which are only four besides
+myself, had something to say in general about the faithlessness of men
+and the flirtatiousness of girls, and how times had changed, and how
+you couldn't put your hand on any human being and feel you could trust
+him in these days, and how men were gobbled up before they had got
+their breath good after painful experiences, and dozens of other things
+on that order.  And I had such a good time listening to them, though
+they didn't talk directly to me, that I'd forget at times and nearly
+screech out loud at the tones of voice in which they did me up, and
+then I would remember and try to look serious.  But seriousness doesn't
+seem to fit my face&mdash;that is, seriousness over sillinesses&mdash;and it
+wouldn't stay on very long.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They thought it very indelicate in me to walk away with Elizabeth's
+sweetheart right before her eyes&mdash;that is, Mrs. General Games did, but
+Miss Araminta Armstrong, who is over fifty and by nature sentimental
+and sympathetic, said she supposed it was natural for youth to seek
+consolation, and Whythe, poor dear, had been so heartbroken at
+Elizabeth's behavior that he had been receptive to other influences of
+a pleasing nature, and she didn't think they ought to be so hard on
+him.  And then, after more talk of that sort, she would sigh and look
+away at the mountains in the distance with a loved-and-lost look in her
+eyes, and Miss Bettie Simcoe would sit up and snort.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There's nothing sentimental or sympathetic about Miss Bettie.  Neither
+is there anything in the earth below or the heavens above that she has
+not an opinion of her own about, but the one concerning which she has
+the most decided opinions is Man.  She doesn't mince matters when she
+gets on him.  Also, she is an authority on God.  She can tell you
+exactly why He does things, and she quotes Him as if He were her most
+confidential friend, and the only thing which stumps her is why He made
+such a mess of what is considered His most important work.  Mention a
+male person's name and up go her eyebrows and down come the corners of
+her lips and on the side goes her head, and nothing need be said for
+her opinion to be understood.  She is positively triumphant over
+Whythe.  She goes around with a "Didn't-I-tell-you-so?" expression
+oozing out of every feature of her face, and I think she tells
+Elizabeth she is fortunate to have discovered his fickleness so soon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If Elizabeth thinks she is fortunate she has a queer way of showing it.
+She must cry a good deal at night, judging by her eyes in the morning,
+but the thing that's most the matter with her is madness.  She can't
+take it in that Whythe is showing no signs of anxiousness to make up.
+She imagined, I suppose, when they had their fuss that it wouldn't last
+very long and that he would give in to whatever she wanted, and now
+that he isn't giving in she is so freezingly furious with me she barely
+speaks to me.  She seems to think it is my fault and that my coming
+just when I did is the cause of the whole trouble.  Though she never
+says anything directly to me, she makes remarks in my presence about
+the way men flirt in Twickenham Town and how dangerous it is,
+especially for young girls who have never had any experience in things
+of that sort and are deceived by it; and as she talks I just rock and
+rock if in a chair, and swing and swing if in a hammock, until she has
+said a good many nasty things, and then I get up and go up-stairs and
+bring down a box of candy Whythe has sent me and offer it to her with
+my most Christian forgiveness and most understanding smile, and,
+strange to say, she never takes a piece!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I don't mind her remarks.  They're natural, and if she wasn't such a
+horrid little teapot I'd do anything I could to straighten out things;
+but until she behaves herself I won't.  I am having a very interesting
+time being in love, and why should I stop just because a man she broke
+with isn't grieving, but is keeping himself in practice saying to me
+what he used to say to her?  I am not going to stop until I think it is
+time and until both have learned a few things they ought to know before
+they get married.  She is a vain, selfish, pretty piece of spoiledness,
+and I don't believe she knows what real loving means.  She is the sort
+that wants what it hasn't got, and all the more if she thinks anybody
+else is apt to get it.  If she had any sense she would get a beau <I>pro
+tem</I>.  That is the best thing on earth to bring a man back to the
+straight and narrow, and Whythe is the kind of man who needs to be
+brought every now and then.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I gave her that for nothing one morning&mdash;I mean the suggestion in
+general, though of course not personal&mdash;and she looked at me as if
+trying to understand.  And then something came in her face that must
+have been an idea in her brain (her brain is slow), for, two days
+afterward, she said she was going away.  A week later she went to see a
+rich aunt on her father's side who has a summer home somewhere and
+corrals young men and compels them to come to it, Miss Bettie Simcoe
+says.  When she was gone a great weight seemed lifted off everybody,
+and even the servants breathed better.  As for Miss Susanna, she was
+that lightened and relieved, though naturally not saying so, that she
+looked ten years younger, and I know now it is true that some people in
+a house are like fruit-cake on a weak stomach.  They make life hard.  I
+didn't say my prayers that night.  I just sang the Doxology three times
+as loud as I could and jumped into bed.  Praise is prayer.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VI
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+I have been here four weeks to-day.  If there are any people in or
+around Twickenham Town that I do not know, it is because they are not
+knowable.  I love people, and, being naturally sociable and not very
+particular, I have had a perfectly grand time making acquaintances with
+the high and the low and, the in-betweeners; and the sick and well, and
+the dear and the queer, and the ancestrals and up-comers, and the rich
+and the poor, and every other variety that grows; and now I am as
+familiar with most of the family histories as the oldest inhabitant.
+That's the nice part of living in a small place.  Something depends on
+you and you depend on all the rest of the town, but at home you're lost
+in numbers and only a few know you're living.  Here everybody knows,
+also they know some things that perhaps had better be unknown.  As for
+talk, they are the best talkers on earth, and there's no subject under
+the sun they won't talk about.  It's an inheritance, Father says, and
+has been handed down from ages past, and, though they don't read very
+much, they can do more with a little knowledge than most learned people
+with their information, and they make anything they mention interesting
+from the way they mention it.  I love to hear them, and I've heard a
+good deal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dear, precious Miss Susanna in the secrecy of my bedroom gave me a
+little talk a few nights ago, and said she hoped I wouldn't mind, but
+as I was young and inexperienced she thought it her duty to tell me
+that I must be careful and not too informal, for certain people
+wouldn't understand; and that while the Holts were a very good,
+respectable family, still they were not&mdash;  She stopped and coughed a
+little, and of course I understood, but I pretended I didn't, and told
+her they were perfectly healthy and I had had more fun with the Holt
+children than with any in town, but if she preferred they should not
+come to her house to see me I would just stop in theirs sometimes, as I
+would not like them to think I was afraid to go with them.  I wasn't,
+for while I knew they were not historic, they were the most interesting
+children I'd ever seen, and it seemed pretty cruel that they were left
+out of things because they didn't have forefathers to hang on to, or
+money, which of course would speak for itself.  And dear, angelic Miss
+Susanna, who is so worn out with boarders and their special kind of
+human-nature horridness at times that she's hardly got body enough to
+cover her soul, said I mustn't misunderstand her, but the Holts had
+never gone in the same circles as the other people I had met, and that
+customs, though unkind, were hard to overcome, and the oldest son&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I told her not to worry about the oldest son.  He could go anywhere he
+wanted and with any one he wanted by the time he was through college,
+which his parents were working themselves to death to send him through,
+and it was very probable that several girls in town would be glad to
+add their grandfathers to his natural endowments before many years were
+over.  But if she didn't care for me to accept his attentions, as Miss
+Araminta Armstrong called them, I could always have an engagement when
+he asked me to go anywhere.  She looked so shocked and distressed that
+I told her I didn't approve of telling stories any more than she did,
+and for most sorts people ought to be branded, but I'd much rather tell
+one of that land than hurt a person's feelings.  And it wouldn't be
+untrue to say I had an engagement, for I always had one to go
+everywhere and anywhere, even if I didn't keep it; and again she
+coughed and looked so pained that I took her in my arms and whirled
+around the room with her and told her not to worry about me, either.  I
+wouldn't disgrace her by knowing the wrong people too well, but
+everybody had their peculiarities and one of mine was I was going to
+know anybody I wanted to.  I always thought a lady could, and, besides,
+I liked any kind of person who was interesting, and the best born ones
+were often very stupid, which of course was the wrong thing to say.  So
+I had to give her another whirl, and by the time she got her breath it
+was time to see about supper, and she has never referred to the subject
+since.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Susanna is a darling little lady of the old school (whatever the
+old school was) and I love her, but I am of my time as she is of hers,
+and I don't see her way any more than she sees mine.  She ought to wear
+hoop-skirts and brocaded silks and lace fichus and mits, and sit with
+her beautiful hands folded in her lap and her tiny little feet on a
+footstool, and instead she works from morning to night trying to help
+the good-for-nothingest servants that were ever hired by tired ladies,
+except Uncle Henson, and Aunt Mandy, the cook, who have been with her
+for years and years.  She's worn out.  That's what's the matter with
+Miss Susanna, and that selfish, lazy little piece of pinkness who is
+now away doesn't lift her hand to help her unless it is to make a cake
+occasionally.  I don't know how to make cake and never expect to know,
+as very good kinds can be bought, but I can wash dishes.  I do it every
+morning and she dries them, so limp Eliza can go up-stairs and clean up
+the bedrooms, and we have a beautiful time talking about what a change
+comes over human beings when they board.  That is, I do the talking and
+she shakes her head at me, but it does her good, as it gives sound to
+things she can't say.  Most of her time has to be spent in thinking
+what to put in people's stomachs and fixing it to be put; and, from the
+quantity that goes in, boarders must have much better appetites than
+people who keep house.  They eat and yet are never full.  There'll be
+no hope of heaven for me if I ever have to keep boarders.  I'd sweep
+them out with a broom certainly once a week.  That is, in my mind, if
+my hands didn't.  But Miss Susanna will never sweep them out.  The
+sanctuary in which I let out for her is the pantry, and all the things
+she won't say I say for her.  Yesterday she laughed so she broke a cup.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Father is coming to-morrow!  I am so excited and happy that to-day,
+after I was safely out of Twickenham Town and there was no one to see
+me, I stood up on Skylark's back and held the bridle with one hand and
+waved the other in the air; and then I tried standing on one foot with
+the other one out, but I came near losing my balance and just did catch
+myself in time.  Seeing a woman coming down the road in a buggy, with a
+baby in her lap, I got back in place before she saw what I was doing,
+but I needn't have done it, for it was just Mrs. Pettigrew, and she
+wouldn't have cared whether it was my head or my heels which were on
+the horse.  She has eleven children and no husband to speak of, and
+what people do or don't do doesn't bother her.  We stopped for a little
+talk and she told me about the roof leaking and the pig eating the
+baby's bonnet which Miss Katie Spain had given it last Christmas, and
+which was too small for its head, but was all it had; and that a kettle
+of soft soap had fallen off the stove and burned two toes of Sammy, the
+next to the youngest boy, and she would still be telling me things, but
+I told her Father was coming and I had to attend to something, and so
+she drove on.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I did have something to attend to, but I didn't attend right away, for
+the day was so wonderful I couldn't go in for a long time.  The
+sunshine looked as if it had been washed and ironed, it was so clear
+and clean and crisp, and the wind in the trees said all sorts of lovely
+things to me, and I made up my mind that, no matter what happened in
+life, I was always going to remember that warm and sweet and sunny
+things are sure to come again, if at times they seem dead and buried,
+and that I would try not to see the cranks and queernesses of people as
+much as I was by nature inclined to do; and then I went right back to
+Miss Susanna's, and before I knew it I had said something I oughtn't,
+and to Mr. Willie Prince.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Every time I see Mr. Willie I thank God he is no relation of mine.  He
+is the only man boarder in the house, which is another thing to be
+thankful for; but, though he is hard to stand, he is nearly sixty and a
+human being, and I ought to remember what I forget and yesterday I
+didn't remember.  He was the only son of his mother and should have
+been a daughter, and in trying to make him one his maternal parent
+succeeded better than in anything else she ever attempted, Miss Bettie
+Simcoe says&mdash;and she ought to know, being his first cousin.  His
+business is telling people what they don't want to hear; and, though he
+doesn't do any work, a hound dog couldn't run a rabbit down quicker
+than he can a piece of gossip, and when he isn't sitting on somebody's
+front porch fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan, from which he is
+never separated in summer, he is down at the drug-store hearing and
+being heard.  He thinks he is handsome, and he is as proud of his pink
+cheeks as a goose of her gander, and I'm sure he puts something on them
+on cool days.  If he could wear some blue ribbon on his sandy hair and
+have trousers and coats to match his fancy vests he would be perfectly
+happy.  As a man he is a poor job, but as a Miss Nancy he is perfect,
+and when yesterday I came in from my ride he made me so mad that I
+popped out something I shouldn't have popped and before I knew I was
+going to do it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was sitting on the porch when I came up, fanning as hard as he could
+fan, and as I went by he stopped me.  "I would advise you to be more
+careful when you go in wading at the creek, Miss Kitty," he said, "It
+isn't customary for young ladies in Twickenham Town to do such things
+and&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And where I came from it isn't customary for gentlemen to follow young
+ladies and see what they do," I said, and the minute the words were out
+I knew I shouldn't have said them, for his face got as red as a beet
+and he jumped up and walked into the house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I don't know that he really followed Sallie Sclater, who's a visiting
+girl, and myself to see if we went wading, but we certainly went and
+had a good time doing it, though we had to dry our feet with my
+petticoat.  But from the way his face went he must have made it
+convenient to walk in that direction and must have seen us, or he
+wouldn't have known anything about our going, as we were careful to
+look around before we took off our shoes and stockings.  I can't endure
+him, but he is nearly sixty and I am only sixteen, and I shouldn't have
+spoken as I did; and possibly because I was so happy over Father's
+coming I told him last night that if I had said anything I shouldn't I
+hoped he would forget it and I, too, would forget what had been said.
+And that, of course, I knew gentlemen in Twickenham Town never did
+anything gentlemen shouldn't, and that my quickness of speech was
+always getting ahead of me; and he looked so relieved that I am
+perfectly certain he followed us.  But, anyhow, he was very pleasant
+last night and told a scream of a story about poor little Miss Lily Lou
+Eppes when she thought she had a beau.  She had almost landed him when
+he got away.  He's never been heard from since.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VIII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+It's over&mdash;Father's visit is.  He has been gone a week, and it will be
+a whole month before he can come again.  He has to divide up between
+Mother and the girls and me, and he can only get away once in two
+weeks, because his partner is ill and business has something the matter
+with it and has to be watched, which is why he could stay only four
+days in Twickenham Town.  I don't see why fathers have to work so hard,
+and why wives and daughters must have so many unnecessary things, and
+such big houses and so many new clothes and automobiles and parties and
+pleasures, which aren't real fun after you have them.  But most women
+seem to want them, and keep on scrambling for what other people
+scramble for, and only a few have sense enough to see how foolish it
+all is and stop.  Maybe they are wound up so tight they can't stop.  I
+don't know.  I only know I do not want to live the life a lot of women
+I know live, and I am not going to do it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I wish Father could see it the way I do&mdash;about working so hard, I
+mean&mdash;and I think he might, for he says I am a chip off the block and
+he is the block, and in almost everything we feel alike; but there's
+Mother and the girls, who care for things I don't care for, and of
+course they must have them.  He gives them everything they want, but he
+looked so awfully tired the day he came I could think of nothing else
+the night he left, which is why I cried so under the sheet, and then
+when the tears were out and I felt lighter I got up and wrote him a
+long letter and told him I loved him so it hurt, and that he was the
+best and dearest father on all this big, big earth, and if he would let
+me come and keep house for him I would fly back.  But he wouldn't let
+me come.  He wrote me a letter, though, that I shall keep with my
+treasures, and I wish what he said was so.  It isn't so.  He just
+thinks it, but it does your heart good to know somebody cares an awful
+lot about you and no matter what you do is going to stand by.  What he
+wrote me was this:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+<I>
+Dear little Nut-brown Maid all mine, of course you would come, but you
+mustn't.  It is too hot and you need what you are getting, and nothing
+could help me here so much as to know of that wonderful color of yours
+and that you are so well and strong again.  That you are getting health
+and happy memories for the winter of work and study ahead is the best
+tonic I can take, and every morning when I go to my desk I get out that
+little picture of you and, nobody being by, I kiss it and send you my
+love, and it is a breath of life-giving air to know you are mine.
+Since the first time I saw you&mdash;you were exactly one hour old and
+laughing even then&mdash;you have been the joy and delight of my heart, and
+I can't afford to run any risk with summer heat and the joy of my
+heart.  I didn't deserve you, for I wanted a son so badly, and was
+fearfully disappointed that you were not a boy.  You seemed to
+understand and did not get mad about it, and I've often wanted you to
+know that no son could mean to me now what my little harum-scarum
+daughter means.  There has never been a day since you first looked into
+my eyes that I haven't thanked God for you, and the thing I am most
+afraid of in life is that you may get sick or not be strong, and that
+is why I am so glad for you to be in such a charming old place as
+Twickenham Town.  You were wise, little daughter of mine, to choose so
+quaint and queer and dear a place in which to spend your summer, for
+there real things still count, and there is more time for the fine
+courtesies of life, and the hurry and rush of it, the push and scramble
+for place and power, is out of key with its quiet serenity and the
+poise that comes from a sense of values that by many of us is to-day
+forgotten.  I am coming back as soon as I can, for I, too, want the
+refreshment and novelty of being where money is not talked and
+apologies never made for the absence of things that money gets.  Miss
+Susanna Mason is a liberal education in herself and no "Course in
+Culture" could equal the advantage of being in her society.  I have
+written her, of course, but tell her again of my sense of privilege,
+and my great pleasure, in being a guest in her home, and remember
+always you are in your father's heart.  Always he is thinking of you.
+</I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Now wasn't that a nice letter to get from a father?  I'm nothing to be
+thankful for; but, if he thinks I am, I am thankful for that, and it
+makes life a different thing to know somebody is thankful for you.  And
+another thing I think would make life nicer, make working and living
+not so hard, is to tell people you like them and you believe they are
+trying to do their best, even if their best is powerful poor.  Of
+course, all people don't try to do their best.  Some are by nature and
+practice mean and horrid and ought to have facts handed out to them,
+but most people try to do right, and maybe they would try harder if
+they got a little encouragement now and then.  Anyhow, I've often
+noticed it makes a person take fresh hold again for somebody to give
+them a lift in the way of a friendly word or so, and it doesn't cost
+much&mdash;kindness doesn't.  I wonder why we don't have more of it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The reason why Father liked Twickenham Town so much was that nobody
+talked business to him, and if anybody knew he was the head of
+Bird&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;Roller, bankers and brokers, they never mentioned it to him or talked
+shop at all, and for four days he forgot stocks and bonds and the ups
+and downs of the money-market and let go.  And yet I am almost sure Mr.
+Willie Prince knows all about him&mdash;the business part, I mean&mdash;and that,
+of course, will mean everybody in Twickenham will know pretty soon.
+The reason I think he knows is that I went into the bank to get a check
+cashed the morning after Father got here, and I saw Mr. Willie sitting
+at a table in a corner of the bank with a copy of Bradstreet open
+before him and his eyes close to it.  I made it convenient to walk up
+to the table and look down at the book, and I saw he was running his
+finger down the letter "B," and when he saw me he shut the book quick.
+I just smiled and passed on.  But not talking business is only one of
+the reasons Father liked Twickenham Town so much.  Another was because
+everybody was so nice to him.  He had so many invitations to dinner and
+supper, and even breakfast, that he was on a dead go from morning until
+night, and he never ate so much in his life as he ate in those four
+days.  It did him good, and he didn't look tired a bit when he left.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap09"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IX
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+The day Father got here was a beautiful day.  The train was due at
+six-thirty in the morning, but it never hurries and has only been on
+time three times since it has been running, and Uncle Henson said there
+was no use getting to the station until seven o'clock, but I told him
+if he wasn't in front of the porch by six o'clock I'd send for Mr.
+Briggs and go down in his automobile, and there was no need to say
+anything more.  Mention automobile to Uncle Henson and his back begins
+to go up just like a cat's.  There are only a few automobiles in town,
+though a good many people have Fords, and several offered to lend me
+theirs, but not wanting to hurt Miss Susanna, who has been sending the
+same carriage to the station for over thirty years, I didn't accept
+their offers, but went down in the coach, as Uncle Henson calls it.
+Its top is still upholstered in a sun-shaped thing which was once
+yellow satin and now tattered and torn, and hardly anybody ever rides
+in it, but when a new boarder comes Miss Susanna always says, in that
+queenly way of hers, "You will take the carriage to the station,
+Henson," and Uncle Henson's old gray head bows as if at royal orders,
+and they do not know they are playing a part that belongs to the days
+that are no more.  That is what Tennyson, I think, calls a time that
+will never be the same again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Uncle Henson's coachman's coat, long and faded and once brass-buttoned,
+and a battered hat to match, are always put on to meet the train; and
+when he held the door open for Father to get in the old, ramshackle
+thing he did it in a way that could be sold for big money, if manner
+could be bought, and Father got inside with equal elegance.  After he
+was in and Uncle Henson couldn't see him, he looked at me as if to ask
+if I thought it would stand, and I nodded back yes, and slipped my hand
+in his and hugged him again, I was so glorious glad to see him!  He is
+such a splendid Father&mdash;my Father is, I am so sorry for girls who
+haven't one like mine, and not one of them has.  He is the only one of
+his kind on earth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Everybody was on the porch to meet us when we drove up, and Miss
+Susanna gave him such a gracious welcome, and was so sweet and stately
+and quaint and lovely in her white dotted Swiss muslin dress which Miss
+Araminta Armstrong says she has been wearing for six summers, and which
+has the dearest little darns in it, that Father's face got real
+flushed, and once I really believe there were tears in his eyes.  He
+might have been an ambassador at some court who was being received, for
+at no court in Europe could a lady bow as Mrs. General Gaines bows, and
+she gave her best to Father when he was presented.  I don't like her,
+but she certainly is an old swell.  And then Isham (he's Uncle Henson
+and Aunt Mandy's grandson, and totes water all day long from the well
+up into the house, when he isn't playing a Jew's-harp in the sun) came
+out and got Father's bags and things and took them up-stairs, and a
+little later Uncle Henson brought up on a silver tray one of those mint
+juleps, about which Father told Mr. Willie Prince, who made it, that
+the half could never be told, and at eight o'clock we had breakfast.
+Usually Father doesn't take anything at home but grape-fruit and
+coffee, but that morning, and every morning he was here, he ate
+waffles, and batter-bread, and beaten biscuits, and everything else
+Miss Susanna would urge him to try, and he said he couldn't understand
+how he could eat so much.  I didn't tell him, but I think it was
+because of the juleps.  They're the best things for poor appetites ever
+invented yet, Major Hairston says, and he ought to know, being over
+seventy and never having missed taking two a day since he could fix
+them for himself.  After breakfast we talked for a while on the porch,
+and then I took Father out to show him the town.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I wouldn't have taken him out if the day had been hot, but it wasn't
+hot.  It was one of those gorgeous days that sometimes come in summer
+after a thunder-storm and which have the feel and taste of early
+October; and being in the mountains it was cooler on that account, and
+I could see Father breathe deep, and the tiredness began to go away as
+we walked and talked.  That is, I talked.  He tried to at first, and
+then gave up.  Everybody in town knew he was coming&mdash;I had told
+them&mdash;and they came down from their porches and shook hands with him,
+and said they were so glad to see him and they hoped he was going to
+stay some time, and that they would call as soon as he was rested, and
+a whole lot of other nice things, so that Father almost got flurried,
+he was so pleased and warmed up.  At home he is always hurrying in the
+morning to get to the office, and at night hurrying to get away, and of
+course we don't have neighbors, and it was so queer to find everybody
+so friendly and interested that by the time we got back to Rose Hill he
+looked like another man.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap10"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER X
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+I took him down Princess Street first, of course, and showed him the
+bank and post-office and moving-picture places, and the court-house and
+churches and stores, and specially the drug-store, which is a sort of
+standing-up club for the men; and I told him whose were the offices;
+and Whythe came out of his and spoke to him in a perfectly perfect way,
+and said he hoped he would be permitted to show him some of the things
+of interest in the neighborhood.  And also he said if it was convenient
+to us he would call in a car (Whythe hasn't even a Ford, but he has a
+Twin-Six manner) in the morning and we would drive to Horseshoe Falls,
+and from there go on to Spruce Mountain, where something historic
+happened during the Revolution, I think; and only once when talking did
+he look right in my eyes.  His sent a message, and my heart flopped
+around so it felt like a frog in a can of milk, and, I was so afraid
+Father would hear, I told Whythe we would go with pleasure and were
+much obliged, but we couldn't stop any longer, as there was a good deal
+to see before dinner.  He shook hands twice with Father, who, when he
+was out of hearing, asked me how a young man could leave his business
+in the morning and go riding.  I told him business could always be left
+in Twickenham Town, and he laughed and said he wished he lived in a
+town of that sort.  I wish he did.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We stopped just a minute to speak to Mr. Bugg, who sells vegetables and
+eggs and things, and whose wife has just had twins again, and this time
+has a milk-leg also, and Father shook hands with him and asked about
+the babies, I thinking just in time to tell him to do it, and then we
+had some soda-water at Mrs. Grump's.  It is the most awful soda-water
+in the world, Mrs. Grump's is, but it is wet and cold, and you can sit
+down when drinking it, and while we sat she touched up the town and
+Father nearly fell out of his chair at the way she did it.  If Mrs.
+Grump were for sale, I'd sell everything I own to get enough to buy
+her, for the way she can put into words what she thinks of human beings
+would make a graven image come to life.  She never smiles herself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After we got through with Princess Street we turned in by Colonel
+Rixby's and then went down by the Baconses' and into The Court, whose
+trees were planted by order of some lordly person, kin to the Aikens
+who have been sitting under the shade of their greatness ever since,
+and then we strolled by the Eppes house, for I wanted Father to see it.
+It is the stateliest old place in town and its garden of old-fashioned
+flowers makes one think the twentieth century is a mistake and ought
+never to have been, but ordinarily I pass it quickly, as I don't care
+for its owners.  The house has perfect lines and the dearest little
+panes of glass in its deep, wide windows; and inside it has big
+fireplaces and beautifully carved woodwork and wonderful old furniture
+and fearful old portraits, and I certainly wanted Father to see
+everything in it, but I didn't expect him to do it, for the House of
+Eppes doesn't admire me any more than I admire it&mdash;and then the
+unexpected happened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As we reached the gate we saw the whole bunch sitting in the wide, cool
+hall&mdash;Sister reading aloud, Sister Edwina making tatting, and Miss Lily
+Lou peeling a peach for Mother from a basket on the table beside her,
+and I was going to pass by and just bow to Mother as pleasantly and
+politely as I could (she was the only one who saw us), when to my
+surprise she got up and ordered me to stop by a wave of her hand.  I
+stopped.  She does not approve of me.  She thinks it very indelicate in
+me to accept the attentions of one whose engagement had so recently
+been broken, and, while she will never recover from stupefaction that
+Elizabeth should disagree with her son, she attributed that action on
+Elizabeth's part to lack of sense and does not hesitate to say so, just
+as she has not hesitated to say things about me that were not as
+Christian as they might have been.  She knew, however, what was
+expected of Twickenham Town and that personal feelings were to be paid
+no attention to where politeness was concerned, and with a sort of
+scepter movement she beckoned to me and commanded us to come in.  We
+went.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is a queer thing how nice disagreeable people can be when they want
+to, and that morning the entire Eppes family (even Sister Edwina, who's
+the limit) were so polite and pleasant that Father never would have
+imagined how cocky and sniffy they usually are.  I behaved as well as
+they did, and when we came away I couldn't remember a thing I had said
+that I shouldn't.  We didn't stay but half an hour.  I wouldn't have
+held out a whole hour, and neither would they, and so, after we had
+seen all the beautiful old things downstairs and been introduced to all
+the painted ancestors, I got away quick, for Miss Anna was showing
+signs I didn't think were safe.  They don't know that they worship
+idols of wood and glass and silver and china, and images in old gilt
+frames, but they do, and the steel trust hasn't money enough to buy
+them.  It's a pity they won't sell a few and put the money in some new
+clothes, for those they wear are a sight to behold.  As we were
+leaving, Mother Eppes invited us to take dinner with her on Sunday in a
+way that was more a command than an invitation and we accepted in a
+manner to match, though inside I was raging to think we'd have to go.
+And then I remembered it would be a regular thriller to be eating at
+the table with Whythe and his family and my family, and I hoped I'd
+remember to call him Mr. Eppes, as down here they do that up to the day
+of the marriage, the first name being thought too familiar until after
+the ceremony, and even then in public.  Grace Marvin, who is engaged to
+Richard Clarke, calls him Dick, but that is because she isn't
+ancestral; just accepted, Mrs. Grump says, and she knows, being
+familiar with the history of everybody in town.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were perfect days, the four Father spent in Twickenham Town, and
+he was made over when he went away.  Every morning Mr. Willie Prince
+sent him up a mint julep that started the day so cheerfully he was
+happy through its every minute; and Major Roke, who makes the best ones
+in town, would come for him at twelve o'clock and take him to his
+house, and Mr. Letcher always managed to get hold of him about six in
+the afternoon, and at bedtime some one else would send one in.  And
+poor Father, who never drinks anything at home, it not being good for
+him, was in an awful state of mind at first, and then he decided he
+would rather die than hurt the feelings of the senders and he'd take
+the chance on his health.  He took.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I'm a fighting disbeliever in whisky, and if I had any say I'd say it
+couldn't be made except for sickness, but you couldn't get certain
+Twickenham-Towners to believe it is a dangerous thing, and to take a
+little something for the stomach's sake is a recommendation in the
+Bible they approve of and obey.  It doesn't seem to kill people here or
+some would have been a long time dead, but there are one or two it is a
+pity it hasn't killed.  It does much worse than kill; it ruins.  I hope
+next time Father will say the doctor doesn't permit him to touch
+anything.  I didn't tell him so, of course, and I am afraid he will
+manage not to see the doctor before he leaves; but, anyhow, the morning
+and night juleps can be thrown out of the window after a sip to get the
+smell on if he wants to throw.  I wouldn't take a bet that he will
+want, but I'm hoping.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I didn't see much of Whythe while Father was here&mdash;that is, by himself.
+He was awfully nice to Father and he liked him very much (Father liked
+Whythe, I mean), but he couldn't understand why he didn't get more of a
+move on and make business for himself.  I told him in Twickenham Town
+people waited for business to come to them, and everybody knew Whythe
+was a lawyer, and if they needed his services they would let him know,
+and if they didn't there was no use waiting around, which was why he
+was out of his office so much of the time.  And then Father asked me
+when I had heard from Billy and when he was coming home; and, thankful
+to change the subject, I told him all I knew and got out the cards and
+showed them to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We had so many things to talk about&mdash;Mother and the girls and the home
+people and things, and the people he had met in Twickenham Town&mdash;that
+he hadn't talked about Billy, and when I showed him the cards he said
+Billy must have mighty little to do but write them, as there were
+fifty-six and he hadn't been gone but five weeks.  He seemed to think
+that right many, so I didn't say anything much about his letters, which
+are long and once a week, but told him Billy would sail on September
+16th, and get back before I did&mdash;that is, if I stayed until the 27th.
+He said I could if I wanted to, and that he would come down for the
+last week and take me back with him, and I was so happy I swirled him
+around in my arms and danced a dance I made up as I went along, and
+both Billy and Whythe Eppes were out of his mind when he stopped for
+breath.  And that night he went away.  Also that night I almost cried
+my eyes out for sorrow at his going and for gladness that he was my
+Father.  I wonder if all girls love their fathers as I love mine!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap11"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XI
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Billy has been pretty good about writing.  Much better than I have
+been.  I told him I would tell him all about Twickenham and the people,
+and what they did and how they did, and I intended to do it, but that
+is my chief trouble.  I'm a grand intender and a poor doer.  Billy
+never promises and always does.  He sends cards from every place, he
+goes to, and a good many from the same place so I can see what he is
+seeing, which I couldn't do if he wrote a book of descriptions.  He
+doesn't tell much about the cities and towns, most of which I have been
+in myself and am glad he leaves out, but he writes awfully interesting
+things about the places he pokes into by himself and the people he
+meets, and I almost die laughing over his accounts of his sister and a
+beau his mother has caught for her.  She is a dandy-looking girl, his
+sister is, and wears the smartest clothes I ever saw except Florine's,
+and if Patricia has really landed a duke or a count or a thing of that
+sort, his mother will have a wedding that will fit the fellow all
+right.  He's apt to be landed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I never have understood how Billy was born of his parents.  He cares no
+more for flum-foolishness than I do, which is why we have so much fun
+over the efforts certain mothers we know make to help their daughters
+get married, and we've decided to be failures as social successes and
+enjoy ourselves.  My mother isn't at all like his mother.  She is a
+precious mother, mine is, and adores Father and her children, but she
+is in the parade and has to keep step, not having courage to get out,
+and she thinks she must give her daughters every opportunity, and for
+daughters in Mother's world opportunity means marriage.  Until she gets
+us settled she won't feel as if her duty had been done.  That's why she
+has gone with Florine and Jessica to the same place Florine went to
+last summer with the Logans.  Florine has had a good many beaux, but
+none of them has been just what she had set her mind on, and last
+summer she met a man I believe she fell in love with.  Anyhow, she has
+gone where it will be convenient for him to see her if he wants to, and
+he must want, as Mother says in every one of her letters that Mr.
+Jeffry has just come or just gone.  He came to see Florine last winter,
+and a blind person could tell he was worth having.  I hope they will
+take each other.  Mother would be so pleased.  Jessica and I are not
+apt to do much for ourselves in the marrying line, so it is left to
+Florine to make the catch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She is very beautiful, Florine is.  She knows it and she loves
+beautiful things and wouldn't think of marrying any one who could not
+give them to her.  She wouldn't marry a man who isn't decent and
+straight and all that, not being that kind, but neither is she
+romantic, and nothing on earth could make her lose her head.  She is
+cool and deliberate and far-seeing, and not apt to ask herself too many
+questions about love alone when thinking about marriage.  She is a
+dream to look at, which Jessica isn't, but I love Jessica best.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Last night in bed I got to thinking about old Jess, and wondering how
+she was making out with that bunch up there, and I almost rolled out at
+the way her nose must be turning up inside of her at some of the things
+she was seeing and hearing and had to take part in; and I laughed so
+loud that Miss Susanna came in my room to see if anything were the
+matter.  I told her no, and that I was just thinking of something, so
+she pattered back, and I put my face in the pillow to keep her from
+hearing me again.  But it was hard not to let it come out.  Mother's
+daughters are a mixture all right, and no more alike than if they
+weren't related to one another.  Being a parent must be an anxious job.
+I hope I will have a dozen children, but they'll probably be right much
+to manage.  If I turn out to be a childless old maid, I'll adopt a boy
+and girl, anyhow.  I can do that if I can't do anything else.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jessica is the clever one of our family.  Florine has the beauty and
+Jessica the brains, and so far nothing has shown signs in me, but
+something may turn up yet.  Jessica is an A.M., and she has Ideas and
+Views and Opinions which she isn't stingy with and lets anybody have
+who is within hearing, and she wanted to be something, have a Career
+and get an Identity, which she says a woman has no chance of doing as
+long as she sinks herself in marriage; but Father said she couldn't go
+to any more colleges until she had had a fling at fun, for it wasn't
+fair to Mother.  She came out last winter and had a fearful rush
+because she was so different from the other girls.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I don't believe Jessica would ever have wasted a winter doing the
+things she did last year if she hadn't wanted to see for herself what
+was in it, anyhow, in society I mean, so she took a header and plunged
+all right.  She says she has a scientific and analytical mind and she
+worked it all out&mdash;the number of hours and days and weeks and months
+she had spent flopping around from one party to another, and doing the
+things she was supposed to do, and saying the things she wasn't
+supposed to say, and then she estimated the cost in time and strength
+and money and wear and tear on her character, and announced that it
+wasn't a paying business, and at the end of the year she was going to
+get out.  The year won't be up until October and that is why she is
+with Mother and Florine this summer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What she is going in for when it is up I don't believe she knows
+herself, yet.  She says woman to-day is in the most unsettled and
+uncertain state that any animal has ever been in since the first one, a
+mollusk, or something without a backbone started to get one.  And that
+it will take time for woman to evolute into being the best kind of a
+human being she is capable of becoming, and that the next step in the
+evoluting is to get out of her head some of the foolishness put in it
+by men people who didn't know what they were talking about.  Mother
+thinks it fearful in her to talk as she does, and can't understand how
+she can be so daring and so indelicate as to speak about coming from
+mollusks and things which don't have spinal columns and nervous
+systems, but Jessica says that is because Mother belongs to a day that
+didn't know about such things, and that the modern woman is shedding
+the shucks which have kept her a caterpillar much longer than was
+necessary.  A good many old ideas she thinks are shucks&mdash;that is, she
+pretends to; but she is an old dear just the same, if she does say
+things about people which it isn't polite to say.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I love old Jess.  She isn't but twenty-two, and she will be less sniffy
+some of these days and not so scornful and impatient with repeaters and
+parasiters and people like that, but just now she says they aren't
+worth wasting time on.  She can talk you right into seeing her way, and
+the first thing you know you are agreeing with her, and she has landed
+you before you realized the net was out.  Landed outsiders, I mean.
+She will never land Mother and Florine.  I love to hear her talk,
+though I don't think I am going to be a Careering person.  I'd like to
+be one, but with a dozen children I am afraid there won't be time.  I
+wouldn't tell old Jess, but I don't think she is going to Career very
+long, either.  I believe she is in love with the man who taught her
+some of the ologies she is so interested in.  He is awfully nice, but
+not very practical.  He is a psychological sociologist or a
+sociological psychologist, I don't know which, but it doesn't matter.
+If Jess marries him she will run him and the house.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap12"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+I wonder what made me get on the subject of my sisters when I began
+with Billy and the reason I had not written him as often as he has
+written me, but that is the way I do everything in life.  If I were a
+preacher I wouldn't hold my job long, for the thing I started on would
+have about as much connection with the thing I ended with as the moon
+with milk.  Not that that would be unusual, for a good many ministers
+have the same failing and skip about just as I do, but my trouble would
+be in hopping from one subject to another so fast that the congregation
+would be in Jericho one minute and in Jerusalem the next and never know
+how it made the jump.  As I am never going to be a preacher, I am not
+worrying about my unfitness to be one, but what does worry me sometimes
+is that my hopping habit will be my ruination when I begin to write a
+book.  My characters will never keep together, or do the proper things
+or say suitable ones.  They will probably get so jumbled up no one will
+be able to tell which is the chief hero or heroine, and there will be
+no logical development at all, which my English teacher insists is an
+elemental requirement of fiction if it isn't of life.  I thought this
+summer I was going to begin some sort of book just for practice, but by
+the time I get through putting down the things I scribble about the
+day's doings, and write to Father and send my weekly letter to Mother
+and the girls, and run off something every now and then to Billy, and
+answer the notes I get from Whythe and some of the kiddies around here
+who think they're grown, I don't feel like writing on a book, which is
+why I haven't begun one yet.  I will never be able to write one that
+tells of dark deeds and treacherous doings and love-sick lovers, or one
+which has suspended interest or rapid action and narrow escapes, for I
+know very little of such things, and I will never do much with plots.
+The people I know do not have very exciting lives and here in
+Twickenham they trot along and do the same thing over and over, and one
+day is very much like the other, so there isn't much inspiration for a
+thriller, and thrillers are the style in books to-day.  That is one
+reason I thought I had better wait until the style changes and while
+waiting enjoy myself with the people here who know how to do that
+better than any people on earth.  I'm enjoying myself all right.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of course, now that I am in love, I could write volumes on how
+scrumptious it is and how floppy I feel whenever I see Whythe,
+especially when he keeps his deep, dark eyes on me as if he were trying
+to read my soul when we happen to meet at the foot of the hill and sit
+on the worm fence for a while.  I don't think he is trying to really
+read my soul, for he isn't much on reading anything, but he certainly
+can say beautiful things.  They aren't so, but they sound well, and I
+must admit I enjoy hearing them.  They make me feel so grown-upy, and
+then, too, it will be a great help when I begin my book to remember
+what a man says on certain occasions and how he says it.  They are
+natural couriers, the men in this town are, but they don't always mean
+to be taken in earnest, and Mr. James Burke came near getting in an
+awful mess by paying a girl a lot of compliments he oughtn't to have
+paid, he being a married man and she not knowing it.  She was a very
+serious person and believed all that was told her and came near
+breaking her engagement with another man on account of the pretty
+speeches Mr. Burke made to her.  She was from Rhode Island and visiting
+May Strudwick, who told her for mercy's sake not to pay any attention
+to speeches of that sort and to hold on to the Rhode-Islander, for Mr.
+Burke said the same fluff to all the girls who came to Twickenham, and
+as long as it was just eyebrows and things of that kind no harm was
+done.  But she couldn't understand and went home sooner than she
+expected.  I understand.  It's lots of fun&mdash;the different ways of
+saying the same thing&mdash;and all enlightenment is advantageous.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A few nights ago Whythe got fearfully sentimental and said all sorts of
+thrilly, foolish nonsense, and the way he said it certainly added to
+its enjoyment.  He's a corking courter, and if he could teach the way
+he does it he would have crowded classes all right.  We were at Bessie
+Debree's party, and just before supper we went out on the side porch,
+which has bushels of roses on it and no lights, and sat down on a
+rustic bench in the corner where we could hear the music and see the
+moon and not be seen, and the minute we sat I knew what was coming.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Whythe put his elbow on the back of the seat and, chin in the palm of
+his hand, looked at me as if we were on a desert island and there was
+no one else in all the world but me, and he would ask for no one else
+if I alone was there; and then with his other hand he tried to take out
+of my fingers a rose he had just pulled and given me.  I remembered in
+time that Jess had told me to keep my hands to myself if anybody seemed
+interested in them, so I put the rose on the bench and sat on my hands
+and asked him if he did not think Marjorie Graham a perfectly beautiful
+person; and he said he hadn't noticed her sufficiently to know what she
+looked like, as he never saw but one face now.  And then he leaned a
+little closer and asked me if I knew how wonderful I was and what my
+eyes could do to a man's heart if I would only let come in them what
+could come, and which he hoped would some day come only for him; and I
+asked him what it was, not knowing, as it had never been mentioned
+before, and he said it was a thing a man would die for.  And then he
+took the rose up and put it to his lips and asked me if I would marry
+him; asked me if I could never care for him as he cared for me, for he
+knew now that he had never really loved before, and if I would promise
+to marry him he would be in heaven, his happiness would be so great.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was perfectly thrilling, much better than anything I have ever seen
+on the stage.  He tried to get one of the hands I was still sitting on,
+but I thought I had better not let him have it, as we were not engaged,
+and Jess had said no affectionaries until you are engaged.  And then,
+too, I remembered he had probably said the same things several times
+before, he seemed so familiar with them, and I had a feeling that Billy
+was standing by, perfectly disgusted, but ready to fish me out if I
+fell in.  I came pretty near falling, and then I told Whythe I wouldn't
+be through college until I was twenty and I didn't believe in waiting
+for anything on earth for four years, and though it was awfully nice in
+him to ask me to marry him, my father would have fits if he thought I
+was listening to him do it, and that we had better go in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I wish I had had a kodak and could have snapped the look that came over
+his face when I suggested going in.  He was perfectly astonished.  Also
+he was indignant and grieved and the look he bent upon me was truly
+burning.  As for his voice&mdash;Sothern couldn't have surpassed it.  After
+a while he said he thought I had more sympathy, more understanding of a
+love such as his, and if I realized its depth I would not keep him
+waiting four years, as four years at college was all nonsense for a
+woman; and then he got my hand, anyhow, and I jumped up, for somebody
+was coming, and, besides, if we hadn't gone in we'd have been in an
+argument right off, with love left out, on the subject of education and
+women.  I did not want him to think I was not appreciative, however,
+and though I went in with Mr. Keane, who had come for his dance, I gave
+Whythe a little look that was not unfriendly as I left him.  I am
+afraid it was not even discouraging, but he seemed so mysterious and
+tragic and amazed that I should leave him at such a critical time that
+I thought a little look wouldn't hurt.  I noticed, as we reached the
+door, that he was lighting a cigarette, and I knew his feelings would
+soon be soothed.  Man has no sorrow that smoking may not cure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When we went home that night other people were in the automobile (I
+always see that that happens, knowing how Mother would feel about it)
+and Whythe, of course, had no chance to continue a former conversation,
+but his silence said a lot, and when he helped me out of the car he
+helped much more than was necessary and held my hands so tight he
+nearly broke my little finger; and the look he gave me was a thriller
+all right.  Every time I've thought of it since my heart has thumped so
+I know I must be in love, for all books say that is a reliable symptom.
+Being proposed to is awfully interesting, and the reason I like it so
+much is that I am not apt to have many proposals of Whythe's sort, as
+that kind has gone out of fashion, owing to golf and tennis and country
+clubs and so much association.  Plain statement is about all a girl
+gets nowadays, I am told.  Jacqueline Smith told Florine Mr. Smith had
+wired her he had to go to South America and asked her if she would
+marry him and go with him, and she wired back she would, and that was
+all the courting they had, though they seem very happy.  And a girl
+Jess knows said the man she married had asked her how he stood with
+her, that she stood all right with him, and that was the way they knew
+they cared for each other.  But I'm not that sort.  I am very romantic
+and I like a lot of words, which is why I am just crazy about Whythe's
+letters.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If Whythe doesn't make a success of law or politics he could certainly
+make a living writing letters of a certain sort.  He's an expert at
+them and greatly gifted, and though I don't say much in mine, thinking
+it safer to telephone than write, I do tell him that his are perfectly
+lovely, at which he doesn't seem displeased.  He still begs me to marry
+him, and is so fearfully polite about it that I don't like to ask him
+what he has to marry on, and so far as I know he has only nerve and his
+mother's home.  I would not like to spend eternity as a maiden lady,
+but I'd much rather so spend it than dwell under the vine and fig-tree
+of the person who would be a mother-in-law to Whythe's wife.  My heart
+goes out to Elizabeth every time I think of the fate that will
+eventually be hers.  Also it goes out to the House of Eppes.  When
+opposing elements meet something usually happens.  I'm betting on
+Elizabeth, but I may be wrong.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap13"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Jehoshaphat the Golden!  For two days Twickenham Town has been standing
+on its head and wriggling its heels in the air, and nothing has been
+talked about since it appeared except its appearance.  Every tongue in
+town has had its say, and everybody in town has been on somebody else's
+porch and talked it over; and as for Miss Susanna, I believe she cried
+the whole night through, last night.  The first night she was too dazed
+to take it in.  The Twickenham Town <I>Sentinel</I> had it on its front page
+in the middle column in letters indecently large, Miss Bettie Simcoe
+says, and it certainly did make a sensation: "Mrs. Roger S. Payne
+announces the engagement of her niece Elizabeth Hamilton Carter to Mr.
+Algernon Grice Baker, of Perryville, Wisconsin," was what the
+Twickenham-Towners waked up and read on Wednesday the 1st of August,
+and if the dynamite-plant which has made business so good for Buzzard
+Brothers, the undertakers, had exploded, it couldn't have caused more
+of a stir.  Twickenham wasn't only amazed; it was indignant, and it
+couldn't believe it was true.  But it was true, for the next day Miss
+Susanna got a letter from Elizabeth, telling her all about her
+engagement and that she would be home very soon and bring him with her,
+and it was the night of the day the letter was received that Miss
+Susanna went early to her room and locked her door for a while (that
+is, my door, for she is sleeping in my room during the August rush) and
+cried all night long.  I had to pretend I didn't know, for she didn't
+want me to know how hurt and distressed she was that Elizabeth should
+have so treated her, and as I didn't sleep any more than she did,
+though, owing to very different feelings about Elizabeth, I made up my
+mind as to some things I would say to her when she got back.  And if
+she has never read "King Lear" I will see that she hears it read before
+very long with a glossary, and comments of my own on ingratitude and
+things of that sort.  Also she may hear some other things.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I have been perfectly furious with Elizabeth for the way she has
+treated the aunt who has been mother and father and all things else to
+her, but I can't help laughing at the way Twickenham Town has taken the
+engagement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As for Whythe&mdash;I have wished for Billy a dozen times of late, for only
+Billy could see what a scream it is, the shock to Whythe's vanity that
+Elizabeth's beau is proving.  I can't speak of it to any one else, and
+keeping it to myself is a great strain.  At first he seemed dazed with
+unbelief, and then he became scorny and sniffy and shruggy and smiley,
+and though he says little about his successor, whom he hasn't seen yet,
+his manner indicates that as a substitute for himself he considers him
+an insult.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Last night at the gate he talked to me about it for a while, and then
+he asked me when I was going to tell him I would marry him, and why was
+it I would not engage myself to him and take him out of his miserable
+state of uncertainty and make him the happiest man in the world, and
+why&mdash;  Oh, my granny! he spieled it off so beautifully and his eyes
+helped so wonderfully, also the moon, which was half out and half in,
+that I stayed a little longer at the gate than I should, perhaps, and
+let him say things he shouldn't, but his fluency was so enjoyable I
+couldn't get away.  After a while, however, when he had run down a
+little, I told him I didn't think it would be respectful to what might
+have been if I engaged myself to him, and that sixteen was too young to
+be engaged, and then, too, it wasn't positively certain that a certain
+young person was going to marry another young person just because she
+was at present engaged to him.  At which he got perfectly furious and
+said he would not marry that certain person if she was the only woman
+left on earth; that she had treated him as no lady should treat a
+gentleman, and that she was vain and mercenary and ambitious, and he
+was mortified to think he had ever imagined he had loved so shallow and
+weak and changeable a girl, and&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But you did love her, didn't you?"  I got up on the gate-post, swung
+my feet down, and put my hands in my lap and out of reach, the post not
+being big enough for two.  "Everybody says you were frightfully in love
+with her and you didn't think she was shallow and weak and mercenary
+until you had the break, and maybe you may change your mind back again
+about her some day, and then where would I be?"  I put my chin in my
+hands and my elbows in my lap and looked down at him, and he looked so
+hurt and surprised that I saw he had not thought of his own real gift
+for changing, and I realized that his attention ought to be drawn to
+some things he was apt to forget.  Quick as a flash, though, he said I
+had opened new worlds to him; that I stimulated and inspired him as no
+one had ever done, and that he would never love any one as he loved me,
+and that he would wait forever if necessary for me.  Also he said he
+would never change back again to a certain person, as she had killed
+his love, and would I not promise to be just his?  And I had to sit
+tight on my hands, his manner was so very imploring; and then, before I
+could say anything, I heard Mr. Willie Prince, who was sitting on the
+front porch, fanning, cough rather loud and come down the steps and
+call Ben, who was barking, and I knew Mr. Willie was doing what he
+thought was his duty, and I got down from the post and told Whythe good
+night.  He went away like the young man in the Bible, very sorrowful,
+and I went in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It wasn't late, but everybody had gone in except Miss Susanna and Mr.
+Willie, and when I sat down in a rocking-chair Miss Susanna looked at
+me as if she didn't know whether to say anything or not, and I saw she
+was worried.  But before I could ask what was the matter she got up and
+kissed me good night and went in, so I asked Mr. Willie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He wouldn't tell me at first, though I could see he was dying to do it,
+but after a while he said Miss Susanna was the sort that found life of
+the present day a hard thing to accept, and, fanning himself with his
+palm leaf, he looked at me as if I were one of the reasons she found
+life hard.  "Miss Susanna," he said, "is a lady of the old school where
+love and honor were placed above riches and mere material things, and
+it was a blow to her to find how readily young people could change
+their affections and break their plighted vows and be blind to their
+best interests, which was to keep along the same path and not be
+tempted out of it by passing people and worldly ambitions."  And as he
+talked in his fine little cambric-needle voice that sounded as if it
+came out of a squeaky cabinet, I knew he was meaning more than he was
+saying, and I sat up and listened until he stopped for breath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is that all?" I asked, and got up to go in, "for if it is I don't
+think Miss Susanna need worry herself.  People in one generation aren't
+very different from people in another where self-interest is concerned.
+Everybody knows Mrs. Loraine married her husband for his money, though
+loving Mr. Spence, and Miss Susanna was one of her bridesmaids; and if
+Elizabeth prefers to marry a rich man to a poor one, I don't see
+anything new about that."  And also I said it wasn't likely that love
+and honor were ever going to die out, and a few other things would live
+a long time yet, and he need not bother any more than Miss Susanna
+concerning present-day young people; and then to my surprise he asked
+me to sit down and told me what he enjoyed telling very much.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap14"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIV
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+"Everybody has been talking about the way Whythe Eppes has been rushing
+you," he began, fanning as hard as he could fan, "and several people
+have been to see Miss Susanna and told her they thought your parents
+ought to know&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He didn't get any further.  I stopped him.  It was silly in me to get
+hot, but I got hot all right, and in all my life I never wanted anybody
+as I wanted Billy right then at my side.  He doesn't get mad the way I
+do.  He would see that talk he did not like was stopped in two minutes,
+but I was too fighting angry to stop my own tongue, and I said things
+to fat Miss Nancy Willie Prince I oughtn't to have said.  Among them
+that my parents would not have permitted me to come to this town or any
+other if not perfectly certain I knew how to behave myself wherever I
+went, and that whatever was advisable for them to know concerning me
+they would know without the assistance of Miss Bettie Simcoe or Mrs.
+Caperton (she is a frisky little widow who has no use for young girls)
+or any other Twickenham-Towner.  And then, perhaps because he was so
+flustered he didn't know what he was saying, he told me riches were a
+great temptation to any young man, and everybody, of course, knew my
+father was wealthy, though he must say it had not been learned from the
+family.  And that Whythe, being poor from a money standpoint, had
+naturally been tempted, especially as his engagement had been so
+recently broken with a girl he had been in love with since childhood,
+and I, being young, didn't understand and was under the impression that
+young men meant all they said, and&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He would be talking now if I had not stamped my foot and stopped his
+rambling.  His insinuations sounded as if I were a feeble-minded
+creature and couldn't tell truth from untruth, or know when a man meant
+or didn't mean what he said, and had never heard things of the same
+sort before.  I've heard them before, and in several different places.
+I am a good many things I ought not to be, but I am not feeble-minded.
+I told him&mdash;  It does not matter what I told him, but I made him
+understand I could take care of myself without the help of the town,
+and, while I appreciated his effort to keep me from thinking the men in
+Twickenham did not mean what they said, and were not to be relied on,
+and not to be trusted, and that honor was not held very high by them
+where young girls were concerned, it was difficult to believe it, for I
+had been made to understand by others that certain old-fashioned things
+were still held sacred there, and the dangers and temptations of the
+city were absent.  When I saw how red his fat, round face got and how
+squirmy his legs and how hard he fanned I knew I had better go in.  I
+went, but I didn't say good night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mad!  Was I mad?  I was.  For a long time I sat by the window and
+talked to Billy in my mind and told him what I thought of men old-maids
+and prissy places and gossipy spinsters and flirtatious widows, and of
+people who didn't have anything to talk of but one another; and then,
+as the moon came out clearer, I seemed to see myself clearer also, and
+after a while it came over me that maybe I had been a little nicer to
+Whythe than was necessary just to see if a man couldn't get comforted
+sooner than he thought.  I had been doing a little scientific
+experimenting along a different way from Jess's way; and then my eyes
+got open wide and I saw what Mr. Willie had been trying to tell me,
+which was that Whythe was probably taking practical consolation and was
+not ignorant of the fact that my Father was not a poor man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the thought something got into my backbone and I sat up.  I had been
+fooling myself and didn't know it.  I don't mean I had believed all the
+thrilly love things Whythe had been saying.  They came natural to him
+and he might have said them to some other girl if not to me, but I had
+not dreamed he had any thought of an advantageous alliance, as Billy
+calls the thing his mother is hoping his sister will make, or that any
+one could associate such a thought with me.  It didn't seem possible,
+and I don't believe Whythe is that sort.  Still, men are queer ducks,
+Jess says, and one never can tell what is in the back of their brain
+from the words of their mouth, and if Whythe was imagining I had any
+value outside of my own self I would like to find it out.  How I was
+going to find out I did not know, and when I said my prayers I started
+to pray that a rattling good way would turn up, but I remembered it
+wasn't exactly a thing to pray about and that watching might be better.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I had had a grand time being in love.  Every day there was some new
+evidence of how nice a beau is, and though the other boys didn't let
+Whythe have it all his own way, as they called it, and we had a jolly
+time together and I danced and rode and picnicked and pleasured with
+all of them, still, it was understood that Whythe was my steady and
+they gave him right much chance.  It had been loads of fun having a
+steady, and I knew now how excited Mazie, one of our maids at home,
+must have felt the day she became engaged to hers, who was the milkman.
+But I had somehow thought that nobody but girls of Mazie's sort had
+steadies, and I had wished I could be a maid for a few weeks just to
+find out how it would feel to possess some one and be possessed by him.
+I guess it amounts to about the same thing, though, love does, no
+matter in what way it comes to one or by what name we call it, if it is
+the genuine thing.  I have certainly never felt about Whythe in the way
+Mazie must have felt about her milkman, judging by her face, but I had
+been enjoying myself and I didn't intend to stop with too much
+suddenness.  Mr. Willie had warned me and I would remember, but it is
+against the law to condemn a man unheard.  The Bible says so.  I would
+go slowly for once in my life and give Whythe a chance to conduct his
+own defense.  It wouldn't be necessary to mention that a case was being
+tried or that I would be both judge and jury.  There are times in life
+when it is well to keep some things to oneself.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap15"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XV
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Yesterday it poured in torrents all day.  None of us could get out of
+the house, so while Miss Araminta darned my stockings, which hadn't
+been touched since I came to Twickenham Town, I read aloud to the whole
+bunch in the library and we had a very nice time.  Miss Araminta has
+tried to teach me to darn since I have been here, but she has not
+succeeded in doing it!  I will never be a darner.  I have asked Mother
+not to get me all-over silk stockings, as the Lisle-thread feet last
+much longer, but she doesn't seem to remember, and one of my charities
+is giving my nice stockings away when they can no longer be worn with
+self-respect.  Clarissa, Mother's maid, is supposed to keep them in
+order, but she doesn't do it, and she has headaches so often I don't
+like to say anything to her, with the result that Mother thinks I wear
+out an awful lot, and yet I know she wouldn't want me to wear stockings
+with holes in them.  I found out early in life that it is foolish to
+try to do things you are not by nature fitted to do, and I am not
+fitted by nature to sit still for hours and fill up a little hole in a
+stocking to save a few cents or a dollar or so.  I don't do it.  I
+would rather save in some other way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Araminta loves to darn.  Also she loves pretty clothes in a way
+that is truly pitiful, not having the means to get them, and she has
+about as much idea how to have her few things made as a Comanche Indian
+has of <I>vers-libre</I>.  If she would wear those that suited her style she
+would look dear, but she wears clothes of many colors made, as she
+thinks, in the prevailing fashion, and of course she is a sight for all
+beholders.  While I was reading <I>Pendennis</I> out loud I was wondering at
+the same time what Miss Araminta was going to wear to the reception
+Judge and Mrs. Maclean are going to give to their two married daughters
+and their husbands on the 17th of August, which is the big thing of the
+year for Twickenham Town; but of course I couldn't ask her.  I knew she
+had nothing suitable or that had not been the subject of nudges and
+remarks under the breath, and smiles that could be heard.  And I also
+knew nothing could keep her away, for she dearly loves to go to parties
+and is not often invited, being of an inconvenient age for
+entertainments, and I wished something could come to pass that would be
+to her interest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As I read I poked around in my mind trying to think what might be done,
+and suddenly something came to me, and after a while I put the book
+down and began to talk of the different things that were going on in
+town and the many visitors who were already there, and then I asked
+Miss Araminta if she didn't think lavender was a lovely color.  She
+said it was the one she loved best and all her life she had longed for
+a lavender satin with everything to match, but she knew now she would
+never have it and she rarely let herself wish for things any more.  And
+she sighed the softest little sigh, like a mother whose baby had died a
+long time ago, but who always kept it in her heart, and I said to
+myself, "Go up-stairs, Kitty Canary, and think out a way," and
+up-stairs I went.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+August is The Season in Twickenham Town, and there is hardly a family
+in it that doesn't have company or boarders, or whose sons and
+daughters don't come home for their holiday, and Miss Bettie Simcoe
+says it's perfectly scandalous, the flirting that goes on.  Miss Bettie
+thinks anything matrimonial is close to scandalous, and she is
+continually raising her eyebrows and making a half moon of her mouth at
+what she says is the forwardness and freeness of present-day young
+people.  Miss Susanna always has a crowded house in August.  A Doctor
+Macafee and his wife and two daughters are here from Florida, and a
+Miss LeRoy from New Hampshire, and Judge Lampton and his wife from
+Alabama, and how she manages to put them away is known only to herself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When I heard she was going to give up her room and take a tiny one in
+the garret I made up my mind I would have an awful dream that night, a
+regular nightmare, that would scare her to death and make her come in
+my room to see what was the matter.  I had it and she came, and I told
+her I was subject to nightmares and ought not to sleep in a room by
+myself, though I hadn't mentioned it before, and I wished she would
+please sleep in mine with me and take the four-poster, which I thought
+gave me bad dreams, as I wasn't accustomed to such high beds.  And if
+she would I would take the cot, as I liked cots much better.  I am
+subject to nightmares, or anything else that is advisable to have at
+the proper time, and if I had known how many people were coming and
+that Miss Susanna was going to give up her room, I would have had one
+before, so she wouldn't think they had come on pretty sudden.  But she
+is not apt to think.  She is a darling little old lady, not brought up
+to think, and now too busy to do it, and she just works herself to
+death with her head up and a smile on her face, and doesn't realize she
+is spending all she makes in good things for the people who come here
+and nearly kill themselves eating.  She never buys herself any
+clothes&mdash;that is, until Elizabeth has all she needs&mdash;and when I went up
+to my room yesterday to think out a way of getting that lavender satin
+for Miss Araminta, another thought came into my head, which was a black
+satin for Miss Susanna.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Feelings are things one has to be awfully careful about in Twickenham
+Town, and not for a billion dollars put in my pocket would I hurt
+anybody's here, and I couldn't let Miss Araminta or Miss Susanna think
+for a moment that their dresses were not all right, and how to get them
+new ones I couldn't imagine.  I started to pray about it, and then I
+remembered I was in an awful hurry and it would be better to get to
+work, and, going over to the bureau, I opened its top drawer, and there
+looking up at me was my bank-book lying on a pile of handkerchiefs.
+Father had put a very respectable sum of money in the Twickenham bank
+for me and told me to use it whenever I could do it in the right way,
+and he would trust me to find the right way; but though I had tried to
+get rid of some of it, there were few opportunities (so it wouldn't be
+manifest, I mean), and now one popped right up in my face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For fear it might pop out again I ran downstairs as quick as I could,
+and, seeing Miss Susanna and Miss Araminta were by themselves, I began
+to talk about the Pettigrew children and what they had told me they
+wanted Santa Claus to bring them Christmas.  And that reminded me
+suddenly that Christmas would soon be here, and I told them that in
+August I always began to think about what to get Mother and Aunt
+Celeste, who were my chief Christmas worries, and I wondered if they
+thought I could get something in Twickenham that I could take back with
+me.  I felt, as I talked, that I was on a tight rope forty feet in the
+air and mighty little to balance myself with, but I managed to put in
+words what I wanted to say, and like little angels they fell in and
+never dreamed I had thought the thing out before I spoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I told them that Mother and Aunt Celeste had much more than they needed
+in life, and it was hard to get anything new and different for them, as
+there were so many to give them presents, and that I liked to get
+something odd if I could.  The things they were crazy about were old
+silver and old jewelry, especially old settings, and it was hard to
+find them in our town, and I wondered if they could help me get a piece
+of silver like one of Miss Susanna's pitchers for Mother, and a set of
+sapphires like Miss Araminta's for Aunt Celeste.  Also I said I didn't
+want to trouble them and I hoped they wouldn't mind my asking them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Araminta said no indeed, she didn't mind, and that she had got
+into the state of mind Miss Virginia Hill was in, and she wasn't going
+to keep on keeping a lot of things that were no use just because they
+had belonged to long-dead grandmothers.  And while she wouldn't go as
+far as Miss Virginia, who would sell every ancestor she had for a
+million dollars, she would part with some other things for much less,
+and if I wanted to buy the sapphire set (pin and ear-rings) she would
+be glad to sell them.  She would have to tell me, though, they had been
+her great-grandmother's, and not her great-great's, as the pearls were,
+and that she would take forty-five dollars for them, and if that was
+too much she would take forty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I almost lost my breath at her good sense, not expecting it, but I told
+her it would be cheating if I paid less than seventy-five for them (I
+had calculated that it would take about that to get the lavender satin
+with things to match), and if she would get them for me I would take
+them right away, and I was awfully obliged to her, as it would be such
+a relief to get Aunt Celeste off my mind.  I admitted I didn't always
+pay as much as seventy-five for her present (I usually give her a
+five-dollar one which Mother pays for), but Father wanted me to bring
+her something quaint from Twickenham if I could find it, and he would
+be delighted to know of the sapphires.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I fiddled along about other things for a moment or two and then I asked
+Miss Susanna if she would think me a very piggy person to want to buy
+one of those precious old silver pitchers of hers, as Mother would love
+so to have one of that pattern (Mother had never mentioned it, but I
+knew she would long for one of that pattern if she could see it), and I
+waited with terrible anxiousness in my heart and a hot face for her
+answer.  Miss Susanna's got a lovely pinky color, and for a moment she
+didn't say anything, and then Miss Araminta spoke for her and showed
+more sensibleness than I thought was in her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why don't you, Susanna?" she said, and nodded at her.  They are first
+cousins and very good friends.  "Why don't you let the child have one
+of those old pitchers?  You have too much silver, anyhow, and with
+servants of the present day any sort of silver is too great a burden to
+be borne, much less ancestral sort.  Young people want to buy their own
+things, and reverence for the past is a thing of the past; and besides,
+you have no one to leave yours to except some one who won't appreciate
+it.  Why don't you let her have it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I would be glad for her to have it.  Glad to help her out with her
+Christmas difficulties, but"&mdash;Miss Susanna bit her lip and the pink in
+her face became rose&mdash;"I have never done anything of this sort, and it
+does not seem just right.  I would be pleased for her mother to have
+one of the pitchers.  In a sense they are connected with her family as
+our great-great-great-grandmothers were the same, and&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, you precious person!"  I jumped up and took Miss Susanna in my
+arms and whirled around the room with her.  I was afraid she would get
+on the grandparent subject, and I didn't want to hear it.  To head her
+off I gave her a squeeze and a skip or two and then I sat her down and
+kissed her, and asked her if she thought seventy-five dollars was
+enough for the pitcher, and if so I would get the checks while Miss
+Araminta got the sapphires.  And before they had time to change their
+minds their things were mine and my money (Father's) was theirs, and we
+were all a little more excited than we were willing to admit.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap16"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVI
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+They are in my trunk, the two Christmas presents, and we have had a
+grand time, Miss Araminta and Miss Susanna and I, buying their party
+dresses and things, and it is as true as Scripture that at times there
+is nothing better for the soul than pretty clothes for the body.  And
+nothing so chirps up a woman as to have on becoming ones that fit and
+are fresh and make her feel she can walk across the floor without
+wishing she had a shawl on.  The way Miss Araminta has bloomed out is
+as amazing as a moon-plant.  And Miss Susanna has such a pleased smile
+on her boarder-tired face that I have been up in the air just from
+looking at her, and the best time I've ever had in my life has been in
+taking charge of their money and spending it for them.  The way they
+agreed to get the dresses was this:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I told them it would be awfully exciting to have a secret and spring a
+surprise on Mrs. General Gaines and Miss Bettie Simcoe and a few others
+in town, and if they were willing I would design a dress for each of
+them and Miss Fannie Cross would make the dresses, which would be of a
+kind to suit their particular styles, and they could have them for the
+party on the 17th.  And if they didn't get them at once something would
+happen to make them spend the money and it would be gone and they no
+better off than before.  And I mentioned that there was the loveliest
+piece of black charmeuse at Mr. Peter Smith's, and that he was
+expecting a piece of lavender satin on Thursday.  I had been to see Mr.
+Peter and the lavender was ordered before I told them it was coming.
+Also a few other things had been ordered by wire, I going with him to
+the telegraph-office to see him do it, being afraid to trust his
+memory, which, like his methods, is right put-offy.  Also I told them
+there would be no time to hesitate.  They got so flustrated at being
+managed and so dazed by the pictures I showed them of the dresses I had
+drawn that they were lambs, perfect lambs.  They let me do everything I
+told them ought to be done.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a real relief to them to have some one go ahead and decide
+things and not give them time to think whether they should do this or
+do that, or whether they had not better spend the money some other way.
+Miss Susanna said, feebly, something about the roof needing to be
+fixed, and that the cellar ought to have a new floor, but I told her it
+would be sacrilegious to put a great-grandmother's silver pitcher on
+the roof or in the cellar, and that it would mortify her heavenly
+ancestors to know such a thing was being done, and I was surprised at
+her mentioning it.  The only suitable way in which it would be proper
+to use the pitcher was in something personal, and as I was afraid Mr.
+Peter Smith would sell the satin, it was so lovely and only a little
+more than enough for a dress, I had told him to put it aside and I had
+to let him know that afternoon if it was wanted.  And another thing I
+told her was that all her life other people had been getting her share
+of nice things, and practicalities had eaten up everything pretty she
+had wanted for years, and there was an end to making over, and that she
+owed it to memories of the past to have a new dress for herself and not
+let all the newness always appear on a certain person's back just
+because that certain person happened to be young.  Uncle Henson would
+be at the door with the carriage at four o'clock, I told her, to take
+us down-town, and she must be ready in time, as there was a good deal
+to do.  I wouldn't take a mint of money for the look that came in her
+face as I talked.  I have put it away for low-down days.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As for Miss Araminta&mdash;I wish I could write a book and put Miss Araminta
+Armstrong in it.  If the lady who wrote <I>Cranford</I> had known her she
+would have put her in, and it is a loss to literature that no one can
+do again for little places and the Miss Aramintas of life what the
+<I>Cranford</I> writer did.  She has told me right much about herself, and I
+don't smile any more, even to myself, as I couldn't help doing at first
+in the dark when I was so afraid I would roll on the floor and whoop
+that I had to hold on to my chair with both hands.  It is still funny
+to hear her tell of her beaux who never quite came to the point, and
+who were always snatched away at the critical moment by a
+jealous-minded person who was close kin but whose name she never
+mentions.  But it isn't as funny as it used to be.  It's queer how much
+tragedy there is in the comic things of life.  Ever since she was born
+Miss Araminta has been a pieced-and-patched-up person, and never once
+has she had everything new and to match at the same time.  When I told
+her about some of the things that must go with the lavender satin she
+began to cry a little and said she oughtn't to let herself think about
+indulgences of that sort, as her poor brother was not in business at
+present and needed&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now look here, Miss Araminta," I said.  "The first preparation you
+have got to make for the party is to forget you have a brother and
+remember your own body, which needs attention.  It has come down from a
+long line of people who took very good care to put expensive things on
+theirs.  And another thing you ought to remember is that if your
+brother didn't know he could call on you every time he lost his job&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My brother has never had a job."  Miss Araminta sat up at once and
+wiped her eyes and left, unknowing, a streak of white down a pink cheek
+that turned purple at the word "job."  "He has been unfortunate in not
+being able to retain certain positions he has once held, but his
+health&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Rats!"  It came out without thinking, but when a man has a worn-out
+wife and seven children and won't do this and won't do that because it
+is beneath his lordly ideas of what a well-born person should do, it is
+better for me not to speak of him out loud.  I told Miss Araminta she
+must excuse me, but there were some sorts of men I couldn't mention
+with safety and I thought "job" was a very good word, and I would
+rather have one that paid a dollar a day than borrow money to pay my
+bills, and that I'd sweep the streets before I would sit down and do
+nothing if I had a wife and seven children.  The look on her face I
+tucked away, too, to take out on days when there isn't a thing in sight
+to laugh at.  She can't help it, Miss Araminta can't.  She was born
+that way and, not being an evoluting kind, words are wasted when it
+comes to trying to make her see what she doesn't want to see.  There is
+a lot of bummy rot in this world which has nothing to do with the
+proper kind of pride, and it's my belief we are mighty apt to fill the
+place in life we are fitted to fill.  If a dollar a day is all I am
+worth it is all I ought to get until I make myself worth more.  Of
+course if people are feeble-minded that's a different thing.  When they
+are, the State ought to step in and take charge of them in order to
+protect itself, Jess says, and also she says feeble-mindeders always
+have the largest families, and even a feeble-minded person knows that
+is not right.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I didn't mean to hurt Miss Araminta's feelings, but that brother of
+hers is a snuff-the-moon old snob, and I was determined he shouldn't
+get a penny of that sapphire money if I could help it, and I told Miss
+Araminta a few firm facts.  After a while she blew her nose and wiped
+her eyes and I had no further trouble.  But I was afraid to trust
+either her or Miss Susanna with their money, so I took the checks back
+and told them it was better for me to keep them, as money had such a
+queer way of disappearing.  Any that was handy was used when needed,
+and when the time came to get the things the money was for there might
+not be any to get.  They handed it back as meek as little lambs.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap17"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+Miss Susanna and Miss Araminta are crazy about the designs I have
+sketched for their dresses, and so is Miss Fannie Cross.  It is the
+only talent I have, designing clothes is, and if I ever have to earn my
+living I am going to be "Katrine" and have a shop on a fine street and
+charge like old glory for my things.  That will make them wanted, and
+those who think a gown is desirable according to its price can pay
+enough to make up for those who can't pay much, and I'll have a great
+time charging the payers.  I am going to get ready to earn a living,
+anyhow, because every girl ought to, Fathers or Billys notwithstanding.
+Life is a very up-and-downy thing, and it is good to know, should it
+get down, that you can give it a lift up yourself and not have to wait
+for a shover.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a private matinée, watching Miss Susanna and Miss Araminta buy
+the things that Mr. Peter Smith had ordered and which they couldn't
+understand his having in stock.  The trimmings and linings and gloves
+and stockings were exactly what was needed and they couldn't get over
+how fortunate it was.  They paid for them themselves, as I had handed
+their money to them when we started out, holding back only enough to
+pay Miss Fannie Cross; but though they took some time to do the buying,
+and felt and smoothed everything they bought and put the satin to their
+cheeks to be sure of its quality, and looked at each other every now
+and then as if what they were doing was wicked, perhaps, but fearfully
+enjoyable, still in two days everything was at Miss Fannie's, and it
+was then I had to be awfully firm with Miss Araminta.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There are some things some women can never take in, and one is that an
+old sheep should never dress lamb fashion.  It was all Miss Fannie
+(she's a corking-good dressmaker for a small place) and I could do to
+hold Miss Araminta down when it came to colors, and the cut of her
+skirt, and some trimmings she wanted to put on the waist.  She thinks
+she loves lavender, but Joseph's coat would have been a colorless piece
+of apparel beside her dress if we finally hadn't sat on her and told
+her certain things couldn't be done.  She was crazy to pile on a bunch
+of ancestral lace, yellow and dowdy; but we told her not much, told her
+freshness and daintiness suited her style much better, and she wasn't
+old enough to emphasize ancestral lace, and she blushed and gave in.
+But nothing would have made her do it if Miss Fannie hadn't thought to
+throw out the age-line.  She caught on and agreed, and after that we
+did not have a great deal of trouble.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Susanna was a little crankier than I thought she was going to be,
+and wanted a practical dress that she could wear anywhere at any time,
+and we had to argue with her a good deal.  I told her a train was the
+thing for her, and I intended to walk behind her the night of the party
+and keep everybody back far enough to see how grand she looked.  When a
+woman is sixty-six and pretty worn, short skirts for evenings are not
+impressive, and, though we didn't mention age, we said finally she owed
+it to her mother's memory to dress in a style suitable to the position
+into which she had been born, and that settled it.  She's the real
+thing, Miss Susanna is.  She doesn't have to play a part.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I had told Miss Fannie on the quiet that the price of making the
+dresses would be doubled if she would have them ready for the 17th of
+August, and they were ready.  Miss Araminta and Miss Susanna thought it
+was a bad example to set, as it might not be just to the other
+Twickenham-Towners to pay more than they could pay, and it stuck Miss
+Araminta pretty deep to hand out more than was necessary.  But I told
+her it was an emergency operation and that kind always came high.  And
+also I told them that Miss Fannie charged entirely too little for her
+work, and it was poor religion to go to church on Sunday and sing
+praises to God and underpay a poor little dressmaker.  They said they
+supposed it was, but I don't think they thought it very reverential in
+me to speak of God in connection with a dress-maker and what she got
+for sewing.  I gave each one a list of their expenditures, with the
+cost of everything on it, and each had a little left over after getting
+their slippers and some sachet powder and a bottle of violet-water
+apiece, and, after all, that brother of Miss Araminta's got a little of
+the sapphire money.  But it wasn't much.  I saw to that.  It's been
+awfully exciting in Twickenham lately.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The event of the year is the MacLean party and the best of everything
+is saved for it, and in itself it makes every tongue in town talk until
+you wonder why tongues are the only things that never tire, and then,
+lo and behold! two days before it came off back comes Elizabeth
+Hamilton Carter, bringing her beau behind her, and off start the same
+tongues on a new lap and no breath taken in between.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I wish Billy could see it, the thing Elizabeth brought back!  He wears
+men's clothes (very good ones) and he is twenty-seven years old, and
+has large hands and feet and ears and a feeble mustache, but as a man
+he isn't much.  He looks like a hatter and is seemingly dumb, and he
+blinks his eyes so continually that no one can tell their color.  Also
+he bites his finger-nails.  I advised Elizabeth to get a beau <I>pro
+tem.</I>, but I didn't mean anything like that.  If she wants jealousy to
+bring Whythe back to her she should keep something on hand to be
+jealous of.  Elizabeth has an iron will and a copper determination, but
+about as much judgment as a horse-fly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Miss Bettie Simcoe's eyebrows haven't come down good since the night
+the <I>engagées</I> arrived.  She has an explanation for the situation, as
+she calls it, there never yet being a situation she couldn't explain,
+and she says the engagement is a piece of management on the part of
+Elizabeth's aunt on her father's side, the aunt she has been visiting.
+This aunt is society crazy, and, knowing you can't keep step in society
+without money, she arranged the whole thing.  Anyhow, Elizabeth has a
+gorgeous ring and a magnificent pin, and of course she ought to be
+happy if diamonds and things mean happiness, but she isn't happy, and
+for the first time since I met her I can't make her out.  Before I know
+it I am going to feel sorry for her, and then good-by to in-loveness
+for me!  I have very little sense at times, and no hold-outness at all
+when certain things come to pass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Elizabeth still loves Whythe.  Engaged or not to some one else, she
+still cares only for him.  I don't want him.  I wonder how it might be
+managed&mdash;getting them to take in how silly they have been.  I believe
+I'll try and see if something can't be done.  Watchful waiting may be
+all right in some cases, but I never cared for waiting.  Milton says
+all things come to him who hustles while he waits.  You get a move on,
+Kitty Canary, and see what you can do!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap18"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVIII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+The party is over.  Everybody who is anybody was at it and we had a
+perfectly scrumptious time.  I never saw so many good things to eat on
+a hot summer night in all my life, but the heat didn't affect
+appetites, and Miss Kate Norris, who lives in the Wellington Home
+(memorial for a dead wife or a live conscience, I don't remember
+which), ate three platefuls of supper and three helpings of ice-cream.
+She is fearfully ancestral and an awful eater, and also a sour
+remarker, and I stay out of her way, but that night I couldn't help
+seeing the way she made food disappear.  No low-born person could have
+done it quicker.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a perfectly beautiful party.  The two married daughters of Judge
+and Mrs. MacLean, who live in the city and always come home for August,
+were as dear and lovely as if they had never left old Twickenham Town,
+and their clothes were a liberal education to the stay-at-homers.  They
+were well taken in by the latter, but the sensation of the evening was
+the arrival and appearance of My Girls, and&mdash;oh, my granny!&mdash;I was so
+excited I couldn't stand on both feet at once, and I had to get in a
+corner and put my back against the wall to keep from making movement.
+When they came in the room there was a little hush, and then there were
+so many exclamations of surprise and admiration that I had to fan as
+hard as Mr. Willie Prince to keep down the blazing red in my face which
+was there from pride in the dear old darlings and not from heat.  And I
+saw clearer than I had ever seen before that fine things behind one
+count a good deal, and ancestors of the right kind leave something to
+their descendants that comes out when needed, and at that party the
+desirable things came out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They looked like pictures&mdash;Miss Susanna and Miss Araminta&mdash;for the
+prevailing modes, as Miss Araminta calls them, and which she loves so
+dearly and hits at but never touches, had not been paid very particular
+attention to, and the thing that suited each had been made for them.
+They were as becoming to the dresses as the dresses to them.
+Twickenham nearly lost its breath as they came into the long
+drawing-room of the MacLean house and walked through it after speaking
+to the receiving party, and I know now how a mother feels when her
+debutante daughters are a success.  I will have more sympathy with
+Mother than I used to have, and I will try to behave myself and do the
+stunts all right for the first year.  But she already knows I do not
+expect to keep on doing them.  I have told her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nobody can say again that women can't keep a secret, for not even Miss
+Bettie Simcoe, who knows what the Lord is going to do before He does
+it, had any idea of the dresses; and though I don't think she or Mrs.
+General Gaines liked not being told, they were very nice about it and
+said much kinder things than I thought they were capable of saying.
+And I really think Elizabeth was pleased also.  She actually smiled
+when she saw her aunt come in with Miss Araminta.  Smiles of late have
+been faint and feeble on the face of the affianced young lady, who
+isn't playing her part as a person with ancestors ought to play it.
+She bounced her old beau and took unto herself a new one, and what I
+can't understand is, having done it, why she doesn't carry it off with
+a rip-roaring bluff that might fool even herself for a while.  But
+Elizabeth isn't that sort.  Everybody is talking about how miserable
+she looks.  I'm afraid I put the beau idea in her head, and the idea
+has got her in a hole and she doesn't know how to get out of it.  I
+wish Billy was here.  He can get a person out of any sort of hole.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I went to the party with Whythe.  He has been away for a week, and
+while away got a new dress suit, which, of course, he wore to the party
+and looked perfectly grand in it.  I think his mother gave the suit to
+him, though he didn't say, but he was off attending to some business
+for her, and I'm sure he took it out in the new clothes.  It would have
+been more sensible to have had his teeth fixed, or gotten three new
+ones, the rest being all right, but it was natural to prefer the suit,
+and much less painful.  Whythe is never going to do anything
+disagreeable that he can keep from doing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was so nice the night of the party that I hadn't the courage to
+begin finding out the truth or untruth of what Mr. Willie Prince had
+mentioned as the reason of the rush he had been giving me, and as I
+don't believe Whythe has ever thought of Father's money, there was no
+need to be in a hurry to learn whether he had or not.  I've had a jolly
+good time being in love with him, and being made love to, and as an
+experience it may come in when I begin to write my book.  I always did
+want to know how many ways love can be made in, which, of course, I can
+never know, for there are as many ways, I guess, as there are men to
+make it, and the variations on the main theme are as infinitesimal as
+the tongues that tell the story.  It is truly wonderful how differently
+the same words can be trimmed up and handed out, and I like the
+crescendoes and diminuendoes and shades of feeling which give emphasis
+and expression, as my music teacher says I must be careful of when
+playing.  There is never going to be any crescendo or diminuendo
+business about Billy's love-making, and I might as well make up my mind
+to that in the beginning.  It's going to be pure staccato with
+him&mdash;short and quick and soon over.  But it will last forever, Billy's
+will.  He isn't going to stand for foolishness about it when he starts,
+either.  He has two more years at college and then he is going in his
+father's office.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I don't know what's the matter with Billy.  I haven't had a letter from
+him for a week, or a single card.  He must be crazy.  I've been so busy
+I have not written for ten days, and if I don't get a letter soon he
+won't get one from me for another ten.  He can't expect me to do what
+he doesn't do, and besides, a man doesn't want what he gets too easy,
+even letters.  I don't suppose he could be sick.  If he was&mdash;  I am not
+going to let myself think sickness or automobile accidents or sliding
+off mountain peaks (they are in Switzerland now and Billy would get to
+the top of anything he started for or die trying).  And though I say to
+myself forty times a day he is all right, I wake up at night and wonder
+if anything could be the matter.  I am wondering all the time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Maybe that is why I was a little nicer to Whythe at the party than I
+need to have been, because I wanted to forget something it was not well
+to remember if I was out to enjoy myself.  After I had danced with half
+a dozen boys and spoken to everybody on the place, we went out on the
+lawn, Whythe and I, and sat on a rustic seat under a great maple-tree
+to cool off and rest awhile; and though everybody could see us and
+several couples were under several other trees (a number of cases being
+on hand and apt to culminate in August), Miss Bettie Simcoe had remarks
+to make, of course.  She made them the next day at breakfast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I wish I could buy a beau for Miss Bettie and make a present of him to
+her, but, being a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
+to Animals, I couldn't very well do it.  I never yet have seen a man I
+would be that hard on.  But it would be the only way she could be made
+to see some things, and maybe it might make her feel young again.  Jess
+says there's nothing so kittenish as a spinster who's caught an
+unexpected beau.  He is the most rejuvenating thing on earth to a woman
+who wants one.  All don't want them.  There are a great many more
+sensible women in this world than people realize, but in certain small
+places matrimony is still the chief pursuit in which women can engage
+without being thought unwomanly.  Miss Bettie doesn't pursue, and men
+are good dodgers in this part of the world, but if one of them would
+say a few things to her of the sort that Whythe knows how to say so
+well, her sniffing and snorting and seeing might grow less.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I don't like her, but I feel sorry for her, for nobody really loves
+her, and it must be awful to have nobody to love you best of all on
+earth.  I couldn't live if nobody loved me.  I could not.  I might live
+without food and live without drink, and do without clothes and do
+without air&mdash;the right kinds of those things, I mean&mdash;but I couldn't
+and I wouldn't live without loving.  As long as I am on this little
+planet I expect to love a lot of people and I hope they will love me in
+return.  When Miss Bettie makes me so mad I have to go out of the room
+to keep from saying things I shouldn't, and Miss Araminta simpers so
+when any one mentions Mr. Sparks's name (he's the new widower minister
+of the Presbyterian church, with no chance of escape), and Elizabeth
+Hamilton Carter makes me ashamed of my sex, and I feel like I have
+swallowed concentrated extract of Human Peculiarities, I remember that
+not one of them has a father of any sort, much less my sort, or a
+precious mother and two dandy sisters and a good many nice relations
+and some bully friends&mdash;when I remember all that, remember how many I
+have to love me, I spit out the peculiarities and try not to mind them,
+try to see how funny they are.  But sometimes the taste sticks right
+long.  I don't suppose I spit right.  What I can't understand is that
+if people want to be loved&mdash;and everybody does&mdash;why in the name of
+goodness don't they do a little loving on their own account?  You
+needn't expect to get what you don't give.  I'm glad I was born with a
+taste for liking, though I don't like every one, by a jugful.  When I
+come across a righteous hypocrite I get out of the way, if it isn't
+convenient to make the hypocrite get out of mine.  There are some
+people I could never congeal with and I am never even going to try.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap19"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIX
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+I wonder what made me waste time thinking about Miss Bettie Simcoe and
+human peculiarities when I started to say something about sitting under
+the trees with Whythe at the MacLean party, but, born a rambler, I will
+ramble unto death, and there's no use wasting time lamenting natural
+deficiencies.  Whythe, of course, couldn't very conveniently make
+personal remarks, as people were passing pretty close, though he did
+say I looked like a dream, which I did not, being too brown for a
+dream; but I did look real nice.  I fished out one of the party dresses
+Mother made Clarissa put in my trunk, which I haven't worn since I have
+been here, and I suppose it suited my brownness, as it was creamy and
+stuck out in the silly way skirts stick now, and it was new-fashioned
+enough to make everybody look at it and nudge a little.  Whythe thought
+it was lovely, and told me so sixteen times, which was tiresome, and
+then I saw he was watching Elizabeth, who was on the porch with her new
+beau and did not know really whether my dress was blue or pink.  The
+only thing he was thinking of was that not far from him was a
+superseder in possession of something which was once his.  Whythe
+doesn't like to be superseded in anything affecting his personal
+estimate of himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Lord certainly let loose a lot of contradictions when he started
+the human race.  When I saw the way Whythe was watching Elizabeth, and
+remembered how she had looked at him when he passed her a few minutes
+before, I knew two specimens of a common variety were before me, and I
+made up a parable as I watched them watch each other.  The two
+specimens had been in love and been engaged.  They had a fuss.  The
+engagement was broken.  She was mad, and he was mad, and each thought
+the other would make the first advance to own up and make up; but
+before it could be done a young person appeared and distracted
+temporarily the attention of the man, and the girl went away to see
+what she could do.  The man repaired the damage done unto him by saying
+pretty things to the new person, which was good for his pride and kept
+him in practice, and all was going well when the first maiden returned
+with a new possession.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The new possession was a son of great wealth, but the Faithless One was
+made to understand, without words, that his Cruelty was driving the
+Maid to Marriage with another, and his Vanity was appeased, and in his
+heart he rejoiced and said unto himself: "It is even as I thought, and
+that piece of punk she has brought back is bitter unto her, and in
+comparison to me he is nothingness indeed.  And I would arise and punch
+his head if it were not for the New Person who may love me very much."
+And the young man was sorrowful when he thought on these things and yet
+glad also, for the heart of man is receptive to the love of all kinds
+of women, and it is pleasing unto him to believe he is pleasing unto
+them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And seeing that which had come to pass, the New Young Person made up
+her mind that the Young Man and the Young Maid who had once loved must
+love again, and in her heart she said it is a vain thing to believe in
+the words of a man.  They cometh out as cometh breath, then pass away
+and are remembered by him no more.  And she took counsel with herself
+as to how she might bring to pass that which the simple souls knew not
+how to bring, and, lo! as she thought it came unto her.  That's a true
+parable!
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+What came was the thought of a picnic.  Whythe and Elizabeth must
+accidentally have a chance to come across each other and have it out,
+and the best way they could do it would be outdoors, where it is
+convenient to wander off and get away from nudgers and commenters; and
+being nothing but impulse, I turned to Whythe, who was still
+unconsciously watching Elizabeth, and asked him if he would help me
+with something I was anxious to do.  He said of course, and wanted to
+know what it was.  When I told him I would tell him the next day he
+asked me to drive with him in the morning, and didn't like it because I
+declined.  That is, he didn't like my reason, which was that, as he had
+been out of his office for some time, his business must need attending
+to, and I didn't think it ought to be left any longer.  He seemed to
+think that a very unnecessary remark, and I realized he liked
+Elizabeth's kind better.  She would never have dreamed of telling him
+his business needed attention.  Elizabeth is the Admired and Honored
+type of Womanhood which does not think it is ladylike to have knowledge
+of business matters.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Seeing the look on his face, I said to myself: "Kitty Canary, it is all
+over.  A pin has been stuck in your balloon and the air is out."  And I
+got up and went in and danced with every man dancer in the room, and
+hardly knew who they were, the breaks were so often.  I had a good
+time, but also I had a right sinky feeling, for it's pretty wabbly to
+realize that nothing human is to be depended on very long, and that a
+girl may be engaged one day to a man and not speaking to him the next.
+Not that I had ever been engaged.  I hadn't, not caring for what goes
+with engagements, but I might have been if I hadn't remembered about
+the different things I have fallen in and been fished out of when there
+was some one by to haul me out.  Nobody being by, I had to take care of
+myself, and I thought it best to go only so far and no farther.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the way home Whythe tried to say some things pretty low about how he
+had missed me while away, but Miss Susanna and Miss Araminta were in
+the back seat of the car (it was Mr. Lipscomb's Ford, and borrowed, of
+course), and he had to be so careful it was a strain, and as I didn't
+answer he stopped after a while.  It takes two to do more things than
+make a bargain, and to battledore love without having it shuttlecocked
+back isn't much fun.  He wanted to know what was the matter when I got
+out, and I told him it was sleep.  He didn't seem to like that, either.
+It's hard to please men.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap20"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XX
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+I didn't see Whythe for the next few days, as I thought it best not to,
+and, besides, I had bushels of letters to write and a very special one
+to Father, and I had no time for him.  The thing I had to write Father
+about was money.  I wanted five hundred dollars, and the only way I
+knew how to get it was to ask him to give it to me; so I asked.  I
+always did believe that the person who gives the money ought to be told
+what is to be done with it, and that is why I wrote Father as I did;
+and, besides, he likes to hear little bits of news about the
+Twickenham-Towners, and asking for the money gave me a chance to tell
+him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had told me, when he was here, that if there was any way in which I
+could be of service in the right way to let him know and he would put
+up the money part, if I would manage the other part, and it would be a
+little secret between us and nobody else need know anything about it.
+When, last week, I heard Mrs. Richard Stafford say she would rather go
+to a hospital for a month than do anything on earth, I thought my
+chance had come.  At the hospital, she said, a person had the right to
+be waited on and do nothing, and not think about food or servants, and
+not feel they were bothering other people by being sick; and while she
+wasn't sick exactly, a hospital would seem like heaven if she could be
+in one for a little while.  She had laughed when she said it, and
+didn't dream of its being taken in earnest, but I took it in earnest,
+for the tiredness in her face makes me ache every time I see her, and
+right up in my mind popped the little secret Father and I and Miss Polk
+could have.  What I wrote was this:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+<I>
+Father dear, will you please send me five hundred dollars, and if you
+can do it by return mail I will be very much obliged.  The person I
+want part of it for is so tired that she might not be able to ever get
+rested unless she has a chance pretty quick to lie down and do nothing
+for a month, anyhow, and that is why I am in a hurry.  Tiredness is a
+very wearing disease and if it runs on too long it runs a person into a
+state that is almost impossible to get out of, and the whole family has
+to pay up for letting it go on.  Home gets hell-y when there's too much
+tiredness in it.  What I want the money for is this: Mrs. Stafford is
+worn out.  You know her.  She was Miss Mary Shirley, and married a
+perfectly useless man when she was eighteen, and she is now the mother
+of seven children, and has a mother-in-law living with her, and also
+Miss Lou Barbee, who won't go away.  And, of course, the man whom she
+can't turn out.  He isn't bad.  Just lazy, with nothing to him, but she
+loves him and I will skip over that part.  She needs a rest and ought
+to have it.  It's nothing but scrimp and scrape and strive to keep up
+appearances day in and day out, year in and year out, until she is all
+to pieces and the children don't realize what is the matter.  And, of
+course, the Male Person doesn't, for he says that Woman's Place is in
+the Home.  When he told me that yesterday (his heels were on the
+railing of his porch, where he generally keeps them, and his pipe in
+his mouth) I thought to myself that if he were mine he would have to
+get out of my home or prove he had a better right to share it with me
+than he had ever proved to his wife.  But I won't get on that, either.
+I'll go back to Mrs. Stafford.
+</I>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>
+Half the time she doesn't have a servant, and all the time she has a
+mother-in-law, who is pie crust, and Miss Lou Barbee, who's a bagpipe,
+and with the doors locked and windows shut so no one can see, she has
+worked herself to death.  What I want done is to have an invitation
+sent her from an old friend to be the guest of the hospital here for a
+month, and you will be the friend and she will never know it.  Miss
+Polk, the superintendent of the hospital, will manage things.  I've
+talked it over with her, and she understands.  Miss Polk is a perfectly
+grand person.  For Simon-pure sense there isn't her equal on earth.
+She and I have decided on what we would do if we had money.  We'd have
+a Fund for Tired Mothers and Fathers.  It would be used to give them a
+Rest before Death.
+</I>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>
+I hope you won't mind sending the money.  I don't think you will, for
+everybody says business is so prosperous it's actually unrighteous, and
+it's in the Bible that you ought to put your treasures where you can
+find them again, or something like that.  If you can't send it I know
+there will be a good reason for your not sending it, but I would like
+to have it by Monday if possible, so Mrs. Stafford can go to the
+Hospital the next day.  Later, four other people can have their turn.
+It is to be used not for illness, but for Tiredness; for broken-downers
+and worn-outers who need being waited on and fed up and allowed to keep
+still.  Miss Polk and I are going to decide on who needs a rest the
+most before I go away, and I send you for it, Father dear, an armful of
+squeezes and the biggest bunch of kisses the mail-man can take.
+</I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+That was all I told him about the Rest money, but I said a little
+something about the picnic I thought I ought to give.  Everybody in
+town has given something, and, having accepted, I have to return, and
+the picnic will be the best thing for Whythe and Elizabeth.  I didn't
+mention the ex-lovers to Father, of course.  Even to a father one
+doesn't have to tell everything in life.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap21"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXI
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+I haven't seen Whythe alone but once since the night of the MacLean
+party, and then I stopped any tendencies that showed signs of being
+personal, and talked most of the time about the picnic which we can't
+have until late in the month.  Every day is engaged up to the
+twenty-fourth.  Whythe tried to talk of Mr. Algernon Grice Baker, but I
+cut that out also.  Sarcasm doesn't suit him, and some day he might be
+sorry.  The Superseder has gone, however, and every day Elizabeth
+passes Whythe's office, and every day Whythe happens to be at his
+window at the time of passing.  They speak, but so far that is all.  I
+am sorry the picnic has to wait so long.  They are two silly children.
+Their fingers aren't in their mouths, but their heads are on the side
+when they see each other, and the thing's getting on my nerves.  Almost
+any kind of sin is easier to stand than some sorts of silliness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I wonder why I stay awake so much at night!  It's very unusual, and I
+try my best to go to sleep, but I can't sleep.  Always I am thinking of
+Mr. William Spencer Sloane and the things I would say to him if he were
+in hearing distance.  Not one line have I had from him for more than
+two weeks.  Not a card or a little present, which he usually sends from
+every place he goes to, or any sign to show he is living.  I got so mad
+when I realized he hadn't noticed me for fourteen days that I couldn't
+keep in things which had to come out, and, seeing Miss Susanna was
+sleeping the sleep of worn-outness, I got up the other night and
+lighted a candle behind the bed, and on the floor I wrote a letter that
+maybe wasn't altogether as accurate as it might have been.  I wouldn't
+have sent it the next day if it hadn't been for a letter I got from
+Jess, but after I read hers I sent mine flying.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I haven't cooled down yet from reading Jess's letter.  I am not going
+to cool down until I see the cause of it face to face, and if Billy
+thinks it makes the least difference to me how he amuses himself or
+with whom he spends his time sightseeing he thinks Wrong!  I was going
+to tear up the letter I had written him in the middle of the night for
+the relief of indignations and because in the middle of the night
+things seem so much bigger and harder and stranger than in the
+daylight; but after I read the letter from Jess I added a postscript to
+mine and almost ran down to the post-office to mail it, for fear if I
+didn't do it quick I mightn't do it at all.  Ever since I sent it off I
+have been perfectly horrid, and I can hardly stand myself.  I have put
+off trying to make Whythe and Elizabeth see how stupid they are, and as
+Elizabeth hasn't been very nice to me I haven't felt it to be my duty
+to show her what a goose she is.  Neither have I told Whythe that
+almost any girl who adored him would do for his wife.  As I don't adore
+I wouldn't do, and I think he is beginning to take it in.  A dozen
+times of late he has told me he doesn't understand me.  He does not.
+And never will.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The thing in Jess's letter which made me hot was this: "What is the
+matter with you and Billy?  Pat says (Pat is Patricia, Billy's sister)
+that you've been pretty horrid about writing him, and he's been
+blue-black at not getting letters from you; but at present he is having
+a good time with a very jolly girl from the West who is at their hotel.
+Chirp him something cheerful, Canary Bird.  If I were younger or Billy
+older you shouldn't have him.  I'd have him myself.  I'm not going to
+stand for bad treatment of him, and if those Southern boys who make
+love to every pretty girl they see, and make it better than any boys on
+earth, have made you forget an old friend, I'm coming down and take you
+back home.  Behave yourself, Kitty Canary, and write Billy the sort of
+letter we scream over up here."  And then she went on with other things.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is ridiculous in Pat to say I haven't written Billy!  I have.  Three
+long letters and three cards, and certainly he can't expect more than
+that, as he hasn't been gone but two months and five days; and,
+besides, friends ought to have such confidence in each other that they
+don't need letters to prove their friendship.  Not a word have I had
+from him in more than two weeks, and if Jess thinks I am going to write
+him a chirp letter (which he won't have time to read if he is going
+around so much with a Western girl and having so much fun) she, too,
+thinks Wrong.  That Westerner explains why I haven't heard from him for
+so long.  It is outrageous in Billy to behave as he has been behaving.
+All men are alike.  Every one of them.  It was ignorance in me to
+imagine Billy was different.  He isn't.  The more I thought of how
+mistaken I had been in him the madder I got, and I just wrote a
+postscript to my letter and flew to the post-office with it.  It seemed
+providential that my letter was ready to send.  I hope he will read it
+while on one of his joyous excursions with the Western Woman, who is
+doubtless twenty-five, maybe thirty, and just making use of Billy, who
+hasn't sense enough to see it.  I nearly cried my eyes out last night,
+before Miss Susanna came up to bed, because it was necessary to send
+him such a letter.  Still, Billy has to learn things in life and he
+might as well learn them early.  What I wrote was this:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+<I>
+Dear Billy,&mdash;I have been having such a perfectly grand time lately
+that it has been impossible to squeeze out a scrap in which to write
+you, and yet I have wanted to do so, for I am sure you will be glad to
+know how fearfully happy I am and what is causing the happiness.  I am
+in love.  It is the most wonderful thing I have ever been in, and
+thrillingly interesting.  I suppose you have been in it many times, but
+not my way, or you would have mentioned it, just as I am doing to you,
+as we are such old friends, and friends have the right to know of
+important happenings.  I hope you will like each other when you meet,
+for, though you are very unlike, you are both made of male material,
+and I have often noticed that men have many peculiarities in common.
+One of them is out of sight out of love, and a great readiness to be
+admired and entertained.  He is a lawyer and couldn't be better born,
+though he might be better educated; still, one mustn't expect all
+things in one man, and his eyes are so wonderful, and he uses such
+poetic prose, that the lack of money and a few other lacks shouldn't
+count.  He lives in a beautiful old house which has proud traditions
+and no bathrooms, and his family is one of the oldest and most
+disagreeable in America; still, we would not have to live with them if
+we were married.  Nothing on earth could make me sleep under the same
+roof with his sisters, who are so churchy that the minister himself is
+subject under them.  And neither would it be safe for me to be too
+closely associated with his mother.  However, things of that sort are
+in the distance, which may be far or may not, and I am not thinking of
+immediate marriage, but just how magnificent it is to have somebody in
+love with you who knows how to say so in the most delicious way, and
+with a voice that, when the moon is out, is truly heavenly.  I am
+telling you about it because I thought you might be interested and
+would like to know of my happiness; but, of course, I don't want you to
+tell any one else, as it is still a secret and all so indefinite that
+it wouldn't do to speak of it to any one but you.  I am scribbling this
+in the middle of the night, because I can't sleep for thinking of some
+one, and because there is no time in the day in which to write.  I hope
+you are having a great time.  Give my love to the family and write me
+of your gladness at knowing of mine.
+</I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+<I>As ever,<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Kitty.</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Now what do you suppose made me write such slush as that?  And why is a
+female person born with such horridness in her that she can say things
+that are not so with a smile in public and cry her eyes out when alone?
+That's what I have been doing lately, though I can't let tears have
+much time, for I am not by nature a crier, and they would disturb Miss
+Susanna at night.  In my secret heart I just wrote that letter to Billy
+because I was indignant with him for not writing to me for more than
+two weeks, and I didn't intend to let him think I was sitting on a
+tombstone waving a willow branch in one hand and wiping tears away with
+the other.  And, besides, I have been in love.  Summer love.  And it
+has been exciting.  No one could expect me to go through life and not
+have but one experience in love making and hearing, and because a girl
+enjoys the different manners of expression it doesn't mean she is not
+particular about the story not being illustrated.  I don't illustrate
+or allow illustrations, which, of course, lessens some of the thrill,
+but I promised Jess I would always draw the line at the right time, and
+I have.  I have not been engaged for half a minute, and I wouldn't have
+added the postscript if it hadn't been for her letter and what she told
+me about that girl from some Western town who is no more his sort than
+I am her brother's.  Billy is perfectly blind about some things, and
+has no discrimination where it is most needed.  Anyhow, I added the
+postscript:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+<I>P.S.&mdash;By the time you get this I may be engaged.  Thank you for what
+you would say if here.</I>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+<I>K. C.</I>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap22"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+It was after I sent the letter that I got so restless I couldn't sit
+still, and as there was nothing I enjoyed doing I spent a good deal of
+my tune at the hospital with Miss Polk, who is a very splendid person,
+and every day I went in to see Mrs. Stafford.  She is having the
+grandest rest, with rubs and good eats and nothing to do but be waited
+on and cared for, that a tired person ever had, and I am the only one
+who is allowed to see her, which is beyond the understanding of
+Twickenham Town.  I'm cheerful is the reason I'm allowed to see her,
+the town is told, and that's enough for it to know.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It certainly is queer how some things happen in the nick of time.
+Father sent me the money, but told me to try to be as practical as
+possible, knowing I am given to doing impractical things; and I took it
+to Miss Polk, and nobody but she and I know where it came from.  And
+then she invited Mrs. Stafford to be a guest of the hospital for a
+month.  I happened to be at the house when the note came.  I thought it
+best to be there accidentally, in case there should be argument and
+talk, and the Man of the House should still think Woman's Place was in
+the Home, and sure enough there was.  Mrs. Stafford read the note, and
+her face got as white as death, and after a minute she said it would be
+heaven to go, but of course she couldn't.  And the noble creature who
+is her husband said it was very presumptuous in whoever had invited her
+to be the guest of the hospital, and that he wasn't in the habit of
+having his wife visit such places on the invitation of unknown
+interferers, and of course she couldn't go.  And just as he said that
+Mrs. Stafford keeled over in a dead faint right at his feet, as if
+something had given out at the thought of rest.  I knew that was my
+chance, and I took it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stop that automobile!"  I waved to a man who was coming down the
+street, and as he stopped I knelt and did the things Billy had made me
+learn how to do the first year we went to camp.  And seeing the poor,
+tired soul had just fainted, and would come to in a minute, I spoke
+quick to the man looking down at her, scared to death, as were the
+children, who began to cry, and told him he wouldn't have a wife much
+longer to be interfered with if he didn't come down from that horse he
+thought he was riding and have some common sense.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you see she is worn out," I said, "and got nothing to go on
+with?  Everything has given out, and the next time she drops over in
+this way she may never get up again."  I was putting some water on her
+face as I spoke, and, seeing her eyes begin to open a little, I called
+to Mr. Everett, who had gotten out of his car and was on the porch, to
+help Mr. Stafford put his wife in and take her to the hospital, and the
+frightened husband for once did as he was told.  I hopped in with her
+and held her up and told Mr. Everett to drive like old Scratch, and he
+drove.  It was all over so quickly nobody knew what had happened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was like somebody being kidnapped and dragged off by highwaymen,
+taking her away so hurriedly, but if it hadn't been done that way there
+would have been endless talk and a thousand reasons why she couldn't
+go; and if she hadn't she would have soon gone for good.  Sometimes
+somebody has to be high-handed, and even if that billy-goat of a
+husband pretends to resent what I did his wife isn't resenting it, and
+she is the one that counts.  I always agree with her that it was such a
+strange thing I happened to be there the day the note came.  And also
+she thinks it strange I decided so quickly to take her to the hospital,
+when she had just said she couldn't go.  I tell her I do a good many
+things on the spur of the moment, and getting the men to pick her up
+and hurry away with her was just another case of spur, and she shuts
+her eyes when I say that and looks as if she is praying.  The lucky
+part was her fainting at the right time.  Anyhow, she is at the
+hospital, and that old rooster of hers is finding out a good many
+things it took her absence from home for him to learn.  I never expect
+to get married.  NEVER!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap23"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXIII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+I have just found out why Elizabeth and Whythe had their break.  Miss
+Bettie Simcoe told me.  It took Miss Bettie some time to get at the
+bottom of it, but Elizabeth told her last night, and this morning I was
+given the information at the first moment Miss Bettie could get me to
+herself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Elizabeth was dead right in the stand she took, but her little spurt of
+independence didn't last long, and she is now ready to give in when the
+chance comes to give.  Miss Bettie added that on her own account.
+Whythe couldn't afford to be married, but that wasn't to interfere with
+his marriage.  He had expected to take Elizabeth to his mother's home
+and plant her in it, but when he told her Elizabeth balked.  She
+preferred to stay with her aunt Susanna after her marriage to going to
+Whythe's home, and when she so informed him he said things he
+shouldn't, and then both sent off skyrockets and the whole thing went
+up in the air.  And then I came.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She has now changed her mind and is willing to follow her husband
+wherever he leads.  She is truly womanly, also she is still wearing the
+ring of the beau with whom she sought to bring Whythe to terms, and to
+please her worldly aunt.  But she will return the ring when it is
+proper to do so.  She is waiting to find out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Elizabeth had more sense than I gave her credit for in refusing to live
+in the House of Eppes; but it's either live there or not live with
+Whythe, and she evidently can't live without him.  I'd hate love to
+make me lose the little gumption I was born with, and even my little
+knows no house is big enough for a son's wife and a mother-in-law and
+three in-law sisters.  It won't be a Home, Sweet Home, place when
+Elizabeth enters the Eppes house, and it will be nip and tuck as to who
+wins out, but that's not my business.  I'm sorry for both sides, and
+thankful I'm not related to either.  Also, I will get out of the way as
+soon as possible, but until the picnic there doesn't seem a possible
+way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There is nothing in life that is not over if life is long enough, and
+my little love affair with Mr. Whythe Rives Eppes belongs to the past.
+Elizabeth can have him any minute she wants, and unless actions do not
+speak louder than words she wants him right away, and he her.  I do not
+see how she is possibly going to stand his teeth.  Still, there are a
+great many things I do not understand in life.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The picnic is over.  By giving it I brought down a good deal of comment
+and criticism on my brown and curly head, but it does not matter.
+Nothing except sin really matters if we have sense enough to see it.  I
+invited everybody in Twickenham Town that I liked to the picnic, and
+some few I didn't, the latter being relations of those I did.  I don't
+think a person ought to be punished for their relations, any more than
+being held responsible for them, and so I included them, too.  What I
+was criticized for was asking to the picnic quite a number of people
+who don't usually go to the same places at the same time the
+Historicals go, and it made talk.  That night Miss Araminta Armstrong,
+on the quiet, told me she knew I meant to do right, but one had to use
+judgment in life, and it wasn't well to put ideas in some people's
+heads.  I told her I knew it, knew certain kinds of heads couldn't take
+in certain ideas, one of which was that people could enjoy friendliness
+and outdoorness and a lunch they didn't have to prepare for themselves,
+even if they were not high-born, and as the ones referred to did not
+have contagious diseases their presence wouldn't prove dangerous and
+the Ancestrals needn't be uneasy.  Also I told her I didn't care for
+judgment as much as I ought, and if human beings knew one another
+better they might find they were not as unlike as they thought.  She
+didn't say anything more.  Neither did any one else say anything to me.
+To one another they said a good deal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was at the picnic I had a little talk with Whythe.  We went down to
+a stream under a big willow-tree, and he started on the usual, but I
+told him he must not say anything more to me on that subject, and if he
+were the man I thought him he would not allow Elizabeth to marry the
+Compensator she was no more in love with than I was.  Also, I said a
+few more things that were pleasant for him to hear, such as Elizabeth's
+heart was breaking (it was, as much as her kind of heart could break),
+and I told him it was foolishness to ruin one's life because of a
+misunderstanding, and that both had doubtless been in the wrong.  And
+incidentally I let drop that if, after years of preparation, I ever got
+married I would have nothing to bring my husband but myself, as my
+father had made up his mind that young people should make their own way
+in life (he ought to have so made it up if he hasn't), and Whythe said
+that cut no figure with him, and asked me point-blank if I did not love
+him.  It didn't sound polite to say no, and yet I couldn't truthfully
+say yes, so I just sighed and shook my head.  When he asked me if I
+could give him no hope, I answered <I>no</I> with such uncomplimentary
+quickness that I had to cough to overcome it, and then I told him it
+was impossible for a girl of Elizabeth's taste and training and
+character, who had once loved such a man as he, to really care for any
+one else.  And the blackness in his face, caused by my unnecessary
+emphasis, died out, and I saw he was agreeing with me concerning
+Elizabeth, and that I would not have to insist on what I said being so.
+A man's appetite for flattery is never poor, and usually it is hearty.
+When we got up to go back to where lunch was being served Whythe had
+quite a determined air about him.  I told him if I could help in any
+way to let me know.  An hour later I saw him and Elizabeth going down
+to the same stream and the same old willow tree.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the time came to go home I pretended I had to see Florence Kensey
+about something that was important, and in the confusion of getting the
+people in the cars I managed to have Whythe put Elizabeth in his, and
+told them to get away quick and I would come on with Mason Page.  They
+got.  And the next day Elizabeth looked like some one who had been
+unbandaged and was letting out breath that for a long time had been
+held in.  Also, she looked pinker and whiter than ever, and so Pure
+that it was not possible for me to stay close to her, so I got away.
+No longer Hurt and Misunderstood, she went about smiling in sweet
+triumphantness that was not put in words, but oozed without them, and
+her manner to me was one of deepest sympathy.  Poor Whythe!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap24"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXIV
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+There are some things not required of human nature to stand.  Elizabeth
+Hamilton Carter is one of them.  I was glad to give her back her beau.
+I felt truly Virginian in doing it, for Virginians always say, when
+giving you something, that they don't want it; I certainly didn't want
+Whythe.  I wouldn't have known what to do with him after the summer was
+over, and I was conscious of great relief in getting him off my hands
+without further loss or trouble.  I couldn't tell Elizabeth this, of
+course, though there were times when it took a good deal of something I
+did not know I had to keep from doing so.  Also, it took more strength
+to keep several other things to myself than I knew I possessed.  It
+took praying and the end of the sheet to do it, but I did it, and I'm
+getting encouraged about K. C.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What encourages me is this: Two nights after the picnic Elizabeth came
+to my room and asked if she might have a little talk with me, as she
+felt she ought to.  I told her she could, and she sat down and began.
+Miss Susanna was back in her own quarters, the people from Florida
+having gone, and I had just finished saying my prayers and was ready to
+hop into bed when Elizabeth knocked at my door.  I knew what was coming
+from the look on her face and her manner of walking, and the way she
+held her head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If ever I write that book I am always thinking about I am going to put
+Elizabeth in it as well as Miss Araminta Armstrong, and if I could get
+some men to match them I would have some corking characters to begin
+with.  But no kind of pen-and-ink picture of Elizabeth would do her
+justice.  Her sweetness of speech when she is particularly nasty is
+beyond the power of human portrayal.  I got in bed quick when she said
+she wanted to talk, because I was afraid I might have to hit something,
+and the pillow was the only thing I could manage without sound.  I put
+it where I could give it a dig when politeness required control, and
+told her to go ahead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In her last sleep Elizabeth will pose.  She took her seat near the
+window where the moonlight could shine on her (she looked very pretty
+in her pink-silk kimono, a hand-over from her rich aunt, and shabby but
+becoming in color), and for a moment she didn't say anything, just
+fooled with the pink ribbon on her hair.  And then she said she had a
+secret to tell me; said it so soft, with her head on the side, that I
+had to ask her to speak louder please, and I got nearer the edge of the
+bed.  Elbow on it and chin in the palm of one hand, I prayed hard to be
+polite in my own room, and reached out for an end of the sheet with the
+other.  Again I told her to go ahead.  After a minute she went.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You and Whythe have been such friends that I think you should be the
+first to know that&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you and Whythe made up?"  I stuck my bare foot over the edge of
+the bed and wriggled it.  "If you have you had better be married quick
+and not take any more chances.  I'm awfully glad if things are settled.
+Have you bounced the other fellow yet?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was cruel in me to take out of her mouth what she was moistening her
+lips to say, but I was sleepy and I didn't want details.  She had no
+idea of being cut out of saying what it was her determination to say,
+however, considering I had been responsible for some unhappy days
+during the past two months, and before she got through she had said all
+she wanted me to hear.  If it hadn't been for the pillow I would have
+rolled out of bed.  The nerve of her!  The belief of her!  And, oh, my
+granny! the punishment, as she imagined, of me!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before she left the room she told me she could no longer hold out
+against Whythe's pleadings.  Told me he had suffered so during the
+summer she was uneasy about him, and, though he had tried to forget, it
+had been useless, and, unable to endure it any longer, he had come to
+her and told her he could stand no more, and if she did not promise to
+marry him at once he would&mdash;he would&mdash;  Her voice trailed, but I said
+nothing, the end of the sheet being stuffed into my mouth for
+politeness' sake, and when her tears had been wiped away she began
+again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is hard to forgive Whythe, because you are so young, and he knows
+how fascinating he is and how little experience you have had with young
+men, but his father was a flirt before him" (poor Father!  I thought of
+the retribution that had come to him in Mother, and I pushed in more
+sheet), "and it is natural in a man to seek amusement and entertainment
+when he is suffering as Whythe was.  I hope you will forgive him.  It
+is because he may have made you imagine things that were not so, and
+because you have been so nice to him, that I thought you should be the
+first to know."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I rolled back to the side of the bed facing her, from which I had
+rolled the other way for safety, and took the end of the sheet out of
+my mouth.  "Have you told IT?" I asked.  "It doesn't make any
+difference about my knowing as I knew before you did, but something is
+due that which you brought back with you.  Have you told IT, Elizabeth?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Told who?  I don't understand."  She sat up.  "I don't know who you
+are talking about."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you?"  I too sat up and swung my bare feet over the side of the
+bed.  "I am talking about the person to whom I read in the Twickenham
+Town Sentinel that you were engaged.  He dresses like a man, and he may
+be one, but even if he isn't he deserves to be treated decently by the
+lady who had promised to marry him.  I suppose he knows."  I nodded to
+her hand, on which was the ring he had given her and which she had been
+twirling as she talked.  "That is, if you have had time to tell him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is entirely my affair!"  When not hurt or injured Elizabeth is
+superior, and she added scorn to the tone of her voice, but stopped
+fooling with the ring, which I know she hated to send back.  "I see you
+do not appreciate the confidence I am putting in you or the compliment
+I am paying you by telling you first, and if that is the case I will
+go."  She made movement as if to get up, but she had no idea of going,
+so I didn't notice it, but kept on swinging my feet, and then I asked
+her if she had told Miss Susanna, and if she hadn't she ought to at
+once, Miss Susanna being closely related and I nothing but a summer
+boarder.  And I said I hoped she would be married right away, as I
+would love to be at the wedding, and if she would ask me to be one of
+the bridesmaids I would be one with pleasure.  But she wouldn't answer
+me.  Seeing she still had something to say, and wouldn't leave until
+she said it, I put my feet back in bed and lay flat with my hands under
+my head and my eyes shut, and when at last I was fixed and quiet she
+began for a third time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I don't remember a thing after that except a sort of monotone voice and
+something about people talking about me because I had accepted Whythe's
+attentions when everybody knew&mdash;I didn't hear what everybody knew, and
+not until I did hear a sound at the door did I wake up good, and then I
+jumped as if shot and asked her, half-asleep, if she were going to live
+with Mother and Sister and Sister Edwina and Miss Lily Lou when she was
+married, but she answered not.  And since her midnight confession she
+hath not opened her mouth unto me and her little lips get together when
+she sees me coming, and from her friends I have learned that she is
+deeply distressed at my treatment of her.  And to her friends I have
+said Rats! and so endeth the efforts at friendship which she imagined
+she had made.  I am never going to pretend to be friends with a person
+who is not truthful, and whom I understand as I understand Elizabeth
+Hamilton Carter.  I don't like her, and though it is not necessary to
+say so unless occasion requires, neither is it necessary to appear to
+be what I am not.  I like Whythe, and when I saw him a few days after
+Elizabeth gave herself the satisfaction of communicating to me the
+return of his tempted affections, I shook hands with him good and hard
+and wished him all the happiness I knew there was little chance of his
+getting.  If I were a man and had to live in the house with a female
+who shut her mouth tight every time she got mad and was continually
+hurt and always sensitive, there would likely be in that house battle,
+murder, or sudden death.  Any kind of outspokenness is better to be
+endured than silent offense.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap25"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXV
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+This is the last day of August, and it is a day
+Twickenham Town is going to remember for
+a long time.  I have done again that which I
+should not have done, and I guess I had better go
+home.  I had expected to stay until the twenty-seventh
+of September and return with Father, who
+was to spend a week here with me, but he can't come.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I suppose it was the awful disappointment of
+knowing Father couldn't come, and being so miserable
+myself (not one line yet from that person named
+William Spencer Sloane, who is probably married
+to an elderly woman by this time), and because
+of my sureness that no human being could be
+depended on in time of temptation, especially
+vigorous, aggressive temptations that come out
+of the West, that I gave help where help seemed
+to be needed, and now again I am in everybody's
+mouth.  Also my ankles are still a little sore from
+the weight of the window being on them as I hung
+out, but they are nearly well, and even if they
+were not it would not matter.  Two young hearts
+are happy and a proud person is not, and the
+blame is on me.  That also doesn't matter.  I am
+soon going away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The thing I did, which maybe I shouldn't have
+done, was to help little Amy Frances Winston
+get married.  She is the property of her
+grandmother, who is a very important part of
+Twickenham Town.  Having no parents or sisters or
+brothers, and only enough money of her own for
+her keep, and no spunk or spirit, she has gone on
+for years loving an awfully nice chap named
+Taylor French, with little chance of ever marrying
+him, and then in hops this Miss Frisk, who asks
+her why she doesn't quit fumbling and stop fearing,
+and the thing is done.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There is nothing the matter with Taylor French
+except he is not Ancestral.  Mrs. Brandon, Amy's
+grandmother, is diseased on the subject of
+ancestry, and the first thing she asks about a man
+is who is he.  Knowing she would want to know
+who I was, I mentioned to her one day that I
+had never had any grandparents on either side
+(living ones I meant), and that we were not
+historic, and no member of our family had ever
+been distinguished (for righteousness, though I
+didn't use the word), and that we had made our
+own way in life, which was true, for Father didn't
+have a thing but what he was making when he
+married Mother.  I also told her I did not mind
+in the least, and if I did I would try to remember
+that Christ was a carpenter and St. Paul a
+sail-maker, though I'd never care to be intimate
+with St. Paul.  And I told her I thought it was
+yourself that counted most, after all, and not dead
+people, though it must be nice to know somebody
+in your family had been something if you were not.
+All she said was, "Are you a suffragist?"  When
+I said I was and I hoped I didn't look as if I
+were not, for I wouldn't like anybody to be
+mistaken about it, she gave me a long look and left
+the room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She did not exactly draw her skirts aside with
+her hand as she passed me, but she did it inwardly;
+that is, I imagined she did from the expression
+of her face, and the next day she must have
+fumigated the house, for when I went by an awful
+smell of sulphur was coming from it.  She is a
+low bender and bower in church at the mention
+of a name belonging to one she believes a Prince
+in disguise, who in another life will receive her
+into His kingdom, and whom she professes to
+follow in the expectation of being rewarded for so
+doing, but her head is held high when she doesn't
+care to see the lowly ones He came to give light
+and life to.  I don't mean she doesn't give old
+clothes and food and sometimes a little wood to
+old Mrs. Snicker, who can't move, from
+rheumatism, but she would no more speak other than
+stiffly to some of the people I know here than she
+would go in for suffrage.  She doesn't realize she
+is a living woman.  She thinks she is an Ancestor.
+For years she has forbidden Taylor French to
+come to her house, and Amy has to see him elsewhere.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She has seen a good deal of him lately, Amy
+has.  Taylor doesn't live in Twickenham Town
+now.  He is living in North Carolina and has a
+good position, and is able to get married (I know
+because I asked him), and any minute day or
+night in the past eighteen months in which Amy
+would have agreed he would have married her
+and taken her away, but Amy wouldn't agree.
+Things have been dragging along this way so
+long that the nerves of both are frazzled out, and
+there's nothing to hope for but death, and, of
+course, it isn't respectful to think too hopefully
+of death and a grandmother.  And then I popped
+in and gave things a little push and the curtain dropped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The way it dropped was this.  I mean the way
+they got married.  Taylor was in town the last
+two weeks in August, and, as everybody invited
+him to their parties, he and Amy managed to see
+a good deal of each other (also the seeing wasn't
+altogether at places where other people were
+around).  But she wasn't allowed to meet him
+on the square or to receive letters from him
+straight.  And sometimes, if he wanted to say
+something in a hurry, or send her candy or a new
+book, or any of the usuals, he had to give a signal
+by throwing pebbles on her window at night,
+and then she would throw out a string and he
+would tie the thing to it and she would haul
+up, and the Personage, who was usually asleep,
+would be none the wiser.  The Personage is deaf,
+which is a great help.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Well, one night three of the town girls and
+myself, with a boy apiece, had been to see Amy,
+and when we went up-stairs (just the girls) to
+see a new hat a city cousin had sent her, we heard
+a little tap at the west window.  It had been
+raining, which accounted for our being indoors
+with the windows lowered, and when we heard
+the tapping we were so excited we could hardly
+breathe.  It was fearfully thrilly, just like things
+one reads about in books, and I told the girls
+to put out the light quick, and when it was out
+I went to the window and saw Taylor standing
+in the shadow of a big tree.  He signaled me to
+drop the line, but when I threw the piece of
+twine Amy gave me I threw it wrong and it got
+caught in a broken piece of shingle on the edge
+of the porch and hung there.  I couldn't get it
+back and Taylor couldn't get it down, and,
+seeing it was necessary for something to be done, I
+pushed aside the curtains (they were made of
+striped calico, blue and white) and told the girls
+I was going to lean out of the window on the roof
+of the porch to get the string loose, and they
+must hold on to my feet, for the roof sloped and
+I might slip if they didn't.  They tried to stop
+me, and Amy wrung her hands, being very
+nervous from living on a strain and loving in
+secret, but I was out head foremost in a jiffy,
+and all four made a grab for my feet and legs.
+Being flat on my stomach, and having long arms,
+I got the string off from the piece of shingle, and
+just as I did it and threw it to Taylor I heard
+a noise and a little cry from the girls, something
+about, "Oh, my goodness! here she comes!" and
+I knew what had happened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Pull the window down on my feet and let
+go," I called, as loud as I dared, "and draw the
+curtains so she won't see my shoes.  If she asks
+where I am, tell her I am outdoors.  Quick!
+Let it down!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They got it down and drew the curtains just
+as her Royal Highness walked in, and as she went
+toward the window Katherine Hardy says that
+never before had she prayed as she prayed that
+minute, and then she thought of mice, which was
+a quick answer.  She gave a little scream and
+jumped with her hands over her eyes and bumped
+into the lady, who, being a woman first, was also
+afraid of mice, and she moved, too.  Seeing the
+girls flying around, she told them to stop, told
+them Maud Hendren's mother had telephoned
+that she must come home at once and, not
+missing me, owing to the girls moving about so
+she wouldn't notice, she went out of the room,
+skirts still held up, and the minute she was out
+they rushed for the window and pulled me in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+My dress was a sight when I got in, and I
+didn't have much skin on my elbows, and my
+hands were stuck up with splinters, as I had to
+hold on to anything I could clutch, being afraid
+the window would not hold my feet and the
+shingles being rotten.  But otherwise no damage
+was done, and I got the note Taylor had tied
+to the string, which I had pulled up by the time
+the Ogress had departed.  I gave it to Amy and
+told her to read it quick.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She read it, and after doing it turned so white
+and looked so queer we were frightened.  For a
+minute she couldn't speak, then she handed me
+the note, and when I asked if I must read it
+aloud she nodded her head and sat down, as if
+to stand up was impossible.  I glanced over it
+first so as to leave out the little love decorations
+and just read the practical part, and what
+Taylor told her was that he had just gotten a
+telegram from his house (it's iron-works I think)
+saying he must leave on important business for
+South America on the 6th of September.  The
+house had been talking of sending him for some
+time, and had been waiting for certain developments
+which had suddenly developed, and he
+would have to go.  Would she go with him, and
+if she would not he never expected to come back
+again, but would stay over there and take charge
+of the South-American branch of the house he was
+going to establish.  She would have to decide
+at once, as he couldn't stay a minute later
+than the 30th.  They could be married anywhere
+she said, only it must be quickly done.  He had
+gotten the telegram an hour before, and in the
+morning she must get Kitty Canary to fix things
+so he could see her and talk more fully.  Kitty
+could be depended on and would manage
+somehow.  The rest being private and personal, I
+skipped it and gave the note back to Amy, who
+was as white as the dress she had on, and her
+hands as limp as wet kid gloves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Excited!  To my dying day I will never
+forget the thrill of it.  Being in love myself, as I
+had once thought, wasn't a circumstance to it,
+and the other girls were as bad as I.  To help
+a heart-yearning, backboneless young girl
+escape from the captivity of a cast-iron
+grandparent was something no red-blooded person
+could refuse, and every one of us agreed that the
+only thing for Amy to do was to walk into the
+den of lions and tell the head lioness the truth;
+ask her permission to many the man she loved,
+and, if she would not give it, to take it, anyhow,
+and tell her farewell and leave at once for South
+America.  That, at least, was what I thought
+ought to be done, and after a while the others
+thought so, too.  At first there was a lot of
+argument, but I told them I would never agree to
+Amy's running away to be married without her
+first telling her grandmother she was going to do
+it.  That is, if she would not let her be married
+at home.  If the G. M. would not let, then Amy
+could take the first train out, but she mustn't
+take it until she had shown her grandmother the
+respect she did not deserve.  I never could bear
+runaway marriages.  There's always something
+so common about them, and I wasn't going to be
+party to one if I could help it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All the time we were talking we left Amy out
+of it, and never once asked her what she
+preferred in the matter.  The reason we didn't was
+the poor little thing was so frightened and
+distressed that she could not open her lips.  We
+would not let her come down-stairs with us, and
+when we said good night I whispered that I would
+see Taylor on my way to Rose Hill, and at ten
+o'clock the next morning we would meet her at
+the back of Miss Susanna's vegetable garden
+under the big locust-tree, and that she mustn't
+worry, we'd fix it, he and I.  Also I told her she
+might bring up some toilet things and little
+traveling necessities and leave them with me;
+and though she clung to me like a frightened
+child and didn't speak, she was down by the
+barn the next morning at ten, and so was Taylor.
+I let them get there a little ahead of me.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap26"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXVI
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+They are married and gone, and for two days Twickenham Town has talked
+of nothing else.  It made a regular soup of the marriage.  The bride
+and groom were the stock, the grandparent and maiden aunts were the
+thickening, and I was the seasoning; but all that does not matter now.
+The ancestralized person has learned that the twentieth century sees
+some things clearer than the eighteenth did, but she will never admit
+that she has learned it.  Taylor and Amy were not unmindful of what was
+due her, however.  Taylor wrote her a very nice letter, asking her
+permission to marry her granddaughter and take her to South America,
+and her answer was low-down.  He wrote as a gentleman should, and she
+answered as a lady shouldn't, for her answer was insulting, and a real
+lady never humiliates any one.  After reading it Taylor told Amy to
+meet him at seven o'clock on Wednesday morning, and they would be
+married in the church with no one present but his brother (the only
+relative Taylor has in town is a bachelor brother), and the sexton, the
+minister, and me.  She met and the marriage took place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We didn't tell a soul about the marriage.  The night before Amy spent
+with me at Rose Hill, and, thinking it best Taylor should not be there,
+I told him not to come, and sent the other boys home early.  In my room
+I packed my suitcase and put in it two dresses I had never worn, which
+I was glad to do, as it would mean that much less to pack when I went
+home, and also I put in some other things; and though Amy cried a good
+deal and didn't think she ought to take them, she was very particular
+about how they went in.  She is very neat and careful, and I'm
+fearfully quick, so it was well she watched me.  I told her she was
+doing me a favor to dispossess me of what I didn't want and what was in
+my way, and as we were the same height, though Amy is a little thinner,
+owing to secret love and distress of mind, I knew the things would fit
+her, and I was more than glad to get rid of them.  Also she didn't have
+any of her own convenient, and she might as well be sensible.  She was,
+and put in her own tooth brush and powder and left the rest to me, and
+by eleven o'clock everything was ready.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the next day the news flew around that the marriage had taken
+place and I had been the leading spirit in it, I went to bed and stayed
+there until the town had finished chewing me up, and then I came out
+again.  It was the most sensible thing I ever did and saved a lot of
+talk and argument.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another reason I went to bed was because I was so homesick and so
+lonely, and so something I had no name for, that I knew it was wiser to
+be by myself.  I can't be much in life, but I can keep from being a
+nuisance, and when you feel you haven't a friend on earth outside of
+your family, who sometimes are queer also, you're apt to be a trial to
+those you come in contact with.  For two whole days I stayed in my room
+and thought of nothing but a big, brawny, domineering, dictating girl
+from the West who was giving Billy no time to write letters; and though
+I would die before I would let anybody know it, even Jess, I nearly
+cried my eyes out under the bedclothes the day of the marriage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Life is a poor thing at times.  And it is never so poor as when you
+think a friend has failed you.  There was nothing on earth that could
+have made me believe Billy would ever fail me when we had known each
+other since children, and he had saved my life three or four times; but
+how can I help believing it when he is letting a perfectly ordinary,
+straight-haired, large-footed girl from the West make him forget that I
+am living and spending the summer in Twickenham Town?  If he had not
+forgotten, would he not write?  He would.  I am miserable and I will
+never be happy until I can say some things to William Spencer Sloane
+that he ought to hear.  But I'm trying to keep my miserableness to
+myself.  People aren't interested in other people's miseries.  I wonder
+if I will ever again get a letter from Billy!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap27"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXVII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+It is a perfectly magnificent thing to be alive!  And this world is a
+perfectly glorious place to be alive in!  There isn't a bird in
+Twickenham Town that isn't singing to-day, or a flower that isn't
+blooming, and, owing to the rain last night, the dust is laying.  As
+for the sun&mdash;there couldn't be a more shining one, and the sky is a
+blue so gorgeous that it seems heaven turned inside out, and in the air
+is the snap of coolness that makes one want to walk and walk and walk,
+and its crispness means fall is coming.  I love the fall.  I can't
+think of anything I do not love to-day except Elizabeth Hamilton Carter
+and Grandmother Brandon, and I don't exactly abhor them.  I just don't
+like them, and prefer to stay out of their way.  But everybody else in
+town is a dear, and I wish I knew I was coming back next summer.  That
+is&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It doesn't matter what is or what isn't.  The thing that matters is
+that this morning I went to the post-office, as usual, but, what was
+not as usual, I got what I had long been looking for, and which had
+come not for endless, endless days.  When I saw the big batch of
+letters and things from Billy, and knew that all my fears were at an
+end, I was so excited I could not speak without signs that shouldn't
+show, and, lest some one stop me, I put the mail inside my shirt-waist
+and hopped on Skylark and flew out of town.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I didn't stop until I got to a big chestnut-tree about three miles from
+Rose Hill, and there I took off Skylark's bridle and let her have all
+the grass she could eat, and then I sat down and sorted the letters
+out.  There were four from Billy and twelve cards and two packages, and
+at first I couldn't understand why they had been held up, why I hadn't
+gotten them before; and then I saw they were postmarked from the same
+place, and had been mailed within three days of one another.  That
+puzzled me, so I decided to open them and find out what was the
+matter&mdash;whether it was the Western girl or something else.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I ought to have known it was something else!  And I have been
+wondering, ever since I read the letters and found out about the
+accident to Billy's eyes, when he came near being shot and the powder
+got in them and nearly put them out, why it is that people are so
+mistrusting and why we let one thing we can't understand make us forget
+what we ought to understand very well.  Ten thousand kind things, right
+things, nice things we take for granted, and then at the first thing we
+think isn't kind or right or nice we forget the others and howl and
+snort about the one we do not like.  At least that is what I did.  Not
+outwardly, of course, but inwardly, for I'm pretty toplofty about being
+treated right, and I flare out and say things I shouldn't at times, and
+afterward I am so ashamed of myself that a worm of the dust is a perky
+animal to me for a few minutes.  That condition of mind doesn't last
+very long, however.  I am not by nature a humble-minded person.  While
+it does last it is awful.  Perfectly awful.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When I read Billy's letter I laid right down on the grass and put my
+face deep down in it, and there wasn't anything abominable that anybody
+could have said about me that I would not have agreed to.  All the time
+I had been furious with him for not writing as usual, he had been shut
+up in a dark room, not able to see the food he was eating, much less
+able to write letters, and then when they took the bandages off he
+wrote so much they had to be put back again, and he was forbidden to
+write more than a few lines, which accounted for so many cards.  He
+wouldn't let any one else write me, and I don't understand exactly how
+it happened except he saw a drunken man on the street waving a pistol,
+and there were some children around, and before the policeman could get
+to him Billy had caught his hand and the thing had gone off and some of
+the powder got in his eyes.  He made light of it, but I know exactly
+what he did.  I thought it was a Western product that was engrossing
+him, and it was the children he was trying to save.  Oh, Billy, I'm a
+pig!  A perfectly horrid pig!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then I suddenly thought of the astonishing letter I had written
+about being in love and maybe engaged, and I prayed hard that he would
+never get it; but I knew it was too late for prayers.  And then I got
+mad with Pat for writing to Jess about the girl from the West, and with
+Jess for writing what Pat had written, and not for some time did I come
+to my senses and realize I was the only person I had any right to get
+mad with.  I got, all right.  And then I wondered what to do.  Billy
+said they would sail on the 21st and reach New York on the 29th, so I
+decided to go back to Rose Hill and begin to pack.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Father could not come to me, so I would go to Father and be home by the
+time Billy got there.  It was only the 3d of September, but I decided I
+would leave as soon as I could do so without remarks being made about
+my going sooner than I expected, and to prevent remarks I would have to
+invent a good reason for getting away.  Father's loneliness would make
+a perfect reason for Twickenham Town, and a most dutiful one, and no
+one would be apt to ask me why I hadn't thought of his loneliness
+before; but it wouldn't do for the family.  They wanted me to stay out
+of the city as long as possible, and while I was wondering what I could
+do to get back, Mrs. Pettigrew passed with five of the children in the
+buggy and asked if I knew there was a telegram for me at the station.
+I told her I did not, and my heart got right where hearts always get
+when telegrams are mentioned, and in the twinkling of an eye Skylark's
+bridle was on and I on Skylark, and we raced like mad to town.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the way I was thinking all the awful things that telegrams start one
+to thinking, and I remembered it was just eleven days since I had sent
+the letter to Billy, who had, of course, gotten it by this time, and,
+not realizing how fast I was going, I was at the station before it
+seemed possible to get there, and so out of breath I could not speak.
+I slipped off the horse and held out my hand to Mr. Pepper for the
+telegram, and when he handed me the yellow envelope I slid down on a
+bench and held it as if it were a death-warrant, and not for some time
+could I open it.  I was positive it was about Mother, who wasn't very
+well when she last wrote, and everything I had ever done that I ought
+not to have done, and everything I had left undone which I should have
+done, walked right up in front of me and clutched me by the throat, and
+I had to shut my eyes to keep my head steady.  I had inside the same
+sinky feeling I felt the first time I went to Europe, on the first day
+out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Pepper was looking at me, and so were several other people who
+happened to be standing around, so I tried to get a grip on, and after
+awhile I opened the envelope; but at first I couldn't see the words on
+it.  Finally I took them in after three times reading them over, and at
+last I understood.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Cut it out.  You are engaged to me.  Sailing to-morrow.  See you
+September fifteenth.&mdash;BILLY.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap28"></A>
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+</H3>
+
+
+<P>
+There never was a sinner saved by grace who so wanted to make a noise
+as I wanted to make one when I got into my head what had happened.  The
+relief from fear and the joyfulness of knowing I had been pulled out of
+another ditch made me dizzy for a moment, and down went my elbows into
+my lap and down my face into my hands, and not until Mr. Pepper said
+something to me did I lift my head and get up.  Then I threw my
+riding-crop in the air, tossed up the Pepper baby, danced around with
+him, and, suddenly seeing all present were watching me, and knowing
+they felt they had a right to hear what was in the telegram without
+waiting for Mr. Pepper to tell them, I said an old friend of mine, who
+was anxious to know Twickenham Town, was coming to see it when he got
+back from Europe.  After which I gave Mr. Pepper a little wink which he
+understood, and I am sure no one was told the wording of the message I
+had received.  Mr. Pepper has a good deal of sense.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Happy?  I was the happiest girl in all the world that day.  I nearly
+sang my throat off when I got to my room, but I did not mention the
+telegram to anybody save Miss Susanna, and I didn't go into details
+with her about it.  I just said a friend was coming to see me when he
+got back from Europe, and I said it in such a way she didn't think I
+was interested very much.  She is so astonished by Elizabeth's
+behavior, and so surprised at her marriage, which is to be in November,
+that I don't think she paid any attention to what I said and got the
+impression it was a friend of Father's who was coming to Twickenham
+Town.  I let her keep it.  I did not give it to her knowingly, but
+there was no need to take it away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And last night, not being able to sleep, I knew I had not been in love
+with Whythe at all.  I don't know a thing in the world about being in
+love.  I had tried to think I knew something, but I was mistaken.  I
+must say I enjoyed hearing Whythe's crescendo, obligato, diminuendo way
+of making it, but I realize now I am not the sort of person to really
+fall in love with strange men.  Certainly I could never do it with a
+wabbly, changery, one-or-the-othery kind of man that Whythe is, and
+while it was pretty scrumptious thinking a twenty-five-year-older was
+in love with me, I soon found out it was a summer case and not at all
+serious.  And I am thankful I never thought I was enough in love to
+become engaged.  There might have been things to remember that one
+likes to forget when the real one comes along, and I have nothing of
+that sort to be sorry for.  I'm right particular at times.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If I am ever really and truly engaged I wonder if I will be as
+particular as a sixteen-year-old person, a girl person, ought to be?  I
+guess it will depend on whom I am engaged to, but, of course, not being
+in love, I couldn't be engaged, and there is no use in thinking what I
+might do under circumstances that might warrant the doing of it, and
+when I see Billy I will just shake hands; that is&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Every time I think of his coming I feel like opening my arms so wide I
+could take the whole world in, but I don't open them.  I just go look
+at the calendar to see if another day hasn't gone by yet.  When this
+morning I saw it was the 14th and realized there wasn't but one more
+day to wait, I went to the window and did open my arms, and I sent a
+message into the air.  And then, because I felt so sorry for Miss
+Araminta Armstrong, who has nothing to wait for but older age, and for
+Miss Bettie Simcoe, who has long since stopped hoping, I went
+down-stairs and asked them if they wouldn't like to motor to Glade
+Springs, and they said they would, and we went.  Also Mr. Willie
+Prince.  I didn't want to ask him, but I couldn't leave him out, and of
+course he wanted to go.  The going made the day pass a little quicker,
+but it has been a long day!  Awful long!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For the last week I have been going around to almost every house in
+town to say good-by.  I don't know the exact day I will leave, as that
+will depend on when Mother says I must be home; but I didn't want to go
+away and not say good-by to everybody and tell them what a good time I
+have had, and I started telling very soon after I got Billy's message
+saying he was coming.  I have thanked everybody for their niceness and
+kindness to me, and told every one I hope to come back next summer, and
+sometimes we have had little weeps, for they put their arms around me
+and held me so tight I could hardly breathe.  And I know now there is
+nothing as good as friendliness, and loving-kindness is more to be
+desired than all things else on earth, and I am going to try to make it
+grow wherever I live.  I will have a garden of it&mdash;have it in my heart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I am afraid I will always have some practical things in my heart, too,
+for of late I've been thinking about all that money Billy had to spend
+in cabling me from Europe.  When Billy wants to do a thing he never
+lets obstacles stand in his way, and he would have sent that cable if
+he'd had to borrow the money from the Bank of England at an awful rate
+of interest.  What he did do I guess was to get it from his mother.
+She would take her head off and her heart out and hand both over if he
+wanted them, and it isn't her fault that William, as she calls him,
+isn't a ruined person.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I know she hated him to leave ahead of time, which he had to do to get
+here on the 15th, the rest not sailing, Jess says, until the 20th; but
+that's William again.  He doesn't waste time when he has anything to
+attend to, and I know exactly what he said to his mother.  He will make
+every arrangement and fix everything for them and then tell them
+good-by.  He isn't much with words, Billy isn't.  He acts.  There's no
+fumble in him, and even his mother, who thinks his mold was broken when
+he was born and that the Lord never made but one like him, has to admit
+he is a high-handed person when occasion requires.  I don't agree with
+his mother in a good many things concerning William, but in some I do.
+I wish he wasn't an only son.  An only son for a husband is hard on a
+wife.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The thing I have been thinking about most since I got his cable,
+however, is a certain thing that was in it.  I've worn the paper out
+reading it, and at first there was no argument in my mind, but it is
+coming, argument is.  And though I know it is a bad habit, especially
+in girls and women and disliked by the other sex, how can you help it
+when things are said that are not so?  Billy said, "You are engaged to
+me."  How does he know?  I never told him so.  He hasn't exactly asked
+me&mdash;that is, in a way that I would answer him&mdash;and he always got so
+choky when on such subjects that I changed them quick, and yet he
+announces that I am his, and with never so much as by your leave!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I am afraid, I'm terribly afraid, I am going to agree with him.  It's a
+relief to have some things settled for you, and as he imagines I will
+always be falling overboard, he doubtless thinks he had better keep a
+life-preserver on me in case he isn't near enough to jump in after me.
+He knows if I ever agree to put one on I will keep it on.  I have a
+good deal of Father in me, and when I give my word I stick to it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If any one had told me when I came to Twickenham Town that the chief
+thing I would find out before I went away was that I wouldn't really
+mind owning a life-preserver, my head would have gone up and I would
+have been as chesty as a hen who tries to crow; and now I'm nothing but
+a humble-minded person waiting for a high-handed one to come and take
+me back home.  And I am perfectly willing to go.  Another thing I have
+found out this summer is that it doesn't much matter where you are or
+what you are doing; whether there is purple and fine linen or just
+ancestors, or both together, or neither; if the one you want most isn't
+with you, you will be pretty lonely after a while.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+I have had a grand time in Twickenham Town, but I don't want to come
+here again by myself.  If Mrs. William Spencer Sloane wants to take her
+son away with her next summer, she won't be able to do it.  Her son
+will be twenty-one next summer, and though I hope he will always be
+respectful and obedient, as far as possible, to his mother's wishes,
+still, she will have to remember there are other wishes in this world
+besides hers.  I trust she will be nice about the discovery.  Mrs.
+Sloane is a very handsome woman, but spoiled.  And very fond of having
+her own way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We are not apt to have much money, Billy and I.  We have often said we
+thought young people ought to do their own scrambling, and I think
+that's what we'll have to do, as our fathers think much the same way.
+I'm not fond of herbs, but I can stand a dinner of them if Billy can,
+and besides, it will be nice for us to work up together and not have
+too quick a shove.  And another thing we agree about.  We know the
+thing that counts most, and we are going to keep a good deal of it on
+hand.  Father says neither poverty nor riches can kill love if it is
+the right sort.  I know Billy's is the right sort, but I am crazy to
+hear him put it into words.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He will have traveled thousands of miles to say something he could have
+written, to tell me I am engaged to him and I might as well understand
+it; but there won't be an extra sentence in the way he says it.  He
+will be here to-morrow, and I bet the best thing I've got that all he
+will say is: "Kitty Canary, we are going to decide right now on the day
+and the month and the year.  I will wait until you get through college,
+as you say I've got to, but I won't wait a day longer.  Let's get a
+calendar and work it out."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And I, being a weak-minded person at times, will say, "All right,
+Billy," and then&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE END
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Kitty Canary, by Kate Langley Bosher
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kitty Canary, by Kate Langley Bosher
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Kitty Canary
+
+Author: Kate Langley Bosher
+
+Release Date: October 25, 2005 [EBook #16946]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KITTY CANARY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: Kitty Canary.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Kitty Canary
+
+A NOVEL
+
+
+BY
+
+KATE LANGLEY BOSHER
+
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+"MARY CARY" ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+
+
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
+
+ESTABLISHED 1817
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1913, by Harper & Brothers
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+Published February, 1918
+
+
+
+
+KITTY CANARY
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+I am in love.  It is the most scrumptious thing I have ever been in.
+Perfectly magnificent!  Every time I think of it I feel as if I were
+going down an elevator forty floors and my heart flippity-flops so my
+teeth mortify me.  He used to be engaged to Elizabeth Hamilton Carter,
+the niece of the lady at whose house I am boarding this summer, but he
+did something he ought not to have done, or he didn't do something he
+ought to have done, and they had a fuss.  No one seems to know the
+cause of it, but it was probably from her wanting him to be blind to
+everything on earth but her, and a man isn't going to be blind when he
+wants to see, and then she got _hurt_.  I'd rather live in a house with
+a cackling hen or a grunting pig than the sort of person who is always
+getting hurt.  But she's very pretty.  Pink-and-white pretty, with
+uplifting eyes and a little mouth that shuts itself when mad and says
+nothing, and oozes more disagreeableness than if it talked.  He still
+thinks there isn't another girl in town who can touch her in looks.  I
+don't suppose a man ever gets over a real case of pink-and-white.  It's
+the kind that makes a tender memory if it isn't the best sort to live
+with, and men like to have a memory to sigh over in secret.  Her
+rejected one may sigh in secret, but in public he does not seem to be
+suffering.  He isn't suffering.  We like each other very much.
+
+The reason I am glad I am in love is that I am sixteen and I was
+getting afraid I wasn't ever going to fall in love.  Three or four
+times I have thought I was in it, but I wasn't, and I was beginning to
+be sure I was the sort of person who doesn't fall.  And, besides, it is
+good for Billy, who, because he is twenty, thinks he is old enough to
+have some things settled which there is no need to settle too soon.
+Settled things are not exciting.  I love excitement and not knowing
+what a day may bring forth.  Billy doesn't.  He wants his ducks to be
+always in a row.
+
+Ever since he fished me out of the water-barrel sunk in Grandmother
+Hatley's garden, when I was four and he eight, he has seemed to think I
+belonged to him; and, though he doesn't imagine I know it and never
+mentions it, he is always around when I am in danger or trouble, to get
+me out.  I suppose saving my life three or four times makes him feel I
+can't take care of myself and therefore he must take care of me, but
+that's a mistake.  I have never had a horse to run away with me but
+once.  Billy did tell me not to ride her, and when she ran and would
+have pitched me over her head and down a gully he caught her in the
+nick of time and caught me, too, but that's the only time a thing of
+that sort ever happened.  He was real nice about it and never said
+anything concerning having told me so and didn't make remarks of the
+sort which other people rub in, but the next day the horse was sent
+away.  That's the thing which makes me fighting furious with Billy
+sometimes. He doesn't say things.  He does them.  I wasn't afraid of
+that horse and was going to keep on riding her, but the next day there
+was no Lady-Bird to ride.  The reason he sent her away was I wouldn't
+promise not to ride her.  Our summer homes are on adjoining places and
+Horson, their stableman, a nice, drinky old person, lets me take out
+anything I want, anything of Billy's, and, knowing he couldn't trust
+Horson any more than me, he lent Lady-Bird to a man miles and miles
+away and I never saw her again until she was a tame old thing I did not
+want to ride.  Billy behaves as if I were a child!
+
+And then the very next winter I fell through the ice and he had to jump
+in and get me out.  He told me not to go to a certain part of the lake.
+He had been all over it and tried it before I got my skates on, but I
+forgot and went.  A boy was with me, a skunky little rat, who, when he
+saw the ice was cracking, tried to pull me back, and then he let go my
+hand and flop I went in and flop came Billy behind me while the little
+Fur Coat stood off and bawled for help and said afterward he didn't
+know how to swim.  Having on heavy clothes, I went down quick and was
+hard to get up, and I would be an angel this minute if Billy hadn't
+been there.  But Billy is always there, which is what makes this summer
+so queer.  He isn't here.
+
+On account of servants and things his mother didn't want to open their
+country place this year, and my mother didn't want to open hers, so two
+houses are closed.  That means a scatteration for both families and is
+why I am here and Billy in Europe; and if he is having as good a time
+as I am he isn't grunting at the change.  He didn't want to go to
+Europe.  His father made him.  His mother and two sisters needed a man
+along and, as Mr. Sloane couldn't go, Billy had to, and he was a great
+big silent growl when he went off.  I wasn't.  I wanted to come to
+Twickenham Town.  We had passed through it once on our way to Florida
+and I have been crazy to come back ever since, and when I found Mother
+was going with Florine and Jessica to a splashy place I didn't want to
+go to I begged her to let me come here and board with Miss Susanna
+Mason and--glory be--she let me do it!
+
+She is a sort of relation, Miss Susanna is, a farback one, but nothing
+is too far back to claim here, and everybody who is anybody is kin to
+one another, or kin to some one else's kin, which makes for
+sociableness, and I am having a perfectly grand time.  In all the world
+there isn't another place like the one I am in this summer, and I am
+getting so familiar with a new kind of natural history that maybe some
+day I will be an authority on it.  Ancestry is the chief asset of
+Twickenham Town, and though you speak with the tongues of men and of
+angels and have not ancestors it profiteth you nothing.  That is, among
+the natives.  Being an outsider, I have decided not to have ancestors,
+and I am going to see if the people won't take me in for myself.  I
+have always believed a nice person was nice if there weren't any family
+shrubs and things, and a nasty one was nasty no matter how many coats
+of arms there were or how heirloomy their houses, so I have asked Miss
+Susanna please to excuse me if I don't call her cousin (we are seventh
+removed, I think she said), and also, unless she has to, I hope she
+won't tell any one my real name is Katherine Bird, but let everybody
+call me Kitty Canary, as everybody does at home.  I think she thought
+it was very queer in me to say such things, but she smiled her
+precious, patient little smile, and, though she didn't promise, she
+evidently hasn't mentioned my sure-enough name, as no one here calls me
+by any other than the one Billy gave me when I wasn't much bigger than
+a baby.  Just Kitty Canary will do for me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The way I met Whythe (he's the one I'm almost perfectly certain I am in
+love with) was this.  When I got to the station in Twickenham Town
+there was no one to meet me and take me to Rose Hill, which is Miss
+Susanna Mason's home and right far out, because the train was three
+hours late, and Uncle Henry, who drives the hack, and Mr. Briggs, who
+runs the automobile, had gone home.  There wasn't even anybody to take
+my bag.  I told Mother I had written Miss Susanna what train I would be
+on, and because she was so busy and Father away she trusted me to do
+things she had never trusted me to do before and didn't write herself,
+which is why I wasn't met.  I did write the letter saying I was coming,
+but I forgot to mail it and found it in my bag when I got off the train
+and was looking for my trunk check.  It was nearly eleven o'clock and
+nobody around but some train people who looked at me and said nothing.
+And then a young man who had got off the same train came up and took
+off his hat and asked if he could not do something for me, and I told
+him I hoped he could and I certainly would be obliged if he would do it
+as quick as possible, as it was getting later every minute and Mother
+would be terribly worried if she knew I hadn't been met.
+
+"But where are you going?" he asked, and his eyes, which are his
+best-looking part, took me in from top to toe.  When I told him I was a
+boarder for Miss Susanna Mason and would like to get to her house he
+said if I didn't mind a pretty good walk he would take me there with
+pleasure, and we started off.  It was a perfectly gorgeous night.  The
+stars were as thick as buttercups in spring, and the moon was
+magnificent and the air full of all sorts of old-fashioned fragrances,
+as if honeysuckle and mignonette and tea-roses and heliotrope were all
+mixed together; and as there didn't seem any real need of grieving
+because there was no one to meet me, I thought I might as well enjoy
+myself.  I did.  I could not help the train being late, and I didn't
+forget to mail my letter on purpose; and it was an accident, or
+coincidence, that a nice man should be on the same train I was, who
+lived in the place I was going to spend the summer in, and knew very
+well the house I wanted to get to.  I didn't know he had been engaged
+to the niece of the house and hadn't been to the latter since the
+engagement was broken, and I must say as we walked along he didn't show
+any evidences of despair or things of that sort.  He couldn't possibly
+have been naturaler or in better spirits, and he laughed from the time
+we left the station until we reached Rose Hill.  Not knowing his
+history, I told him I had come to Twickenham Town because I thought it
+was the most delicious old place in America; the sweetest, slowest,
+self-satisfiedest, cocksuredest place on earth, and everybody in it was
+a character--that is, everybody over thirty.  He said that let him out,
+as he was only twenty-five, but he wasn't sure some under twenty-five
+were not somewhat queer.  They are, I have found out since.
+
+He had left his bag at the station, but he had mine, which was right
+heavy, and seeing there was a good stretch of open road before we began
+to go up the hill on the top of which was Miss Susanna's home, I told
+him he had better sit down a minute and rest, and I got up on the worm
+fence and twisted my feet around the rail below, and looked at him
+before he knew what I was going to do.  He coughed a little and looked
+at his watch and said it was rather late to be resting, as Miss Susanna
+might be going to bed, and that if I were not too tired he thought we
+had better go on; and I told him all right.  And then, because I
+couldn't help it, I stood up on the top of the fence, balanced myself
+on it, and, opening my arms as if I were going to fly, sprang off and
+ran up the road ahead of him.
+
+At the gate, which was open and through which I could see the
+rose-bordered path leading up to the white-pillared porch on which Miss
+Susanna and her niece were sitting, he shook hands with me and told me
+good night and said he hoped he would see me very often while I was in
+town, and I said I hoped he would.  He put my bag down and told me to
+send one of the servants out for it, and went on down the road, which I
+thought was the queerest behavior I had ever seen in my life.  I didn't
+know, of course, about embarrassments and broken engagements and things
+of that sort, and for a moment I stared at his back and then picked up
+my bag and went up to the porch with it.  All the boarders had gone to
+bed and only Miss Susanna and her niece were on the porch, and as I
+came up the steps they got up and stared at me as if I had risen from
+the grave.
+
+I hadn't thought there was anything wrong in my coming from the station
+at that time of night with a strange man until I saw the look on Miss
+Susanna's face when I told her I had done it.  If I had been a brand
+snatched from the burning I could not have been folded to her bosom
+with more fervent thanksgiving or a more pained expression, and at
+first, still not understanding, I thought I had done right off the
+worst thing a person could do in Twickenham Town.  I had walked a long
+way with a man who didn't have ancestors, perhaps.  He had seemed all
+right to me, and I was awfully glad to have him, as otherwise I might
+have had to sit on my suit-case all night, for I certainly couldn't
+have come up with the man who swung a lantern, and he was the only
+other white one in sight.  But I found out later it wasn't lack of
+ancestors that caused the sudden chill which fell over us when I
+mentioned Mr. Eppes's name.  It was something else and--oh, my
+granny!--the look that pretty little pink-and-white person gave me when
+I said what I had done!
+
+"Oh, my dear, my dear!"  Miss Susanna put her arms around me as if I
+were a little ewe lamb that had been lost and was found, and in the
+moonlight her beautiful little wrinkles reddened as if she were
+responsible for a most grievous calamity, "To think of your being alone
+at a public station at this time of night!  A young girl!  And I had
+promised your mother to take such good care of you!  I wouldn't have
+had such a thing occur for--"
+
+"There hasn't anything occurred."  I took off my hat and fanned hard
+and then followed Miss Susanna up-stairs into a big square room with a
+big tester bed in it, and if she hadn't been looking at me I would have
+climbed up in it and gone to sleep in my clothes, I was so tired; but
+she didn't leave me for some time.  She couldn't get over my walking
+two miles with a strange man late at night, and presently I found out
+she hoped I wouldn't mention it to any one in the town, as in a little
+place--
+
+"Oh, I know--"  I sat down in another chair.  "I know little places.  I
+was in one once for a month.  Every one in it knew everything every
+other person did and didn't do, and said and didn't say, and if they
+sneezed what for, and if they didn't sneeze why not, and it was more
+fun!  But I won't tell if you don't want me to, and did my horse come?
+Father had her sent three days ago, and I hope you won't get uneasy if
+I am not always back on time--"
+
+I stopped.  She was putting my hat on the top shelf of the biggest old
+mahogany wardrobe that was ever built for human apparel, and I knew
+right off that was one of the things the matter with pretty Miss
+Pink-and-White.  She was spoiled to death.  I picked up the coat I had
+dropped on the table and hung it up myself, and saw I would have to be
+the thing I hate most on earth--an Example.  I must be careful or that
+precious old soul would be waiting on me just as she waits on everybody
+else, and I wasn't going to stand for it.  And then she asked me if I
+were not hungry--said she knew I must be after such a long trip; and I
+told her I was starving, but I would not eat of a feast of the gods if
+it were right in front of me, as the only thing I wanted to do was to
+go to sleep, and for fear she might keep on inquiring about all my
+relations I kissed her good night and walked with her to the door and
+asked if she would mind if I did not come down to breakfast, and she
+said of course I must not come, that Elizabeth never came if she had
+been up late the night before, and that decided me.  I was the first
+one down the next morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+It was a perfectly grand feeling---the feeling I had the next day and
+have had every day since I got here--that I was in a place where there
+wasn't a single member of my family to tell me not to do things I
+wanted to do or to do what I did not want to do; and usually as I dress
+in the morning I dance a new kind of highland fling which I made up for
+times when I feel particularly happy.  Everybody is well and Mother and
+the girls are having a lovely time in a place where I would have had a
+stupid one, being neither grown up nor a kid, but an in-betweener--too
+young for some ages and not old enough for others; and here in
+Twickenham Town I am as free as air, and Father is coming to see me as
+often as he can.  I can't let myself think much about Father or I would
+take the train straight home.
+
+I had begged him to let me stay with him, but neither he nor Mother
+would agree.  Just because I got the Grome medal at school they
+imagined I had studied too hard and needed a quiet, restful summer in
+the mountains; but I will never study too hard while on this little
+planet called the earth.  I got the medal because Billy said I'd never
+sit still long enough to study for it, and just to show him he very
+often does not know what he is talking about I made up my mind to get
+it.
+
+The only thing I ever expect to work hard over is one book.  I am going
+to write one book that the critics will call a Discovery.  It is to be
+dull and dry and dreary, and therefore it will be thought deep and
+strong and big, and only a few people will know that it has been
+written.  After that I am going to write books that sell, write what
+people want to read--things that make them forget for a few moments
+that at times this world is but a fleeting show and there is a good
+deal of rot in it.  If I can I am going to make people laugh, though I
+don't think I can do much in that line.  I see the funny side of things
+too quickly to ever be able to write them down, as that takes time; but
+I am certainly going to be cheerful, and I am not going to croak.  I
+don't mean I am going to be smiling all the time.  I am not.  Perpetual
+smilers are more than human nature can stand.  Nothing is ever wrong,
+everything is beautiful, their smiles seem to say, which isn't so.
+There is a lot of life that is wrong, and any day horrid, hurting
+things may pop up, but that doesn't mean you've got to sit down and
+make a bosom friend of dolefulness.  Some of the things you can shake
+your fist at, and some turn your back on, and some you have to face;
+but no matter what happens you can buck up and begin again if you get
+knocked out or hit in the back.  And that's what I hope I will have
+sense enough to do--get up and get a move on when things go wrong.
+
+So far nothing has gone wrong in Twickenham.  Everybody has been lovely
+to me, and all sorts of ages have been to see me and asked me to their
+homes, and if they know my name is not really and truly Kitty Canary
+they never say so or mention my family, which is very nice of them, for
+I am sure they must talk of who I am and where I came from, that being
+the first thing done here when a stranger arrives.  The reason I think
+they haven't let me off among themselves is that one of Miss Susanna's
+boarders started to say something to me on the subject one day and I
+told her I was a very plain person, almost common, and she could tell
+any one she chose.  She has never mentioned the subject since.  Just
+Kitty Canary is all I am going to be this summer, and if anybody
+doesn't care for me as Kitty Canary I don't care for them to care for
+me as Katherine Bird.  So endeth that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+I have seen him every day since I came--seen my station help in time of
+need--and I must say he bears bravely the dispensations of a female
+person.  He is not dejected, and he still seems to find life worth
+living; and if he weeps in secret, he shows no sign in public of
+regrets; neither does he hide himself from the gaze of others, but is
+always to be seen when one goes down-town or to the homes of other
+people.  I don't know how we happen to meet so often, but I never go
+out that he doesn't appear; and though he does not come in at Rose
+Hill, he comes to the gate, and I am afraid we stand at it a little
+longer than is necessary, especially if Elizabeth Hamilton Carter is
+sitting on the porch.
+
+I wonder why Satan walks right into me every time I see that piece of
+pretty pink-and-whiteness!  He has never taken possession of me in that
+way before; but something about her just starts him off, and before I
+know it I am doing what I wouldn't think of doing if she were not
+around.  She is perfectly furious with me, and I must say her manners,
+if they are Southern, could be improved.  At best she is not much of a
+talker, I have been told; but since I arrived her little mouth has been
+shut so tight that I wonder how she breathes; and if she has spoken a
+dozen words to me since the night I came, they were too
+between-the-teethy for me to hear.  I didn't want her beau, and I
+wouldn't have dreamed of noticing him if I had known how she felt about
+him; but after she tried the freezing act on me I didn't tell Satan to
+get behind me, as I suppose I should have done.  I just went along and
+took things as they came, and the first thing I knew I was in love
+myself, and from the words of his mouth concerning the meditations of
+his heart he seemingly has recovered from a former attack and is in for
+a new one.  Maybe we were not as considerate of the rejecter as we
+might have been.  Of course, I never knew for a long time why the
+engagement was broken.  He didn't tell me and no one else seemed to
+know, and when I found out--  But that was a long time after--when I
+found out.
+
+His name is Whythe Rives Eppes.  The only things I don't like about him
+are his front teeth and his relations.  He could get three new teeth,
+but nothing in human power could rid him of his relatives.  There are
+four of them--Mother, Sister, Sister Edwina, and Miss Lily Lou, and may
+God have mercy on the girl who marries the male member of the family
+and goes into their home to live!  He is a perfectly grand sort to be
+in love with, and I am almost sure I am in love or I wouldn't feel so
+thrilly when I see him coming.  But being in love is one thing and
+getting married is a very different other, and there isn't a man person
+living I want to think of marrying yet.  It's awfully interesting, too,
+to learn the different ways in which love can be made.  Twickenham Town
+may be slow about many things, but in others it is so quick it takes
+your breath away.  Whythe became personal in conversation the fourth
+time I was with him.  It was at the Braxtons' party and conditions were
+favorable, but, not expecting the turn that was taken, I was as excited
+as if I had never heard remarks of a similar character before, and the
+first thing I knew I had promised Whythe (he begged me to call him
+Whythe) to go horseback-riding with him the next day.  We went--I on
+Skylark, who is the joy of my life, and he on a borrowed horse, and we
+had a perfectly wonderful time.  I don't think Whythe will ever be much
+of a lawyer, but as a love-maker he hasn't an equal on earth--that is,
+any I have ever heard.
+
+As we rode down the main street of Twickenham everybody in the town
+seemed on it.  Princess Street is the only one called by a name, though
+of course the others have names, and it is the place where everybody
+meets everybody else and learns all the news; and if anybody went to
+sleep that night without knowing that Whythe and I had started on a
+ride at ten o'clock in the morning and didn't get back until three it
+was because that person was too deaf to hear and couldn't understand
+the movement of lips.  I didn't know I was doing anything I oughtn't,
+and if I did it I am not sorry.  I had a grand time.  It was a gorgeous
+day and cool enough for me to wear my brown-linen riding-habit and high
+boots, which, with a stock collar and small sailor hat, made me look
+real nice, and the way the people stared at me you would have thought
+they had never seen a divided skirt before, and--oh, my granny!--the
+faces of the family (Whythe's family) as we passed their house!  I
+smiled the politest and properest I knew and they bowed back, but in a
+way that made me laugh out loud when out of sight, and so did Whythe.
+And then we forgot them, forgot everything except it was awfully good
+to be alive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The place we went to is very historic and interesting.  Something
+happened there that was very important in American history, but I have
+forgotten what it was.  Whythe told me, and as it doesn't matter, being
+over for such a long time, I haven't tried to remember.  The sky was so
+wonderful and the river so winding and lovely and the air so delicious
+that yesterdays did not seem important and only to-day counted; and it
+was when we were sitting under a beautiful big water-oak that Whythe
+began to be terribly sentimental and say things that would have been
+more suitable for moonlight and shadows and things of that sort.  But
+suitable or not, they were thrilly to hear, and I would have enjoyed
+hearing them if it hadn't been for an abominable feeling that Billy was
+right beside me hearing every word also, and with a look on his face as
+if he thought my new friend was the foolest yet.  And presently when I
+couldn't stand it any longer (I mean stand Billy standing by) I got up
+suddenly and told Whythe it was time to go home.
+
+I interrupted him in the midst of a beautiful sentence about my
+eyelashes, I think, or maybe it was something else, I don't remember;
+but anyhow when I jumped up he was very much surprised and wanted to
+know what was the matter.  I couldn't tell him, but I was perfectly
+furious with Billy and the look on his face, which seemed to say what
+I'd heard him say often about fool-flum talk and feather-headed fellows
+and things of that sort.  And I was so mad I rode so fast Whythe
+couldn't keep up with me or continue the conversation, but it has been
+continued since.  That is the main theme, though the variations are
+always different.  Whythe never seems to give out on variations.
+
+Of course, all of Miss Susanna's boarders, which are only four besides
+myself, had something to say in general about the faithlessness of men
+and the flirtatiousness of girls, and how times had changed, and how
+you couldn't put your hand on any human being and feel you could trust
+him in these days, and how men were gobbled up before they had got
+their breath good after painful experiences, and dozens of other things
+on that order.  And I had such a good time listening to them, though
+they didn't talk directly to me, that I'd forget at times and nearly
+screech out loud at the tones of voice in which they did me up, and
+then I would remember and try to look serious.  But seriousness doesn't
+seem to fit my face--that is, seriousness over sillinesses--and it
+wouldn't stay on very long.
+
+They thought it very indelicate in me to walk away with Elizabeth's
+sweetheart right before her eyes--that is, Mrs. General Games did, but
+Miss Araminta Armstrong, who is over fifty and by nature sentimental
+and sympathetic, said she supposed it was natural for youth to seek
+consolation, and Whythe, poor dear, had been so heartbroken at
+Elizabeth's behavior that he had been receptive to other influences of
+a pleasing nature, and she didn't think they ought to be so hard on
+him.  And then, after more talk of that sort, she would sigh and look
+away at the mountains in the distance with a loved-and-lost look in her
+eyes, and Miss Bettie Simcoe would sit up and snort.
+
+There's nothing sentimental or sympathetic about Miss Bettie.  Neither
+is there anything in the earth below or the heavens above that she has
+not an opinion of her own about, but the one concerning which she has
+the most decided opinions is Man.  She doesn't mince matters when she
+gets on him.  Also, she is an authority on God.  She can tell you
+exactly why He does things, and she quotes Him as if He were her most
+confidential friend, and the only thing which stumps her is why He made
+such a mess of what is considered His most important work.  Mention a
+male person's name and up go her eyebrows and down come the corners of
+her lips and on the side goes her head, and nothing need be said for
+her opinion to be understood.  She is positively triumphant over
+Whythe.  She goes around with a "Didn't-I-tell-you-so?" expression
+oozing out of every feature of her face, and I think she tells
+Elizabeth she is fortunate to have discovered his fickleness so soon.
+
+If Elizabeth thinks she is fortunate she has a queer way of showing it.
+She must cry a good deal at night, judging by her eyes in the morning,
+but the thing that's most the matter with her is madness.  She can't
+take it in that Whythe is showing no signs of anxiousness to make up.
+She imagined, I suppose, when they had their fuss that it wouldn't last
+very long and that he would give in to whatever she wanted, and now
+that he isn't giving in she is so freezingly furious with me she barely
+speaks to me.  She seems to think it is my fault and that my coming
+just when I did is the cause of the whole trouble.  Though she never
+says anything directly to me, she makes remarks in my presence about
+the way men flirt in Twickenham Town and how dangerous it is,
+especially for young girls who have never had any experience in things
+of that sort and are deceived by it; and as she talks I just rock and
+rock if in a chair, and swing and swing if in a hammock, until she has
+said a good many nasty things, and then I get up and go up-stairs and
+bring down a box of candy Whythe has sent me and offer it to her with
+my most Christian forgiveness and most understanding smile, and,
+strange to say, she never takes a piece!
+
+I don't mind her remarks.  They're natural, and if she wasn't such a
+horrid little teapot I'd do anything I could to straighten out things;
+but until she behaves herself I won't.  I am having a very interesting
+time being in love, and why should I stop just because a man she broke
+with isn't grieving, but is keeping himself in practice saying to me
+what he used to say to her?  I am not going to stop until I think it is
+time and until both have learned a few things they ought to know before
+they get married.  She is a vain, selfish, pretty piece of spoiledness,
+and I don't believe she knows what real loving means.  She is the sort
+that wants what it hasn't got, and all the more if she thinks anybody
+else is apt to get it.  If she had any sense she would get a beau _pro
+tem_.  That is the best thing on earth to bring a man back to the
+straight and narrow, and Whythe is the kind of man who needs to be
+brought every now and then.
+
+I gave her that for nothing one morning--I mean the suggestion in
+general, though of course not personal--and she looked at me as if
+trying to understand.  And then something came in her face that must
+have been an idea in her brain (her brain is slow), for, two days
+afterward, she said she was going away.  A week later she went to see a
+rich aunt on her father's side who has a summer home somewhere and
+corrals young men and compels them to come to it, Miss Bettie Simcoe
+says.  When she was gone a great weight seemed lifted off everybody,
+and even the servants breathed better.  As for Miss Susanna, she was
+that lightened and relieved, though naturally not saying so, that she
+looked ten years younger, and I know now it is true that some people in
+a house are like fruit-cake on a weak stomach.  They make life hard.  I
+didn't say my prayers that night.  I just sang the Doxology three times
+as loud as I could and jumped into bed.  Praise is prayer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+I have been here four weeks to-day.  If there are any people in or
+around Twickenham Town that I do not know, it is because they are not
+knowable.  I love people, and, being naturally sociable and not very
+particular, I have had a perfectly grand time making acquaintances with
+the high and the low and, the in-betweeners; and the sick and well, and
+the dear and the queer, and the ancestrals and up-comers, and the rich
+and the poor, and every other variety that grows; and now I am as
+familiar with most of the family histories as the oldest inhabitant.
+That's the nice part of living in a small place.  Something depends on
+you and you depend on all the rest of the town, but at home you're lost
+in numbers and only a few know you're living.  Here everybody knows,
+also they know some things that perhaps had better be unknown.  As for
+talk, they are the best talkers on earth, and there's no subject under
+the sun they won't talk about.  It's an inheritance, Father says, and
+has been handed down from ages past, and, though they don't read very
+much, they can do more with a little knowledge than most learned people
+with their information, and they make anything they mention interesting
+from the way they mention it.  I love to hear them, and I've heard a
+good deal.
+
+Dear, precious Miss Susanna in the secrecy of my bedroom gave me a
+little talk a few nights ago, and said she hoped I wouldn't mind, but
+as I was young and inexperienced she thought it her duty to tell me
+that I must be careful and not too informal, for certain people
+wouldn't understand; and that while the Holts were a very good,
+respectable family, still they were not--  She stopped and coughed a
+little, and of course I understood, but I pretended I didn't, and told
+her they were perfectly healthy and I had had more fun with the Holt
+children than with any in town, but if she preferred they should not
+come to her house to see me I would just stop in theirs sometimes, as I
+would not like them to think I was afraid to go with them.  I wasn't,
+for while I knew they were not historic, they were the most interesting
+children I'd ever seen, and it seemed pretty cruel that they were left
+out of things because they didn't have forefathers to hang on to, or
+money, which of course would speak for itself.  And dear, angelic Miss
+Susanna, who is so worn out with boarders and their special kind of
+human-nature horridness at times that she's hardly got body enough to
+cover her soul, said I mustn't misunderstand her, but the Holts had
+never gone in the same circles as the other people I had met, and that
+customs, though unkind, were hard to overcome, and the oldest son--
+
+I told her not to worry about the oldest son.  He could go anywhere he
+wanted and with any one he wanted by the time he was through college,
+which his parents were working themselves to death to send him through,
+and it was very probable that several girls in town would be glad to
+add their grandfathers to his natural endowments before many years were
+over.  But if she didn't care for me to accept his attentions, as Miss
+Araminta Armstrong called them, I could always have an engagement when
+he asked me to go anywhere.  She looked so shocked and distressed that
+I told her I didn't approve of telling stories any more than she did,
+and for most sorts people ought to be branded, but I'd much rather tell
+one of that land than hurt a person's feelings.  And it wouldn't be
+untrue to say I had an engagement, for I always had one to go
+everywhere and anywhere, even if I didn't keep it; and again she
+coughed and looked so pained that I took her in my arms and whirled
+around the room with her and told her not to worry about me, either.  I
+wouldn't disgrace her by knowing the wrong people too well, but
+everybody had their peculiarities and one of mine was I was going to
+know anybody I wanted to.  I always thought a lady could, and, besides,
+I liked any kind of person who was interesting, and the best born ones
+were often very stupid, which of course was the wrong thing to say.  So
+I had to give her another whirl, and by the time she got her breath it
+was time to see about supper, and she has never referred to the subject
+since.
+
+Miss Susanna is a darling little lady of the old school (whatever the
+old school was) and I love her, but I am of my time as she is of hers,
+and I don't see her way any more than she sees mine.  She ought to wear
+hoop-skirts and brocaded silks and lace fichus and mits, and sit with
+her beautiful hands folded in her lap and her tiny little feet on a
+footstool, and instead she works from morning to night trying to help
+the good-for-nothingest servants that were ever hired by tired ladies,
+except Uncle Henson, and Aunt Mandy, the cook, who have been with her
+for years and years.  She's worn out.  That's what's the matter with
+Miss Susanna, and that selfish, lazy little piece of pinkness who is
+now away doesn't lift her hand to help her unless it is to make a cake
+occasionally.  I don't know how to make cake and never expect to know,
+as very good kinds can be bought, but I can wash dishes.  I do it every
+morning and she dries them, so limp Eliza can go up-stairs and clean up
+the bedrooms, and we have a beautiful time talking about what a change
+comes over human beings when they board.  That is, I do the talking and
+she shakes her head at me, but it does her good, as it gives sound to
+things she can't say.  Most of her time has to be spent in thinking
+what to put in people's stomachs and fixing it to be put; and, from the
+quantity that goes in, boarders must have much better appetites than
+people who keep house.  They eat and yet are never full.  There'll be
+no hope of heaven for me if I ever have to keep boarders.  I'd sweep
+them out with a broom certainly once a week.  That is, in my mind, if
+my hands didn't.  But Miss Susanna will never sweep them out.  The
+sanctuary in which I let out for her is the pantry, and all the things
+she won't say I say for her.  Yesterday she laughed so she broke a cup.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Father is coming to-morrow!  I am so excited and happy that to-day,
+after I was safely out of Twickenham Town and there was no one to see
+me, I stood up on Skylark's back and held the bridle with one hand and
+waved the other in the air; and then I tried standing on one foot with
+the other one out, but I came near losing my balance and just did catch
+myself in time.  Seeing a woman coming down the road in a buggy, with a
+baby in her lap, I got back in place before she saw what I was doing,
+but I needn't have done it, for it was just Mrs. Pettigrew, and she
+wouldn't have cared whether it was my head or my heels which were on
+the horse.  She has eleven children and no husband to speak of, and
+what people do or don't do doesn't bother her.  We stopped for a little
+talk and she told me about the roof leaking and the pig eating the
+baby's bonnet which Miss Katie Spain had given it last Christmas, and
+which was too small for its head, but was all it had; and that a kettle
+of soft soap had fallen off the stove and burned two toes of Sammy, the
+next to the youngest boy, and she would still be telling me things, but
+I told her Father was coming and I had to attend to something, and so
+she drove on.
+
+I did have something to attend to, but I didn't attend right away, for
+the day was so wonderful I couldn't go in for a long time.  The
+sunshine looked as if it had been washed and ironed, it was so clear
+and clean and crisp, and the wind in the trees said all sorts of lovely
+things to me, and I made up my mind that, no matter what happened in
+life, I was always going to remember that warm and sweet and sunny
+things are sure to come again, if at times they seem dead and buried,
+and that I would try not to see the cranks and queernesses of people as
+much as I was by nature inclined to do; and then I went right back to
+Miss Susanna's, and before I knew it I had said something I oughtn't,
+and to Mr. Willie Prince.
+
+Every time I see Mr. Willie I thank God he is no relation of mine.  He
+is the only man boarder in the house, which is another thing to be
+thankful for; but, though he is hard to stand, he is nearly sixty and a
+human being, and I ought to remember what I forget and yesterday I
+didn't remember.  He was the only son of his mother and should have
+been a daughter, and in trying to make him one his maternal parent
+succeeded better than in anything else she ever attempted, Miss Bettie
+Simcoe says--and she ought to know, being his first cousin.  His
+business is telling people what they don't want to hear; and, though he
+doesn't do any work, a hound dog couldn't run a rabbit down quicker
+than he can a piece of gossip, and when he isn't sitting on somebody's
+front porch fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan, from which he is
+never separated in summer, he is down at the drug-store hearing and
+being heard.  He thinks he is handsome, and he is as proud of his pink
+cheeks as a goose of her gander, and I'm sure he puts something on them
+on cool days.  If he could wear some blue ribbon on his sandy hair and
+have trousers and coats to match his fancy vests he would be perfectly
+happy.  As a man he is a poor job, but as a Miss Nancy he is perfect,
+and when yesterday I came in from my ride he made me so mad that I
+popped out something I shouldn't have popped and before I knew I was
+going to do it.
+
+He was sitting on the porch when I came up, fanning as hard as he could
+fan, and as I went by he stopped me.  "I would advise you to be more
+careful when you go in wading at the creek, Miss Kitty," he said, "It
+isn't customary for young ladies in Twickenham Town to do such things
+and--"
+
+"And where I came from it isn't customary for gentlemen to follow young
+ladies and see what they do," I said, and the minute the words were out
+I knew I shouldn't have said them, for his face got as red as a beet
+and he jumped up and walked into the house.
+
+I don't know that he really followed Sallie Sclater, who's a visiting
+girl, and myself to see if we went wading, but we certainly went and
+had a good time doing it, though we had to dry our feet with my
+petticoat.  But from the way his face went he must have made it
+convenient to walk in that direction and must have seen us, or he
+wouldn't have known anything about our going, as we were careful to
+look around before we took off our shoes and stockings.  I can't endure
+him, but he is nearly sixty and I am only sixteen, and I shouldn't have
+spoken as I did; and possibly because I was so happy over Father's
+coming I told him last night that if I had said anything I shouldn't I
+hoped he would forget it and I, too, would forget what had been said.
+And that, of course, I knew gentlemen in Twickenham Town never did
+anything gentlemen shouldn't, and that my quickness of speech was
+always getting ahead of me; and he looked so relieved that I am
+perfectly certain he followed us.  But, anyhow, he was very pleasant
+last night and told a scream of a story about poor little Miss Lily Lou
+Eppes when she thought she had a beau.  She had almost landed him when
+he got away.  He's never been heard from since.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+It's over--Father's visit is.  He has been gone a week, and it will be
+a whole month before he can come again.  He has to divide up between
+Mother and the girls and me, and he can only get away once in two
+weeks, because his partner is ill and business has something the matter
+with it and has to be watched, which is why he could stay only four
+days in Twickenham Town.  I don't see why fathers have to work so hard,
+and why wives and daughters must have so many unnecessary things, and
+such big houses and so many new clothes and automobiles and parties and
+pleasures, which aren't real fun after you have them.  But most women
+seem to want them, and keep on scrambling for what other people
+scramble for, and only a few have sense enough to see how foolish it
+all is and stop.  Maybe they are wound up so tight they can't stop.  I
+don't know.  I only know I do not want to live the life a lot of women
+I know live, and I am not going to do it.
+
+I wish Father could see it the way I do--about working so hard, I
+mean--and I think he might, for he says I am a chip off the block and
+he is the block, and in almost everything we feel alike; but there's
+Mother and the girls, who care for things I don't care for, and of
+course they must have them.  He gives them everything they want, but he
+looked so awfully tired the day he came I could think of nothing else
+the night he left, which is why I cried so under the sheet, and then
+when the tears were out and I felt lighter I got up and wrote him a
+long letter and told him I loved him so it hurt, and that he was the
+best and dearest father on all this big, big earth, and if he would let
+me come and keep house for him I would fly back.  But he wouldn't let
+me come.  He wrote me a letter, though, that I shall keep with my
+treasures, and I wish what he said was so.  It isn't so.  He just
+thinks it, but it does your heart good to know somebody cares an awful
+lot about you and no matter what you do is going to stand by.  What he
+wrote me was this:
+
+
+_Dear little Nut-brown Maid all mine, of course you would come, but you
+mustn't.  It is too hot and you need what you are getting, and nothing
+could help me here so much as to know of that wonderful color of yours
+and that you are so well and strong again.  That you are getting health
+and happy memories for the winter of work and study ahead is the best
+tonic I can take, and every morning when I go to my desk I get out that
+little picture of you and, nobody being by, I kiss it and send you my
+love, and it is a breath of life-giving air to know you are mine.
+Since the first time I saw you--you were exactly one hour old and
+laughing even then--you have been the joy and delight of my heart, and
+I can't afford to run any risk with summer heat and the joy of my
+heart.  I didn't deserve you, for I wanted a son so badly, and was
+fearfully disappointed that you were not a boy.  You seemed to
+understand and did not get mad about it, and I've often wanted you to
+know that no son could mean to me now what my little harum-scarum
+daughter means.  There has never been a day since you first looked into
+my eyes that I haven't thanked God for you, and the thing I am most
+afraid of in life is that you may get sick or not be strong, and that
+is why I am so glad for you to be in such a charming old place as
+Twickenham Town.  You were wise, little daughter of mine, to choose so
+quaint and queer and dear a place in which to spend your summer, for
+there real things still count, and there is more time for the fine
+courtesies of life, and the hurry and rush of it, the push and scramble
+for place and power, is out of key with its quiet serenity and the
+poise that comes from a sense of values that by many of us is to-day
+forgotten.  I am coming back as soon as I can, for I, too, want the
+refreshment and novelty of being where money is not talked and
+apologies never made for the absence of things that money gets.  Miss
+Susanna Mason is a liberal education in herself and no "Course in
+Culture" could equal the advantage of being in her society.  I have
+written her, of course, but tell her again of my sense of privilege,
+and my great pleasure, in being a guest in her home, and remember
+always you are in your father's heart.  Always he is thinking of you._
+
+
+Now wasn't that a nice letter to get from a father?  I'm nothing to be
+thankful for; but, if he thinks I am, I am thankful for that, and it
+makes life a different thing to know somebody is thankful for you.  And
+another thing I think would make life nicer, make working and living
+not so hard, is to tell people you like them and you believe they are
+trying to do their best, even if their best is powerful poor.  Of
+course, all people don't try to do their best.  Some are by nature and
+practice mean and horrid and ought to have facts handed out to them,
+but most people try to do right, and maybe they would try harder if
+they got a little encouragement now and then.  Anyhow, I've often
+noticed it makes a person take fresh hold again for somebody to give
+them a lift in the way of a friendly word or so, and it doesn't cost
+much--kindness doesn't.  I wonder why we don't have more of it.
+
+The reason why Father liked Twickenham Town so much was that nobody
+talked business to him, and if anybody knew he was the head of Bird &
+Roller, bankers and brokers, they never mentioned it to him or talked
+shop at all, and for four days he forgot stocks and bonds and the ups
+and downs of the money-market and let go.  And yet I am almost sure Mr.
+Willie Prince knows all about him--the business part, I mean--and that,
+of course, will mean everybody in Twickenham will know pretty soon.
+The reason I think he knows is that I went into the bank to get a check
+cashed the morning after Father got here, and I saw Mr. Willie sitting
+at a table in a corner of the bank with a copy of Bradstreet open
+before him and his eyes close to it.  I made it convenient to walk up
+to the table and look down at the book, and I saw he was running his
+finger down the letter "B," and when he saw me he shut the book quick.
+I just smiled and passed on.  But not talking business is only one of
+the reasons Father liked Twickenham Town so much.  Another was because
+everybody was so nice to him.  He had so many invitations to dinner and
+supper, and even breakfast, that he was on a dead go from morning until
+night, and he never ate so much in his life as he ate in those four
+days.  It did him good, and he didn't look tired a bit when he left.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The day Father got here was a beautiful day.  The train was due at
+six-thirty in the morning, but it never hurries and has only been on
+time three times since it has been running, and Uncle Henson said there
+was no use getting to the station until seven o'clock, but I told him
+if he wasn't in front of the porch by six o'clock I'd send for Mr.
+Briggs and go down in his automobile, and there was no need to say
+anything more.  Mention automobile to Uncle Henson and his back begins
+to go up just like a cat's.  There are only a few automobiles in town,
+though a good many people have Fords, and several offered to lend me
+theirs, but not wanting to hurt Miss Susanna, who has been sending the
+same carriage to the station for over thirty years, I didn't accept
+their offers, but went down in the coach, as Uncle Henson calls it.
+Its top is still upholstered in a sun-shaped thing which was once
+yellow satin and now tattered and torn, and hardly anybody ever rides
+in it, but when a new boarder comes Miss Susanna always says, in that
+queenly way of hers, "You will take the carriage to the station,
+Henson," and Uncle Henson's old gray head bows as if at royal orders,
+and they do not know they are playing a part that belongs to the days
+that are no more.  That is what Tennyson, I think, calls a time that
+will never be the same again.
+
+Uncle Henson's coachman's coat, long and faded and once brass-buttoned,
+and a battered hat to match, are always put on to meet the train; and
+when he held the door open for Father to get in the old, ramshackle
+thing he did it in a way that could be sold for big money, if manner
+could be bought, and Father got inside with equal elegance.  After he
+was in and Uncle Henson couldn't see him, he looked at me as if to ask
+if I thought it would stand, and I nodded back yes, and slipped my hand
+in his and hugged him again, I was so glorious glad to see him!  He is
+such a splendid Father--my Father is, I am so sorry for girls who
+haven't one like mine, and not one of them has.  He is the only one of
+his kind on earth.
+
+Everybody was on the porch to meet us when we drove up, and Miss
+Susanna gave him such a gracious welcome, and was so sweet and stately
+and quaint and lovely in her white dotted Swiss muslin dress which Miss
+Araminta Armstrong says she has been wearing for six summers, and which
+has the dearest little darns in it, that Father's face got real
+flushed, and once I really believe there were tears in his eyes.  He
+might have been an ambassador at some court who was being received, for
+at no court in Europe could a lady bow as Mrs. General Gaines bows, and
+she gave her best to Father when he was presented.  I don't like her,
+but she certainly is an old swell.  And then Isham (he's Uncle Henson
+and Aunt Mandy's grandson, and totes water all day long from the well
+up into the house, when he isn't playing a Jew's-harp in the sun) came
+out and got Father's bags and things and took them up-stairs, and a
+little later Uncle Henson brought up on a silver tray one of those mint
+juleps, about which Father told Mr. Willie Prince, who made it, that
+the half could never be told, and at eight o'clock we had breakfast.
+Usually Father doesn't take anything at home but grape-fruit and
+coffee, but that morning, and every morning he was here, he ate
+waffles, and batter-bread, and beaten biscuits, and everything else
+Miss Susanna would urge him to try, and he said he couldn't understand
+how he could eat so much.  I didn't tell him, but I think it was
+because of the juleps.  They're the best things for poor appetites ever
+invented yet, Major Hairston says, and he ought to know, being over
+seventy and never having missed taking two a day since he could fix
+them for himself.  After breakfast we talked for a while on the porch,
+and then I took Father out to show him the town.
+
+I wouldn't have taken him out if the day had been hot, but it wasn't
+hot.  It was one of those gorgeous days that sometimes come in summer
+after a thunder-storm and which have the feel and taste of early
+October; and being in the mountains it was cooler on that account, and
+I could see Father breathe deep, and the tiredness began to go away as
+we walked and talked.  That is, I talked.  He tried to at first, and
+then gave up.  Everybody in town knew he was coming--I had told
+them--and they came down from their porches and shook hands with him,
+and said they were so glad to see him and they hoped he was going to
+stay some time, and that they would call as soon as he was rested, and
+a whole lot of other nice things, so that Father almost got flurried,
+he was so pleased and warmed up.  At home he is always hurrying in the
+morning to get to the office, and at night hurrying to get away, and of
+course we don't have neighbors, and it was so queer to find everybody
+so friendly and interested that by the time we got back to Rose Hill he
+looked like another man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+I took him down Princess Street first, of course, and showed him the
+bank and post-office and moving-picture places, and the court-house and
+churches and stores, and specially the drug-store, which is a sort of
+standing-up club for the men; and I told him whose were the offices;
+and Whythe came out of his and spoke to him in a perfectly perfect way,
+and said he hoped he would be permitted to show him some of the things
+of interest in the neighborhood.  And also he said if it was convenient
+to us he would call in a car (Whythe hasn't even a Ford, but he has a
+Twin-Six manner) in the morning and we would drive to Horseshoe Falls,
+and from there go on to Spruce Mountain, where something historic
+happened during the Revolution, I think; and only once when talking did
+he look right in my eyes.  His sent a message, and my heart flopped
+around so it felt like a frog in a can of milk, and, I was so afraid
+Father would hear, I told Whythe we would go with pleasure and were
+much obliged, but we couldn't stop any longer, as there was a good deal
+to see before dinner.  He shook hands twice with Father, who, when he
+was out of hearing, asked me how a young man could leave his business
+in the morning and go riding.  I told him business could always be left
+in Twickenham Town, and he laughed and said he wished he lived in a
+town of that sort.  I wish he did.
+
+We stopped just a minute to speak to Mr. Bugg, who sells vegetables and
+eggs and things, and whose wife has just had twins again, and this time
+has a milk-leg also, and Father shook hands with him and asked about
+the babies, I thinking just in time to tell him to do it, and then we
+had some soda-water at Mrs. Grump's.  It is the most awful soda-water
+in the world, Mrs. Grump's is, but it is wet and cold, and you can sit
+down when drinking it, and while we sat she touched up the town and
+Father nearly fell out of his chair at the way she did it.  If Mrs.
+Grump were for sale, I'd sell everything I own to get enough to buy
+her, for the way she can put into words what she thinks of human beings
+would make a graven image come to life.  She never smiles herself.
+
+After we got through with Princess Street we turned in by Colonel
+Rixby's and then went down by the Baconses' and into The Court, whose
+trees were planted by order of some lordly person, kin to the Aikens
+who have been sitting under the shade of their greatness ever since,
+and then we strolled by the Eppes house, for I wanted Father to see it.
+It is the stateliest old place in town and its garden of old-fashioned
+flowers makes one think the twentieth century is a mistake and ought
+never to have been, but ordinarily I pass it quickly, as I don't care
+for its owners.  The house has perfect lines and the dearest little
+panes of glass in its deep, wide windows; and inside it has big
+fireplaces and beautifully carved woodwork and wonderful old furniture
+and fearful old portraits, and I certainly wanted Father to see
+everything in it, but I didn't expect him to do it, for the House of
+Eppes doesn't admire me any more than I admire it--and then the
+unexpected happened.
+
+As we reached the gate we saw the whole bunch sitting in the wide, cool
+hall--Sister reading aloud, Sister Edwina making tatting, and Miss Lily
+Lou peeling a peach for Mother from a basket on the table beside her,
+and I was going to pass by and just bow to Mother as pleasantly and
+politely as I could (she was the only one who saw us), when to my
+surprise she got up and ordered me to stop by a wave of her hand.  I
+stopped.  She does not approve of me.  She thinks it very indelicate in
+me to accept the attentions of one whose engagement had so recently
+been broken, and, while she will never recover from stupefaction that
+Elizabeth should disagree with her son, she attributed that action on
+Elizabeth's part to lack of sense and does not hesitate to say so, just
+as she has not hesitated to say things about me that were not as
+Christian as they might have been.  She knew, however, what was
+expected of Twickenham Town and that personal feelings were to be paid
+no attention to where politeness was concerned, and with a sort of
+scepter movement she beckoned to me and commanded us to come in.  We
+went.
+
+It is a queer thing how nice disagreeable people can be when they want
+to, and that morning the entire Eppes family (even Sister Edwina, who's
+the limit) were so polite and pleasant that Father never would have
+imagined how cocky and sniffy they usually are.  I behaved as well as
+they did, and when we came away I couldn't remember a thing I had said
+that I shouldn't.  We didn't stay but half an hour.  I wouldn't have
+held out a whole hour, and neither would they, and so, after we had
+seen all the beautiful old things downstairs and been introduced to all
+the painted ancestors, I got away quick, for Miss Anna was showing
+signs I didn't think were safe.  They don't know that they worship
+idols of wood and glass and silver and china, and images in old gilt
+frames, but they do, and the steel trust hasn't money enough to buy
+them.  It's a pity they won't sell a few and put the money in some new
+clothes, for those they wear are a sight to behold.  As we were
+leaving, Mother Eppes invited us to take dinner with her on Sunday in a
+way that was more a command than an invitation and we accepted in a
+manner to match, though inside I was raging to think we'd have to go.
+And then I remembered it would be a regular thriller to be eating at
+the table with Whythe and his family and my family, and I hoped I'd
+remember to call him Mr. Eppes, as down here they do that up to the day
+of the marriage, the first name being thought too familiar until after
+the ceremony, and even then in public.  Grace Marvin, who is engaged to
+Richard Clarke, calls him Dick, but that is because she isn't
+ancestral; just accepted, Mrs. Grump says, and she knows, being
+familiar with the history of everybody in town.
+
+They were perfect days, the four Father spent in Twickenham Town, and
+he was made over when he went away.  Every morning Mr. Willie Prince
+sent him up a mint julep that started the day so cheerfully he was
+happy through its every minute; and Major Roke, who makes the best ones
+in town, would come for him at twelve o'clock and take him to his
+house, and Mr. Letcher always managed to get hold of him about six in
+the afternoon, and at bedtime some one else would send one in.  And
+poor Father, who never drinks anything at home, it not being good for
+him, was in an awful state of mind at first, and then he decided he
+would rather die than hurt the feelings of the senders and he'd take
+the chance on his health.  He took.
+
+I'm a fighting disbeliever in whisky, and if I had any say I'd say it
+couldn't be made except for sickness, but you couldn't get certain
+Twickenham-Towners to believe it is a dangerous thing, and to take a
+little something for the stomach's sake is a recommendation in the
+Bible they approve of and obey.  It doesn't seem to kill people here or
+some would have been a long time dead, but there are one or two it is a
+pity it hasn't killed.  It does much worse than kill; it ruins.  I hope
+next time Father will say the doctor doesn't permit him to touch
+anything.  I didn't tell him so, of course, and I am afraid he will
+manage not to see the doctor before he leaves; but, anyhow, the morning
+and night juleps can be thrown out of the window after a sip to get the
+smell on if he wants to throw.  I wouldn't take a bet that he will
+want, but I'm hoping.
+
+I didn't see much of Whythe while Father was here--that is, by himself.
+He was awfully nice to Father and he liked him very much (Father liked
+Whythe, I mean), but he couldn't understand why he didn't get more of a
+move on and make business for himself.  I told him in Twickenham Town
+people waited for business to come to them, and everybody knew Whythe
+was a lawyer, and if they needed his services they would let him know,
+and if they didn't there was no use waiting around, which was why he
+was out of his office so much of the time.  And then Father asked me
+when I had heard from Billy and when he was coming home; and, thankful
+to change the subject, I told him all I knew and got out the cards and
+showed them to him.
+
+We had so many things to talk about--Mother and the girls and the home
+people and things, and the people he had met in Twickenham Town--that
+he hadn't talked about Billy, and when I showed him the cards he said
+Billy must have mighty little to do but write them, as there were
+fifty-six and he hadn't been gone but five weeks.  He seemed to think
+that right many, so I didn't say anything much about his letters, which
+are long and once a week, but told him Billy would sail on September
+16th, and get back before I did--that is, if I stayed until the 27th.
+He said I could if I wanted to, and that he would come down for the
+last week and take me back with him, and I was so happy I swirled him
+around in my arms and danced a dance I made up as I went along, and
+both Billy and Whythe Eppes were out of his mind when he stopped for
+breath.  And that night he went away.  Also that night I almost cried
+my eyes out for sorrow at his going and for gladness that he was my
+Father.  I wonder if all girls love their fathers as I love mine!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+Billy has been pretty good about writing.  Much better than I have
+been.  I told him I would tell him all about Twickenham and the people,
+and what they did and how they did, and I intended to do it, but that
+is my chief trouble.  I'm a grand intender and a poor doer.  Billy
+never promises and always does.  He sends cards from every place, he
+goes to, and a good many from the same place so I can see what he is
+seeing, which I couldn't do if he wrote a book of descriptions.  He
+doesn't tell much about the cities and towns, most of which I have been
+in myself and am glad he leaves out, but he writes awfully interesting
+things about the places he pokes into by himself and the people he
+meets, and I almost die laughing over his accounts of his sister and a
+beau his mother has caught for her.  She is a dandy-looking girl, his
+sister is, and wears the smartest clothes I ever saw except Florine's,
+and if Patricia has really landed a duke or a count or a thing of that
+sort, his mother will have a wedding that will fit the fellow all
+right.  He's apt to be landed.
+
+I never have understood how Billy was born of his parents.  He cares no
+more for flum-foolishness than I do, which is why we have so much fun
+over the efforts certain mothers we know make to help their daughters
+get married, and we've decided to be failures as social successes and
+enjoy ourselves.  My mother isn't at all like his mother.  She is a
+precious mother, mine is, and adores Father and her children, but she
+is in the parade and has to keep step, not having courage to get out,
+and she thinks she must give her daughters every opportunity, and for
+daughters in Mother's world opportunity means marriage.  Until she gets
+us settled she won't feel as if her duty had been done.  That's why she
+has gone with Florine and Jessica to the same place Florine went to
+last summer with the Logans.  Florine has had a good many beaux, but
+none of them has been just what she had set her mind on, and last
+summer she met a man I believe she fell in love with.  Anyhow, she has
+gone where it will be convenient for him to see her if he wants to, and
+he must want, as Mother says in every one of her letters that Mr.
+Jeffry has just come or just gone.  He came to see Florine last winter,
+and a blind person could tell he was worth having.  I hope they will
+take each other.  Mother would be so pleased.  Jessica and I are not
+apt to do much for ourselves in the marrying line, so it is left to
+Florine to make the catch.
+
+She is very beautiful, Florine is.  She knows it and she loves
+beautiful things and wouldn't think of marrying any one who could not
+give them to her.  She wouldn't marry a man who isn't decent and
+straight and all that, not being that kind, but neither is she
+romantic, and nothing on earth could make her lose her head.  She is
+cool and deliberate and far-seeing, and not apt to ask herself too many
+questions about love alone when thinking about marriage.  She is a
+dream to look at, which Jessica isn't, but I love Jessica best.
+
+Last night in bed I got to thinking about old Jess, and wondering how
+she was making out with that bunch up there, and I almost rolled out at
+the way her nose must be turning up inside of her at some of the things
+she was seeing and hearing and had to take part in; and I laughed so
+loud that Miss Susanna came in my room to see if anything were the
+matter.  I told her no, and that I was just thinking of something, so
+she pattered back, and I put my face in the pillow to keep her from
+hearing me again.  But it was hard not to let it come out.  Mother's
+daughters are a mixture all right, and no more alike than if they
+weren't related to one another.  Being a parent must be an anxious job.
+I hope I will have a dozen children, but they'll probably be right much
+to manage.  If I turn out to be a childless old maid, I'll adopt a boy
+and girl, anyhow.  I can do that if I can't do anything else.
+
+Jessica is the clever one of our family.  Florine has the beauty and
+Jessica the brains, and so far nothing has shown signs in me, but
+something may turn up yet.  Jessica is an A.M., and she has Ideas and
+Views and Opinions which she isn't stingy with and lets anybody have
+who is within hearing, and she wanted to be something, have a Career
+and get an Identity, which she says a woman has no chance of doing as
+long as she sinks herself in marriage; but Father said she couldn't go
+to any more colleges until she had had a fling at fun, for it wasn't
+fair to Mother.  She came out last winter and had a fearful rush
+because she was so different from the other girls.
+
+I don't believe Jessica would ever have wasted a winter doing the
+things she did last year if she hadn't wanted to see for herself what
+was in it, anyhow, in society I mean, so she took a header and plunged
+all right.  She says she has a scientific and analytical mind and she
+worked it all out--the number of hours and days and weeks and months
+she had spent flopping around from one party to another, and doing the
+things she was supposed to do, and saying the things she wasn't
+supposed to say, and then she estimated the cost in time and strength
+and money and wear and tear on her character, and announced that it
+wasn't a paying business, and at the end of the year she was going to
+get out.  The year won't be up until October and that is why she is
+with Mother and Florine this summer.
+
+What she is going in for when it is up I don't believe she knows
+herself, yet.  She says woman to-day is in the most unsettled and
+uncertain state that any animal has ever been in since the first one, a
+mollusk, or something without a backbone started to get one.  And that
+it will take time for woman to evolute into being the best kind of a
+human being she is capable of becoming, and that the next step in the
+evoluting is to get out of her head some of the foolishness put in it
+by men people who didn't know what they were talking about.  Mother
+thinks it fearful in her to talk as she does, and can't understand how
+she can be so daring and so indelicate as to speak about coming from
+mollusks and things which don't have spinal columns and nervous
+systems, but Jessica says that is because Mother belongs to a day that
+didn't know about such things, and that the modern woman is shedding
+the shucks which have kept her a caterpillar much longer than was
+necessary.  A good many old ideas she thinks are shucks--that is, she
+pretends to; but she is an old dear just the same, if she does say
+things about people which it isn't polite to say.
+
+I love old Jess.  She isn't but twenty-two, and she will be less sniffy
+some of these days and not so scornful and impatient with repeaters and
+parasiters and people like that, but just now she says they aren't
+worth wasting time on.  She can talk you right into seeing her way, and
+the first thing you know you are agreeing with her, and she has landed
+you before you realized the net was out.  Landed outsiders, I mean.
+She will never land Mother and Florine.  I love to hear her talk,
+though I don't think I am going to be a Careering person.  I'd like to
+be one, but with a dozen children I am afraid there won't be time.  I
+wouldn't tell old Jess, but I don't think she is going to Career very
+long, either.  I believe she is in love with the man who taught her
+some of the ologies she is so interested in.  He is awfully nice, but
+not very practical.  He is a psychological sociologist or a
+sociological psychologist, I don't know which, but it doesn't matter.
+If Jess marries him she will run him and the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+I wonder what made me get on the subject of my sisters when I began
+with Billy and the reason I had not written him as often as he has
+written me, but that is the way I do everything in life.  If I were a
+preacher I wouldn't hold my job long, for the thing I started on would
+have about as much connection with the thing I ended with as the moon
+with milk.  Not that that would be unusual, for a good many ministers
+have the same failing and skip about just as I do, but my trouble would
+be in hopping from one subject to another so fast that the congregation
+would be in Jericho one minute and in Jerusalem the next and never know
+how it made the jump.  As I am never going to be a preacher, I am not
+worrying about my unfitness to be one, but what does worry me sometimes
+is that my hopping habit will be my ruination when I begin to write a
+book.  My characters will never keep together, or do the proper things
+or say suitable ones.  They will probably get so jumbled up no one will
+be able to tell which is the chief hero or heroine, and there will be
+no logical development at all, which my English teacher insists is an
+elemental requirement of fiction if it isn't of life.  I thought this
+summer I was going to begin some sort of book just for practice, but by
+the time I get through putting down the things I scribble about the
+day's doings, and write to Father and send my weekly letter to Mother
+and the girls, and run off something every now and then to Billy, and
+answer the notes I get from Whythe and some of the kiddies around here
+who think they're grown, I don't feel like writing on a book, which is
+why I haven't begun one yet.  I will never be able to write one that
+tells of dark deeds and treacherous doings and love-sick lovers, or one
+which has suspended interest or rapid action and narrow escapes, for I
+know very little of such things, and I will never do much with plots.
+The people I know do not have very exciting lives and here in
+Twickenham they trot along and do the same thing over and over, and one
+day is very much like the other, so there isn't much inspiration for a
+thriller, and thrillers are the style in books to-day.  That is one
+reason I thought I had better wait until the style changes and while
+waiting enjoy myself with the people here who know how to do that
+better than any people on earth.  I'm enjoying myself all right.
+
+Of course, now that I am in love, I could write volumes on how
+scrumptious it is and how floppy I feel whenever I see Whythe,
+especially when he keeps his deep, dark eyes on me as if he were trying
+to read my soul when we happen to meet at the foot of the hill and sit
+on the worm fence for a while.  I don't think he is trying to really
+read my soul, for he isn't much on reading anything, but he certainly
+can say beautiful things.  They aren't so, but they sound well, and I
+must admit I enjoy hearing them.  They make me feel so grown-upy, and
+then, too, it will be a great help when I begin my book to remember
+what a man says on certain occasions and how he says it.  They are
+natural couriers, the men in this town are, but they don't always mean
+to be taken in earnest, and Mr. James Burke came near getting in an
+awful mess by paying a girl a lot of compliments he oughtn't to have
+paid, he being a married man and she not knowing it.  She was a very
+serious person and believed all that was told her and came near
+breaking her engagement with another man on account of the pretty
+speeches Mr. Burke made to her.  She was from Rhode Island and visiting
+May Strudwick, who told her for mercy's sake not to pay any attention
+to speeches of that sort and to hold on to the Rhode-Islander, for Mr.
+Burke said the same fluff to all the girls who came to Twickenham, and
+as long as it was just eyebrows and things of that kind no harm was
+done.  But she couldn't understand and went home sooner than she
+expected.  I understand.  It's lots of fun--the different ways of
+saying the same thing--and all enlightenment is advantageous.
+
+A few nights ago Whythe got fearfully sentimental and said all sorts of
+thrilly, foolish nonsense, and the way he said it certainly added to
+its enjoyment.  He's a corking courter, and if he could teach the way
+he does it he would have crowded classes all right.  We were at Bessie
+Debree's party, and just before supper we went out on the side porch,
+which has bushels of roses on it and no lights, and sat down on a
+rustic bench in the corner where we could hear the music and see the
+moon and not be seen, and the minute we sat I knew what was coming.
+
+Whythe put his elbow on the back of the seat and, chin in the palm of
+his hand, looked at me as if we were on a desert island and there was
+no one else in all the world but me, and he would ask for no one else
+if I alone was there; and then with his other hand he tried to take out
+of my fingers a rose he had just pulled and given me.  I remembered in
+time that Jess had told me to keep my hands to myself if anybody seemed
+interested in them, so I put the rose on the bench and sat on my hands
+and asked him if he did not think Marjorie Graham a perfectly beautiful
+person; and he said he hadn't noticed her sufficiently to know what she
+looked like, as he never saw but one face now.  And then he leaned a
+little closer and asked me if I knew how wonderful I was and what my
+eyes could do to a man's heart if I would only let come in them what
+could come, and which he hoped would some day come only for him; and I
+asked him what it was, not knowing, as it had never been mentioned
+before, and he said it was a thing a man would die for.  And then he
+took the rose up and put it to his lips and asked me if I would marry
+him; asked me if I could never care for him as he cared for me, for he
+knew now that he had never really loved before, and if I would promise
+to marry him he would be in heaven, his happiness would be so great.
+
+It was perfectly thrilling, much better than anything I have ever seen
+on the stage.  He tried to get one of the hands I was still sitting on,
+but I thought I had better not let him have it, as we were not engaged,
+and Jess had said no affectionaries until you are engaged.  And then,
+too, I remembered he had probably said the same things several times
+before, he seemed so familiar with them, and I had a feeling that Billy
+was standing by, perfectly disgusted, but ready to fish me out if I
+fell in.  I came pretty near falling, and then I told Whythe I wouldn't
+be through college until I was twenty and I didn't believe in waiting
+for anything on earth for four years, and though it was awfully nice in
+him to ask me to marry him, my father would have fits if he thought I
+was listening to him do it, and that we had better go in.
+
+I wish I had had a kodak and could have snapped the look that came over
+his face when I suggested going in.  He was perfectly astonished.  Also
+he was indignant and grieved and the look he bent upon me was truly
+burning.  As for his voice--Sothern couldn't have surpassed it.  After
+a while he said he thought I had more sympathy, more understanding of a
+love such as his, and if I realized its depth I would not keep him
+waiting four years, as four years at college was all nonsense for a
+woman; and then he got my hand, anyhow, and I jumped up, for somebody
+was coming, and, besides, if we hadn't gone in we'd have been in an
+argument right off, with love left out, on the subject of education and
+women.  I did not want him to think I was not appreciative, however,
+and though I went in with Mr. Keane, who had come for his dance, I gave
+Whythe a little look that was not unfriendly as I left him.  I am
+afraid it was not even discouraging, but he seemed so mysterious and
+tragic and amazed that I should leave him at such a critical time that
+I thought a little look wouldn't hurt.  I noticed, as we reached the
+door, that he was lighting a cigarette, and I knew his feelings would
+soon be soothed.  Man has no sorrow that smoking may not cure.
+
+When we went home that night other people were in the automobile (I
+always see that that happens, knowing how Mother would feel about it)
+and Whythe, of course, had no chance to continue a former conversation,
+but his silence said a lot, and when he helped me out of the car he
+helped much more than was necessary and held my hands so tight he
+nearly broke my little finger; and the look he gave me was a thriller
+all right.  Every time I've thought of it since my heart has thumped so
+I know I must be in love, for all books say that is a reliable symptom.
+Being proposed to is awfully interesting, and the reason I like it so
+much is that I am not apt to have many proposals of Whythe's sort, as
+that kind has gone out of fashion, owing to golf and tennis and country
+clubs and so much association.  Plain statement is about all a girl
+gets nowadays, I am told.  Jacqueline Smith told Florine Mr. Smith had
+wired her he had to go to South America and asked her if she would
+marry him and go with him, and she wired back she would, and that was
+all the courting they had, though they seem very happy.  And a girl
+Jess knows said the man she married had asked her how he stood with
+her, that she stood all right with him, and that was the way they knew
+they cared for each other.  But I'm not that sort.  I am very romantic
+and I like a lot of words, which is why I am just crazy about Whythe's
+letters.
+
+If Whythe doesn't make a success of law or politics he could certainly
+make a living writing letters of a certain sort.  He's an expert at
+them and greatly gifted, and though I don't say much in mine, thinking
+it safer to telephone than write, I do tell him that his are perfectly
+lovely, at which he doesn't seem displeased.  He still begs me to marry
+him, and is so fearfully polite about it that I don't like to ask him
+what he has to marry on, and so far as I know he has only nerve and his
+mother's home.  I would not like to spend eternity as a maiden lady,
+but I'd much rather so spend it than dwell under the vine and fig-tree
+of the person who would be a mother-in-law to Whythe's wife.  My heart
+goes out to Elizabeth every time I think of the fate that will
+eventually be hers.  Also it goes out to the House of Eppes.  When
+opposing elements meet something usually happens.  I'm betting on
+Elizabeth, but I may be wrong.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Jehoshaphat the Golden!  For two days Twickenham Town has been standing
+on its head and wriggling its heels in the air, and nothing has been
+talked about since it appeared except its appearance.  Every tongue in
+town has had its say, and everybody in town has been on somebody else's
+porch and talked it over; and as for Miss Susanna, I believe she cried
+the whole night through, last night.  The first night she was too dazed
+to take it in.  The Twickenham Town _Sentinel_ had it on its front page
+in the middle column in letters indecently large, Miss Bettie Simcoe
+says, and it certainly did make a sensation: "Mrs. Roger S. Payne
+announces the engagement of her niece Elizabeth Hamilton Carter to Mr.
+Algernon Grice Baker, of Perryville, Wisconsin," was what the
+Twickenham-Towners waked up and read on Wednesday the 1st of August,
+and if the dynamite-plant which has made business so good for Buzzard
+Brothers, the undertakers, had exploded, it couldn't have caused more
+of a stir.  Twickenham wasn't only amazed; it was indignant, and it
+couldn't believe it was true.  But it was true, for the next day Miss
+Susanna got a letter from Elizabeth, telling her all about her
+engagement and that she would be home very soon and bring him with her,
+and it was the night of the day the letter was received that Miss
+Susanna went early to her room and locked her door for a while (that
+is, my door, for she is sleeping in my room during the August rush) and
+cried all night long.  I had to pretend I didn't know, for she didn't
+want me to know how hurt and distressed she was that Elizabeth should
+have so treated her, and as I didn't sleep any more than she did,
+though, owing to very different feelings about Elizabeth, I made up my
+mind as to some things I would say to her when she got back.  And if
+she has never read "King Lear" I will see that she hears it read before
+very long with a glossary, and comments of my own on ingratitude and
+things of that sort.  Also she may hear some other things.
+
+I have been perfectly furious with Elizabeth for the way she has
+treated the aunt who has been mother and father and all things else to
+her, but I can't help laughing at the way Twickenham Town has taken the
+engagement.
+
+As for Whythe--I have wished for Billy a dozen times of late, for only
+Billy could see what a scream it is, the shock to Whythe's vanity that
+Elizabeth's beau is proving.  I can't speak of it to any one else, and
+keeping it to myself is a great strain.  At first he seemed dazed with
+unbelief, and then he became scorny and sniffy and shruggy and smiley,
+and though he says little about his successor, whom he hasn't seen yet,
+his manner indicates that as a substitute for himself he considers him
+an insult.
+
+Last night at the gate he talked to me about it for a while, and then
+he asked me when I was going to tell him I would marry him, and why was
+it I would not engage myself to him and take him out of his miserable
+state of uncertainty and make him the happiest man in the world, and
+why--  Oh, my granny! he spieled it off so beautifully and his eyes
+helped so wonderfully, also the moon, which was half out and half in,
+that I stayed a little longer at the gate than I should, perhaps, and
+let him say things he shouldn't, but his fluency was so enjoyable I
+couldn't get away.  After a while, however, when he had run down a
+little, I told him I didn't think it would be respectful to what might
+have been if I engaged myself to him, and that sixteen was too young to
+be engaged, and then, too, it wasn't positively certain that a certain
+young person was going to marry another young person just because she
+was at present engaged to him.  At which he got perfectly furious and
+said he would not marry that certain person if she was the only woman
+left on earth; that she had treated him as no lady should treat a
+gentleman, and that she was vain and mercenary and ambitious, and he
+was mortified to think he had ever imagined he had loved so shallow and
+weak and changeable a girl, and--
+
+"But you did love her, didn't you?"  I got up on the gate-post, swung
+my feet down, and put my hands in my lap and out of reach, the post not
+being big enough for two.  "Everybody says you were frightfully in love
+with her and you didn't think she was shallow and weak and mercenary
+until you had the break, and maybe you may change your mind back again
+about her some day, and then where would I be?"  I put my chin in my
+hands and my elbows in my lap and looked down at him, and he looked so
+hurt and surprised that I saw he had not thought of his own real gift
+for changing, and I realized that his attention ought to be drawn to
+some things he was apt to forget.  Quick as a flash, though, he said I
+had opened new worlds to him; that I stimulated and inspired him as no
+one had ever done, and that he would never love any one as he loved me,
+and that he would wait forever if necessary for me.  Also he said he
+would never change back again to a certain person, as she had killed
+his love, and would I not promise to be just his?  And I had to sit
+tight on my hands, his manner was so very imploring; and then, before I
+could say anything, I heard Mr. Willie Prince, who was sitting on the
+front porch, fanning, cough rather loud and come down the steps and
+call Ben, who was barking, and I knew Mr. Willie was doing what he
+thought was his duty, and I got down from the post and told Whythe good
+night.  He went away like the young man in the Bible, very sorrowful,
+and I went in.
+
+It wasn't late, but everybody had gone in except Miss Susanna and Mr.
+Willie, and when I sat down in a rocking-chair Miss Susanna looked at
+me as if she didn't know whether to say anything or not, and I saw she
+was worried.  But before I could ask what was the matter she got up and
+kissed me good night and went in, so I asked Mr. Willie.
+
+He wouldn't tell me at first, though I could see he was dying to do it,
+but after a while he said Miss Susanna was the sort that found life of
+the present day a hard thing to accept, and, fanning himself with his
+palm leaf, he looked at me as if I were one of the reasons she found
+life hard.  "Miss Susanna," he said, "is a lady of the old school where
+love and honor were placed above riches and mere material things, and
+it was a blow to her to find how readily young people could change
+their affections and break their plighted vows and be blind to their
+best interests, which was to keep along the same path and not be
+tempted out of it by passing people and worldly ambitions."  And as he
+talked in his fine little cambric-needle voice that sounded as if it
+came out of a squeaky cabinet, I knew he was meaning more than he was
+saying, and I sat up and listened until he stopped for breath.
+
+"Is that all?" I asked, and got up to go in, "for if it is I don't
+think Miss Susanna need worry herself.  People in one generation aren't
+very different from people in another where self-interest is concerned.
+Everybody knows Mrs. Loraine married her husband for his money, though
+loving Mr. Spence, and Miss Susanna was one of her bridesmaids; and if
+Elizabeth prefers to marry a rich man to a poor one, I don't see
+anything new about that."  And also I said it wasn't likely that love
+and honor were ever going to die out, and a few other things would live
+a long time yet, and he need not bother any more than Miss Susanna
+concerning present-day young people; and then to my surprise he asked
+me to sit down and told me what he enjoyed telling very much.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+"Everybody has been talking about the way Whythe Eppes has been rushing
+you," he began, fanning as hard as he could fan, "and several people
+have been to see Miss Susanna and told her they thought your parents
+ought to know--"
+
+He didn't get any further.  I stopped him.  It was silly in me to get
+hot, but I got hot all right, and in all my life I never wanted anybody
+as I wanted Billy right then at my side.  He doesn't get mad the way I
+do.  He would see that talk he did not like was stopped in two minutes,
+but I was too fighting angry to stop my own tongue, and I said things
+to fat Miss Nancy Willie Prince I oughtn't to have said.  Among them
+that my parents would not have permitted me to come to this town or any
+other if not perfectly certain I knew how to behave myself wherever I
+went, and that whatever was advisable for them to know concerning me
+they would know without the assistance of Miss Bettie Simcoe or Mrs.
+Caperton (she is a frisky little widow who has no use for young girls)
+or any other Twickenham-Towner.  And then, perhaps because he was so
+flustered he didn't know what he was saying, he told me riches were a
+great temptation to any young man, and everybody, of course, knew my
+father was wealthy, though he must say it had not been learned from the
+family.  And that Whythe, being poor from a money standpoint, had
+naturally been tempted, especially as his engagement had been so
+recently broken with a girl he had been in love with since childhood,
+and I, being young, didn't understand and was under the impression that
+young men meant all they said, and--
+
+He would be talking now if I had not stamped my foot and stopped his
+rambling.  His insinuations sounded as if I were a feeble-minded
+creature and couldn't tell truth from untruth, or know when a man meant
+or didn't mean what he said, and had never heard things of the same
+sort before.  I've heard them before, and in several different places.
+I am a good many things I ought not to be, but I am not feeble-minded.
+I told him--  It does not matter what I told him, but I made him
+understand I could take care of myself without the help of the town,
+and, while I appreciated his effort to keep me from thinking the men in
+Twickenham did not mean what they said, and were not to be relied on,
+and not to be trusted, and that honor was not held very high by them
+where young girls were concerned, it was difficult to believe it, for I
+had been made to understand by others that certain old-fashioned things
+were still held sacred there, and the dangers and temptations of the
+city were absent.  When I saw how red his fat, round face got and how
+squirmy his legs and how hard he fanned I knew I had better go in.  I
+went, but I didn't say good night.
+
+Mad!  Was I mad?  I was.  For a long time I sat by the window and
+talked to Billy in my mind and told him what I thought of men old-maids
+and prissy places and gossipy spinsters and flirtatious widows, and of
+people who didn't have anything to talk of but one another; and then,
+as the moon came out clearer, I seemed to see myself clearer also, and
+after a while it came over me that maybe I had been a little nicer to
+Whythe than was necessary just to see if a man couldn't get comforted
+sooner than he thought.  I had been doing a little scientific
+experimenting along a different way from Jess's way; and then my eyes
+got open wide and I saw what Mr. Willie had been trying to tell me,
+which was that Whythe was probably taking practical consolation and was
+not ignorant of the fact that my Father was not a poor man.
+
+At the thought something got into my backbone and I sat up.  I had been
+fooling myself and didn't know it.  I don't mean I had believed all the
+thrilly love things Whythe had been saying.  They came natural to him
+and he might have said them to some other girl if not to me, but I had
+not dreamed he had any thought of an advantageous alliance, as Billy
+calls the thing his mother is hoping his sister will make, or that any
+one could associate such a thought with me.  It didn't seem possible,
+and I don't believe Whythe is that sort.  Still, men are queer ducks,
+Jess says, and one never can tell what is in the back of their brain
+from the words of their mouth, and if Whythe was imagining I had any
+value outside of my own self I would like to find it out.  How I was
+going to find out I did not know, and when I said my prayers I started
+to pray that a rattling good way would turn up, but I remembered it
+wasn't exactly a thing to pray about and that watching might be better.
+
+I had had a grand time being in love.  Every day there was some new
+evidence of how nice a beau is, and though the other boys didn't let
+Whythe have it all his own way, as they called it, and we had a jolly
+time together and I danced and rode and picnicked and pleasured with
+all of them, still, it was understood that Whythe was my steady and
+they gave him right much chance.  It had been loads of fun having a
+steady, and I knew now how excited Mazie, one of our maids at home,
+must have felt the day she became engaged to hers, who was the milkman.
+But I had somehow thought that nobody but girls of Mazie's sort had
+steadies, and I had wished I could be a maid for a few weeks just to
+find out how it would feel to possess some one and be possessed by him.
+I guess it amounts to about the same thing, though, love does, no
+matter in what way it comes to one or by what name we call it, if it is
+the genuine thing.  I have certainly never felt about Whythe in the way
+Mazie must have felt about her milkman, judging by her face, but I had
+been enjoying myself and I didn't intend to stop with too much
+suddenness.  Mr. Willie had warned me and I would remember, but it is
+against the law to condemn a man unheard.  The Bible says so.  I would
+go slowly for once in my life and give Whythe a chance to conduct his
+own defense.  It wouldn't be necessary to mention that a case was being
+tried or that I would be both judge and jury.  There are times in life
+when it is well to keep some things to oneself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Yesterday it poured in torrents all day.  None of us could get out of
+the house, so while Miss Araminta darned my stockings, which hadn't
+been touched since I came to Twickenham Town, I read aloud to the whole
+bunch in the library and we had a very nice time.  Miss Araminta has
+tried to teach me to darn since I have been here, but she has not
+succeeded in doing it!  I will never be a darner.  I have asked Mother
+not to get me all-over silk stockings, as the Lisle-thread feet last
+much longer, but she doesn't seem to remember, and one of my charities
+is giving my nice stockings away when they can no longer be worn with
+self-respect.  Clarissa, Mother's maid, is supposed to keep them in
+order, but she doesn't do it, and she has headaches so often I don't
+like to say anything to her, with the result that Mother thinks I wear
+out an awful lot, and yet I know she wouldn't want me to wear stockings
+with holes in them.  I found out early in life that it is foolish to
+try to do things you are not by nature fitted to do, and I am not
+fitted by nature to sit still for hours and fill up a little hole in a
+stocking to save a few cents or a dollar or so.  I don't do it.  I
+would rather save in some other way.
+
+Miss Araminta loves to darn.  Also she loves pretty clothes in a way
+that is truly pitiful, not having the means to get them, and she has
+about as much idea how to have her few things made as a Comanche Indian
+has of _vers-libre_.  If she would wear those that suited her style she
+would look dear, but she wears clothes of many colors made, as she
+thinks, in the prevailing fashion, and of course she is a sight for all
+beholders.  While I was reading _Pendennis_ out loud I was wondering at
+the same time what Miss Araminta was going to wear to the reception
+Judge and Mrs. Maclean are going to give to their two married daughters
+and their husbands on the 17th of August, which is the big thing of the
+year for Twickenham Town; but of course I couldn't ask her.  I knew she
+had nothing suitable or that had not been the subject of nudges and
+remarks under the breath, and smiles that could be heard.  And I also
+knew nothing could keep her away, for she dearly loves to go to parties
+and is not often invited, being of an inconvenient age for
+entertainments, and I wished something could come to pass that would be
+to her interest.
+
+As I read I poked around in my mind trying to think what might be done,
+and suddenly something came to me, and after a while I put the book
+down and began to talk of the different things that were going on in
+town and the many visitors who were already there, and then I asked
+Miss Araminta if she didn't think lavender was a lovely color.  She
+said it was the one she loved best and all her life she had longed for
+a lavender satin with everything to match, but she knew now she would
+never have it and she rarely let herself wish for things any more.  And
+she sighed the softest little sigh, like a mother whose baby had died a
+long time ago, but who always kept it in her heart, and I said to
+myself, "Go up-stairs, Kitty Canary, and think out a way," and
+up-stairs I went.
+
+August is The Season in Twickenham Town, and there is hardly a family
+in it that doesn't have company or boarders, or whose sons and
+daughters don't come home for their holiday, and Miss Bettie Simcoe
+says it's perfectly scandalous, the flirting that goes on.  Miss Bettie
+thinks anything matrimonial is close to scandalous, and she is
+continually raising her eyebrows and making a half moon of her mouth at
+what she says is the forwardness and freeness of present-day young
+people.  Miss Susanna always has a crowded house in August.  A Doctor
+Macafee and his wife and two daughters are here from Florida, and a
+Miss LeRoy from New Hampshire, and Judge Lampton and his wife from
+Alabama, and how she manages to put them away is known only to herself.
+
+When I heard she was going to give up her room and take a tiny one in
+the garret I made up my mind I would have an awful dream that night, a
+regular nightmare, that would scare her to death and make her come in
+my room to see what was the matter.  I had it and she came, and I told
+her I was subject to nightmares and ought not to sleep in a room by
+myself, though I hadn't mentioned it before, and I wished she would
+please sleep in mine with me and take the four-poster, which I thought
+gave me bad dreams, as I wasn't accustomed to such high beds.  And if
+she would I would take the cot, as I liked cots much better.  I am
+subject to nightmares, or anything else that is advisable to have at
+the proper time, and if I had known how many people were coming and
+that Miss Susanna was going to give up her room, I would have had one
+before, so she wouldn't think they had come on pretty sudden.  But she
+is not apt to think.  She is a darling little old lady, not brought up
+to think, and now too busy to do it, and she just works herself to
+death with her head up and a smile on her face, and doesn't realize she
+is spending all she makes in good things for the people who come here
+and nearly kill themselves eating.  She never buys herself any
+clothes--that is, until Elizabeth has all she needs--and when I went up
+to my room yesterday to think out a way of getting that lavender satin
+for Miss Araminta, another thought came into my head, which was a black
+satin for Miss Susanna.
+
+Feelings are things one has to be awfully careful about in Twickenham
+Town, and not for a billion dollars put in my pocket would I hurt
+anybody's here, and I couldn't let Miss Araminta or Miss Susanna think
+for a moment that their dresses were not all right, and how to get them
+new ones I couldn't imagine.  I started to pray about it, and then I
+remembered I was in an awful hurry and it would be better to get to
+work, and, going over to the bureau, I opened its top drawer, and there
+looking up at me was my bank-book lying on a pile of handkerchiefs.
+Father had put a very respectable sum of money in the Twickenham bank
+for me and told me to use it whenever I could do it in the right way,
+and he would trust me to find the right way; but though I had tried to
+get rid of some of it, there were few opportunities (so it wouldn't be
+manifest, I mean), and now one popped right up in my face.
+
+For fear it might pop out again I ran downstairs as quick as I could,
+and, seeing Miss Susanna and Miss Araminta were by themselves, I began
+to talk about the Pettigrew children and what they had told me they
+wanted Santa Claus to bring them Christmas.  And that reminded me
+suddenly that Christmas would soon be here, and I told them that in
+August I always began to think about what to get Mother and Aunt
+Celeste, who were my chief Christmas worries, and I wondered if they
+thought I could get something in Twickenham that I could take back with
+me.  I felt, as I talked, that I was on a tight rope forty feet in the
+air and mighty little to balance myself with, but I managed to put in
+words what I wanted to say, and like little angels they fell in and
+never dreamed I had thought the thing out before I spoke.
+
+I told them that Mother and Aunt Celeste had much more than they needed
+in life, and it was hard to get anything new and different for them, as
+there were so many to give them presents, and that I liked to get
+something odd if I could.  The things they were crazy about were old
+silver and old jewelry, especially old settings, and it was hard to
+find them in our town, and I wondered if they could help me get a piece
+of silver like one of Miss Susanna's pitchers for Mother, and a set of
+sapphires like Miss Araminta's for Aunt Celeste.  Also I said I didn't
+want to trouble them and I hoped they wouldn't mind my asking them.
+
+Miss Araminta said no indeed, she didn't mind, and that she had got
+into the state of mind Miss Virginia Hill was in, and she wasn't going
+to keep on keeping a lot of things that were no use just because they
+had belonged to long-dead grandmothers.  And while she wouldn't go as
+far as Miss Virginia, who would sell every ancestor she had for a
+million dollars, she would part with some other things for much less,
+and if I wanted to buy the sapphire set (pin and ear-rings) she would
+be glad to sell them.  She would have to tell me, though, they had been
+her great-grandmother's, and not her great-great's, as the pearls were,
+and that she would take forty-five dollars for them, and if that was
+too much she would take forty.
+
+I almost lost my breath at her good sense, not expecting it, but I told
+her it would be cheating if I paid less than seventy-five for them (I
+had calculated that it would take about that to get the lavender satin
+with things to match), and if she would get them for me I would take
+them right away, and I was awfully obliged to her, as it would be such
+a relief to get Aunt Celeste off my mind.  I admitted I didn't always
+pay as much as seventy-five for her present (I usually give her a
+five-dollar one which Mother pays for), but Father wanted me to bring
+her something quaint from Twickenham if I could find it, and he would
+be delighted to know of the sapphires.
+
+I fiddled along about other things for a moment or two and then I asked
+Miss Susanna if she would think me a very piggy person to want to buy
+one of those precious old silver pitchers of hers, as Mother would love
+so to have one of that pattern (Mother had never mentioned it, but I
+knew she would long for one of that pattern if she could see it), and I
+waited with terrible anxiousness in my heart and a hot face for her
+answer.  Miss Susanna's got a lovely pinky color, and for a moment she
+didn't say anything, and then Miss Araminta spoke for her and showed
+more sensibleness than I thought was in her.
+
+"Why don't you, Susanna?" she said, and nodded at her.  They are first
+cousins and very good friends.  "Why don't you let the child have one
+of those old pitchers?  You have too much silver, anyhow, and with
+servants of the present day any sort of silver is too great a burden to
+be borne, much less ancestral sort.  Young people want to buy their own
+things, and reverence for the past is a thing of the past; and besides,
+you have no one to leave yours to except some one who won't appreciate
+it.  Why don't you let her have it?"
+
+"I would be glad for her to have it.  Glad to help her out with her
+Christmas difficulties, but"--Miss Susanna bit her lip and the pink in
+her face became rose--"I have never done anything of this sort, and it
+does not seem just right.  I would be pleased for her mother to have
+one of the pitchers.  In a sense they are connected with her family as
+our great-great-great-grandmothers were the same, and--"
+
+"Oh, you precious person!"  I jumped up and took Miss Susanna in my
+arms and whirled around the room with her.  I was afraid she would get
+on the grandparent subject, and I didn't want to hear it.  To head her
+off I gave her a squeeze and a skip or two and then I sat her down and
+kissed her, and asked her if she thought seventy-five dollars was
+enough for the pitcher, and if so I would get the checks while Miss
+Araminta got the sapphires.  And before they had time to change their
+minds their things were mine and my money (Father's) was theirs, and we
+were all a little more excited than we were willing to admit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+They are in my trunk, the two Christmas presents, and we have had a
+grand time, Miss Araminta and Miss Susanna and I, buying their party
+dresses and things, and it is as true as Scripture that at times there
+is nothing better for the soul than pretty clothes for the body.  And
+nothing so chirps up a woman as to have on becoming ones that fit and
+are fresh and make her feel she can walk across the floor without
+wishing she had a shawl on.  The way Miss Araminta has bloomed out is
+as amazing as a moon-plant.  And Miss Susanna has such a pleased smile
+on her boarder-tired face that I have been up in the air just from
+looking at her, and the best time I've ever had in my life has been in
+taking charge of their money and spending it for them.  The way they
+agreed to get the dresses was this:
+
+I told them it would be awfully exciting to have a secret and spring a
+surprise on Mrs. General Gaines and Miss Bettie Simcoe and a few others
+in town, and if they were willing I would design a dress for each of
+them and Miss Fannie Cross would make the dresses, which would be of a
+kind to suit their particular styles, and they could have them for the
+party on the 17th.  And if they didn't get them at once something would
+happen to make them spend the money and it would be gone and they no
+better off than before.  And I mentioned that there was the loveliest
+piece of black charmeuse at Mr. Peter Smith's, and that he was
+expecting a piece of lavender satin on Thursday.  I had been to see Mr.
+Peter and the lavender was ordered before I told them it was coming.
+Also a few other things had been ordered by wire, I going with him to
+the telegraph-office to see him do it, being afraid to trust his
+memory, which, like his methods, is right put-offy.  Also I told them
+there would be no time to hesitate.  They got so flustrated at being
+managed and so dazed by the pictures I showed them of the dresses I had
+drawn that they were lambs, perfect lambs.  They let me do everything I
+told them ought to be done.
+
+It was a real relief to them to have some one go ahead and decide
+things and not give them time to think whether they should do this or
+do that, or whether they had not better spend the money some other way.
+Miss Susanna said, feebly, something about the roof needing to be
+fixed, and that the cellar ought to have a new floor, but I told her it
+would be sacrilegious to put a great-grandmother's silver pitcher on
+the roof or in the cellar, and that it would mortify her heavenly
+ancestors to know such a thing was being done, and I was surprised at
+her mentioning it.  The only suitable way in which it would be proper
+to use the pitcher was in something personal, and as I was afraid Mr.
+Peter Smith would sell the satin, it was so lovely and only a little
+more than enough for a dress, I had told him to put it aside and I had
+to let him know that afternoon if it was wanted.  And another thing I
+told her was that all her life other people had been getting her share
+of nice things, and practicalities had eaten up everything pretty she
+had wanted for years, and there was an end to making over, and that she
+owed it to memories of the past to have a new dress for herself and not
+let all the newness always appear on a certain person's back just
+because that certain person happened to be young.  Uncle Henson would
+be at the door with the carriage at four o'clock, I told her, to take
+us down-town, and she must be ready in time, as there was a good deal
+to do.  I wouldn't take a mint of money for the look that came in her
+face as I talked.  I have put it away for low-down days.
+
+As for Miss Araminta--I wish I could write a book and put Miss Araminta
+Armstrong in it.  If the lady who wrote _Cranford_ had known her she
+would have put her in, and it is a loss to literature that no one can
+do again for little places and the Miss Aramintas of life what the
+_Cranford_ writer did.  She has told me right much about herself, and I
+don't smile any more, even to myself, as I couldn't help doing at first
+in the dark when I was so afraid I would roll on the floor and whoop
+that I had to hold on to my chair with both hands.  It is still funny
+to hear her tell of her beaux who never quite came to the point, and
+who were always snatched away at the critical moment by a
+jealous-minded person who was close kin but whose name she never
+mentions.  But it isn't as funny as it used to be.  It's queer how much
+tragedy there is in the comic things of life.  Ever since she was born
+Miss Araminta has been a pieced-and-patched-up person, and never once
+has she had everything new and to match at the same time.  When I told
+her about some of the things that must go with the lavender satin she
+began to cry a little and said she oughtn't to let herself think about
+indulgences of that sort, as her poor brother was not in business at
+present and needed--
+
+"Now look here, Miss Araminta," I said.  "The first preparation you
+have got to make for the party is to forget you have a brother and
+remember your own body, which needs attention.  It has come down from a
+long line of people who took very good care to put expensive things on
+theirs.  And another thing you ought to remember is that if your
+brother didn't know he could call on you every time he lost his job--"
+
+"My brother has never had a job."  Miss Araminta sat up at once and
+wiped her eyes and left, unknowing, a streak of white down a pink cheek
+that turned purple at the word "job."  "He has been unfortunate in not
+being able to retain certain positions he has once held, but his
+health--"
+
+"Rats!"  It came out without thinking, but when a man has a worn-out
+wife and seven children and won't do this and won't do that because it
+is beneath his lordly ideas of what a well-born person should do, it is
+better for me not to speak of him out loud.  I told Miss Araminta she
+must excuse me, but there were some sorts of men I couldn't mention
+with safety and I thought "job" was a very good word, and I would
+rather have one that paid a dollar a day than borrow money to pay my
+bills, and that I'd sweep the streets before I would sit down and do
+nothing if I had a wife and seven children.  The look on her face I
+tucked away, too, to take out on days when there isn't a thing in sight
+to laugh at.  She can't help it, Miss Araminta can't.  She was born
+that way and, not being an evoluting kind, words are wasted when it
+comes to trying to make her see what she doesn't want to see.  There is
+a lot of bummy rot in this world which has nothing to do with the
+proper kind of pride, and it's my belief we are mighty apt to fill the
+place in life we are fitted to fill.  If a dollar a day is all I am
+worth it is all I ought to get until I make myself worth more.  Of
+course if people are feeble-minded that's a different thing.  When they
+are, the State ought to step in and take charge of them in order to
+protect itself, Jess says, and also she says feeble-mindeders always
+have the largest families, and even a feeble-minded person knows that
+is not right.
+
+I didn't mean to hurt Miss Araminta's feelings, but that brother of
+hers is a snuff-the-moon old snob, and I was determined he shouldn't
+get a penny of that sapphire money if I could help it, and I told Miss
+Araminta a few firm facts.  After a while she blew her nose and wiped
+her eyes and I had no further trouble.  But I was afraid to trust
+either her or Miss Susanna with their money, so I took the checks back
+and told them it was better for me to keep them, as money had such a
+queer way of disappearing.  Any that was handy was used when needed,
+and when the time came to get the things the money was for there might
+not be any to get.  They handed it back as meek as little lambs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Miss Susanna and Miss Araminta are crazy about the designs I have
+sketched for their dresses, and so is Miss Fannie Cross.  It is the
+only talent I have, designing clothes is, and if I ever have to earn my
+living I am going to be "Katrine" and have a shop on a fine street and
+charge like old glory for my things.  That will make them wanted, and
+those who think a gown is desirable according to its price can pay
+enough to make up for those who can't pay much, and I'll have a great
+time charging the payers.  I am going to get ready to earn a living,
+anyhow, because every girl ought to, Fathers or Billys notwithstanding.
+Life is a very up-and-downy thing, and it is good to know, should it
+get down, that you can give it a lift up yourself and not have to wait
+for a shover.
+
+It was a private matinee, watching Miss Susanna and Miss Araminta buy
+the things that Mr. Peter Smith had ordered and which they couldn't
+understand his having in stock.  The trimmings and linings and gloves
+and stockings were exactly what was needed and they couldn't get over
+how fortunate it was.  They paid for them themselves, as I had handed
+their money to them when we started out, holding back only enough to
+pay Miss Fannie Cross; but though they took some time to do the buying,
+and felt and smoothed everything they bought and put the satin to their
+cheeks to be sure of its quality, and looked at each other every now
+and then as if what they were doing was wicked, perhaps, but fearfully
+enjoyable, still in two days everything was at Miss Fannie's, and it
+was then I had to be awfully firm with Miss Araminta.
+
+There are some things some women can never take in, and one is that an
+old sheep should never dress lamb fashion.  It was all Miss Fannie
+(she's a corking-good dressmaker for a small place) and I could do to
+hold Miss Araminta down when it came to colors, and the cut of her
+skirt, and some trimmings she wanted to put on the waist.  She thinks
+she loves lavender, but Joseph's coat would have been a colorless piece
+of apparel beside her dress if we finally hadn't sat on her and told
+her certain things couldn't be done.  She was crazy to pile on a bunch
+of ancestral lace, yellow and dowdy; but we told her not much, told her
+freshness and daintiness suited her style much better, and she wasn't
+old enough to emphasize ancestral lace, and she blushed and gave in.
+But nothing would have made her do it if Miss Fannie hadn't thought to
+throw out the age-line.  She caught on and agreed, and after that we
+did not have a great deal of trouble.
+
+Miss Susanna was a little crankier than I thought she was going to be,
+and wanted a practical dress that she could wear anywhere at any time,
+and we had to argue with her a good deal.  I told her a train was the
+thing for her, and I intended to walk behind her the night of the party
+and keep everybody back far enough to see how grand she looked.  When a
+woman is sixty-six and pretty worn, short skirts for evenings are not
+impressive, and, though we didn't mention age, we said finally she owed
+it to her mother's memory to dress in a style suitable to the position
+into which she had been born, and that settled it.  She's the real
+thing, Miss Susanna is.  She doesn't have to play a part.
+
+I had told Miss Fannie on the quiet that the price of making the
+dresses would be doubled if she would have them ready for the 17th of
+August, and they were ready.  Miss Araminta and Miss Susanna thought it
+was a bad example to set, as it might not be just to the other
+Twickenham-Towners to pay more than they could pay, and it stuck Miss
+Araminta pretty deep to hand out more than was necessary.  But I told
+her it was an emergency operation and that kind always came high.  And
+also I told them that Miss Fannie charged entirely too little for her
+work, and it was poor religion to go to church on Sunday and sing
+praises to God and underpay a poor little dressmaker.  They said they
+supposed it was, but I don't think they thought it very reverential in
+me to speak of God in connection with a dress-maker and what she got
+for sewing.  I gave each one a list of their expenditures, with the
+cost of everything on it, and each had a little left over after getting
+their slippers and some sachet powder and a bottle of violet-water
+apiece, and, after all, that brother of Miss Araminta's got a little of
+the sapphire money.  But it wasn't much.  I saw to that.  It's been
+awfully exciting in Twickenham lately.
+
+The event of the year is the MacLean party and the best of everything
+is saved for it, and in itself it makes every tongue in town talk until
+you wonder why tongues are the only things that never tire, and then,
+lo and behold! two days before it came off back comes Elizabeth
+Hamilton Carter, bringing her beau behind her, and off start the same
+tongues on a new lap and no breath taken in between.
+
+I wish Billy could see it, the thing Elizabeth brought back!  He wears
+men's clothes (very good ones) and he is twenty-seven years old, and
+has large hands and feet and ears and a feeble mustache, but as a man
+he isn't much.  He looks like a hatter and is seemingly dumb, and he
+blinks his eyes so continually that no one can tell their color.  Also
+he bites his finger-nails.  I advised Elizabeth to get a beau _pro
+tem._, but I didn't mean anything like that.  If she wants jealousy to
+bring Whythe back to her she should keep something on hand to be
+jealous of.  Elizabeth has an iron will and a copper determination, but
+about as much judgment as a horse-fly.
+
+Miss Bettie Simcoe's eyebrows haven't come down good since the night
+the _engagees_ arrived.  She has an explanation for the situation, as
+she calls it, there never yet being a situation she couldn't explain,
+and she says the engagement is a piece of management on the part of
+Elizabeth's aunt on her father's side, the aunt she has been visiting.
+This aunt is society crazy, and, knowing you can't keep step in society
+without money, she arranged the whole thing.  Anyhow, Elizabeth has a
+gorgeous ring and a magnificent pin, and of course she ought to be
+happy if diamonds and things mean happiness, but she isn't happy, and
+for the first time since I met her I can't make her out.  Before I know
+it I am going to feel sorry for her, and then good-by to in-loveness
+for me!  I have very little sense at times, and no hold-outness at all
+when certain things come to pass.
+
+Elizabeth still loves Whythe.  Engaged or not to some one else, she
+still cares only for him.  I don't want him.  I wonder how it might be
+managed--getting them to take in how silly they have been.  I believe
+I'll try and see if something can't be done.  Watchful waiting may be
+all right in some cases, but I never cared for waiting.  Milton says
+all things come to him who hustles while he waits.  You get a move on,
+Kitty Canary, and see what you can do!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+The party is over.  Everybody who is anybody was at it and we had a
+perfectly scrumptious time.  I never saw so many good things to eat on
+a hot summer night in all my life, but the heat didn't affect
+appetites, and Miss Kate Norris, who lives in the Wellington Home
+(memorial for a dead wife or a live conscience, I don't remember
+which), ate three platefuls of supper and three helpings of ice-cream.
+She is fearfully ancestral and an awful eater, and also a sour
+remarker, and I stay out of her way, but that night I couldn't help
+seeing the way she made food disappear.  No low-born person could have
+done it quicker.
+
+It was a perfectly beautiful party.  The two married daughters of Judge
+and Mrs. MacLean, who live in the city and always come home for August,
+were as dear and lovely as if they had never left old Twickenham Town,
+and their clothes were a liberal education to the stay-at-homers.  They
+were well taken in by the latter, but the sensation of the evening was
+the arrival and appearance of My Girls, and--oh, my granny!--I was so
+excited I couldn't stand on both feet at once, and I had to get in a
+corner and put my back against the wall to keep from making movement.
+When they came in the room there was a little hush, and then there were
+so many exclamations of surprise and admiration that I had to fan as
+hard as Mr. Willie Prince to keep down the blazing red in my face which
+was there from pride in the dear old darlings and not from heat.  And I
+saw clearer than I had ever seen before that fine things behind one
+count a good deal, and ancestors of the right kind leave something to
+their descendants that comes out when needed, and at that party the
+desirable things came out.
+
+They looked like pictures--Miss Susanna and Miss Araminta--for the
+prevailing modes, as Miss Araminta calls them, and which she loves so
+dearly and hits at but never touches, had not been paid very particular
+attention to, and the thing that suited each had been made for them.
+They were as becoming to the dresses as the dresses to them.
+Twickenham nearly lost its breath as they came into the long
+drawing-room of the MacLean house and walked through it after speaking
+to the receiving party, and I know now how a mother feels when her
+debutante daughters are a success.  I will have more sympathy with
+Mother than I used to have, and I will try to behave myself and do the
+stunts all right for the first year.  But she already knows I do not
+expect to keep on doing them.  I have told her.
+
+Nobody can say again that women can't keep a secret, for not even Miss
+Bettie Simcoe, who knows what the Lord is going to do before He does
+it, had any idea of the dresses; and though I don't think she or Mrs.
+General Gaines liked not being told, they were very nice about it and
+said much kinder things than I thought they were capable of saying.
+And I really think Elizabeth was pleased also.  She actually smiled
+when she saw her aunt come in with Miss Araminta.  Smiles of late have
+been faint and feeble on the face of the affianced young lady, who
+isn't playing her part as a person with ancestors ought to play it.
+She bounced her old beau and took unto herself a new one, and what I
+can't understand is, having done it, why she doesn't carry it off with
+a rip-roaring bluff that might fool even herself for a while.  But
+Elizabeth isn't that sort.  Everybody is talking about how miserable
+she looks.  I'm afraid I put the beau idea in her head, and the idea
+has got her in a hole and she doesn't know how to get out of it.  I
+wish Billy was here.  He can get a person out of any sort of hole.
+
+I went to the party with Whythe.  He has been away for a week, and
+while away got a new dress suit, which, of course, he wore to the party
+and looked perfectly grand in it.  I think his mother gave the suit to
+him, though he didn't say, but he was off attending to some business
+for her, and I'm sure he took it out in the new clothes.  It would have
+been more sensible to have had his teeth fixed, or gotten three new
+ones, the rest being all right, but it was natural to prefer the suit,
+and much less painful.  Whythe is never going to do anything
+disagreeable that he can keep from doing.
+
+He was so nice the night of the party that I hadn't the courage to
+begin finding out the truth or untruth of what Mr. Willie Prince had
+mentioned as the reason of the rush he had been giving me, and as I
+don't believe Whythe has ever thought of Father's money, there was no
+need to be in a hurry to learn whether he had or not.  I've had a jolly
+good time being in love with him, and being made love to, and as an
+experience it may come in when I begin to write my book.  I always did
+want to know how many ways love can be made in, which, of course, I can
+never know, for there are as many ways, I guess, as there are men to
+make it, and the variations on the main theme are as infinitesimal as
+the tongues that tell the story.  It is truly wonderful how differently
+the same words can be trimmed up and handed out, and I like the
+crescendoes and diminuendoes and shades of feeling which give emphasis
+and expression, as my music teacher says I must be careful of when
+playing.  There is never going to be any crescendo or diminuendo
+business about Billy's love-making, and I might as well make up my mind
+to that in the beginning.  It's going to be pure staccato with
+him--short and quick and soon over.  But it will last forever, Billy's
+will.  He isn't going to stand for foolishness about it when he starts,
+either.  He has two more years at college and then he is going in his
+father's office.
+
+I don't know what's the matter with Billy.  I haven't had a letter from
+him for a week, or a single card.  He must be crazy.  I've been so busy
+I have not written for ten days, and if I don't get a letter soon he
+won't get one from me for another ten.  He can't expect me to do what
+he doesn't do, and besides, a man doesn't want what he gets too easy,
+even letters.  I don't suppose he could be sick.  If he was--  I am not
+going to let myself think sickness or automobile accidents or sliding
+off mountain peaks (they are in Switzerland now and Billy would get to
+the top of anything he started for or die trying).  And though I say to
+myself forty times a day he is all right, I wake up at night and wonder
+if anything could be the matter.  I am wondering all the time.
+
+Maybe that is why I was a little nicer to Whythe at the party than I
+need to have been, because I wanted to forget something it was not well
+to remember if I was out to enjoy myself.  After I had danced with half
+a dozen boys and spoken to everybody on the place, we went out on the
+lawn, Whythe and I, and sat on a rustic seat under a great maple-tree
+to cool off and rest awhile; and though everybody could see us and
+several couples were under several other trees (a number of cases being
+on hand and apt to culminate in August), Miss Bettie Simcoe had remarks
+to make, of course.  She made them the next day at breakfast.
+
+I wish I could buy a beau for Miss Bettie and make a present of him to
+her, but, being a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
+to Animals, I couldn't very well do it.  I never yet have seen a man I
+would be that hard on.  But it would be the only way she could be made
+to see some things, and maybe it might make her feel young again.  Jess
+says there's nothing so kittenish as a spinster who's caught an
+unexpected beau.  He is the most rejuvenating thing on earth to a woman
+who wants one.  All don't want them.  There are a great many more
+sensible women in this world than people realize, but in certain small
+places matrimony is still the chief pursuit in which women can engage
+without being thought unwomanly.  Miss Bettie doesn't pursue, and men
+are good dodgers in this part of the world, but if one of them would
+say a few things to her of the sort that Whythe knows how to say so
+well, her sniffing and snorting and seeing might grow less.
+
+I don't like her, but I feel sorry for her, for nobody really loves
+her, and it must be awful to have nobody to love you best of all on
+earth.  I couldn't live if nobody loved me.  I could not.  I might live
+without food and live without drink, and do without clothes and do
+without air--the right kinds of those things, I mean--but I couldn't
+and I wouldn't live without loving.  As long as I am on this little
+planet I expect to love a lot of people and I hope they will love me in
+return.  When Miss Bettie makes me so mad I have to go out of the room
+to keep from saying things I shouldn't, and Miss Araminta simpers so
+when any one mentions Mr. Sparks's name (he's the new widower minister
+of the Presbyterian church, with no chance of escape), and Elizabeth
+Hamilton Carter makes me ashamed of my sex, and I feel like I have
+swallowed concentrated extract of Human Peculiarities, I remember that
+not one of them has a father of any sort, much less my sort, or a
+precious mother and two dandy sisters and a good many nice relations
+and some bully friends--when I remember all that, remember how many I
+have to love me, I spit out the peculiarities and try not to mind them,
+try to see how funny they are.  But sometimes the taste sticks right
+long.  I don't suppose I spit right.  What I can't understand is that
+if people want to be loved--and everybody does--why in the name of
+goodness don't they do a little loving on their own account?  You
+needn't expect to get what you don't give.  I'm glad I was born with a
+taste for liking, though I don't like every one, by a jugful.  When I
+come across a righteous hypocrite I get out of the way, if it isn't
+convenient to make the hypocrite get out of mine.  There are some
+people I could never congeal with and I am never even going to try.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+I wonder what made me waste time thinking about Miss Bettie Simcoe and
+human peculiarities when I started to say something about sitting under
+the trees with Whythe at the MacLean party, but, born a rambler, I will
+ramble unto death, and there's no use wasting time lamenting natural
+deficiencies.  Whythe, of course, couldn't very conveniently make
+personal remarks, as people were passing pretty close, though he did
+say I looked like a dream, which I did not, being too brown for a
+dream; but I did look real nice.  I fished out one of the party dresses
+Mother made Clarissa put in my trunk, which I haven't worn since I have
+been here, and I suppose it suited my brownness, as it was creamy and
+stuck out in the silly way skirts stick now, and it was new-fashioned
+enough to make everybody look at it and nudge a little.  Whythe thought
+it was lovely, and told me so sixteen times, which was tiresome, and
+then I saw he was watching Elizabeth, who was on the porch with her new
+beau and did not know really whether my dress was blue or pink.  The
+only thing he was thinking of was that not far from him was a
+superseder in possession of something which was once his.  Whythe
+doesn't like to be superseded in anything affecting his personal
+estimate of himself.
+
+The Lord certainly let loose a lot of contradictions when he started
+the human race.  When I saw the way Whythe was watching Elizabeth, and
+remembered how she had looked at him when he passed her a few minutes
+before, I knew two specimens of a common variety were before me, and I
+made up a parable as I watched them watch each other.  The two
+specimens had been in love and been engaged.  They had a fuss.  The
+engagement was broken.  She was mad, and he was mad, and each thought
+the other would make the first advance to own up and make up; but
+before it could be done a young person appeared and distracted
+temporarily the attention of the man, and the girl went away to see
+what she could do.  The man repaired the damage done unto him by saying
+pretty things to the new person, which was good for his pride and kept
+him in practice, and all was going well when the first maiden returned
+with a new possession.
+
+The new possession was a son of great wealth, but the Faithless One was
+made to understand, without words, that his Cruelty was driving the
+Maid to Marriage with another, and his Vanity was appeased, and in his
+heart he rejoiced and said unto himself: "It is even as I thought, and
+that piece of punk she has brought back is bitter unto her, and in
+comparison to me he is nothingness indeed.  And I would arise and punch
+his head if it were not for the New Person who may love me very much."
+And the young man was sorrowful when he thought on these things and yet
+glad also, for the heart of man is receptive to the love of all kinds
+of women, and it is pleasing unto him to believe he is pleasing unto
+them.
+
+And seeing that which had come to pass, the New Young Person made up
+her mind that the Young Man and the Young Maid who had once loved must
+love again, and in her heart she said it is a vain thing to believe in
+the words of a man.  They cometh out as cometh breath, then pass away
+and are remembered by him no more.  And she took counsel with herself
+as to how she might bring to pass that which the simple souls knew not
+how to bring, and, lo! as she thought it came unto her.  That's a true
+parable!
+
+
+What came was the thought of a picnic.  Whythe and Elizabeth must
+accidentally have a chance to come across each other and have it out,
+and the best way they could do it would be outdoors, where it is
+convenient to wander off and get away from nudgers and commenters; and
+being nothing but impulse, I turned to Whythe, who was still
+unconsciously watching Elizabeth, and asked him if he would help me
+with something I was anxious to do.  He said of course, and wanted to
+know what it was.  When I told him I would tell him the next day he
+asked me to drive with him in the morning, and didn't like it because I
+declined.  That is, he didn't like my reason, which was that, as he had
+been out of his office for some time, his business must need attending
+to, and I didn't think it ought to be left any longer.  He seemed to
+think that a very unnecessary remark, and I realized he liked
+Elizabeth's kind better.  She would never have dreamed of telling him
+his business needed attention.  Elizabeth is the Admired and Honored
+type of Womanhood which does not think it is ladylike to have knowledge
+of business matters.
+
+Seeing the look on his face, I said to myself: "Kitty Canary, it is all
+over.  A pin has been stuck in your balloon and the air is out."  And I
+got up and went in and danced with every man dancer in the room, and
+hardly knew who they were, the breaks were so often.  I had a good
+time, but also I had a right sinky feeling, for it's pretty wabbly to
+realize that nothing human is to be depended on very long, and that a
+girl may be engaged one day to a man and not speaking to him the next.
+Not that I had ever been engaged.  I hadn't, not caring for what goes
+with engagements, but I might have been if I hadn't remembered about
+the different things I have fallen in and been fished out of when there
+was some one by to haul me out.  Nobody being by, I had to take care of
+myself, and I thought it best to go only so far and no farther.
+
+On the way home Whythe tried to say some things pretty low about how he
+had missed me while away, but Miss Susanna and Miss Araminta were in
+the back seat of the car (it was Mr. Lipscomb's Ford, and borrowed, of
+course), and he had to be so careful it was a strain, and as I didn't
+answer he stopped after a while.  It takes two to do more things than
+make a bargain, and to battledore love without having it shuttlecocked
+back isn't much fun.  He wanted to know what was the matter when I got
+out, and I told him it was sleep.  He didn't seem to like that, either.
+It's hard to please men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+I didn't see Whythe for the next few days, as I thought it best not to,
+and, besides, I had bushels of letters to write and a very special one
+to Father, and I had no time for him.  The thing I had to write Father
+about was money.  I wanted five hundred dollars, and the only way I
+knew how to get it was to ask him to give it to me; so I asked.  I
+always did believe that the person who gives the money ought to be told
+what is to be done with it, and that is why I wrote Father as I did;
+and, besides, he likes to hear little bits of news about the
+Twickenham-Towners, and asking for the money gave me a chance to tell
+him.
+
+He had told me, when he was here, that if there was any way in which I
+could be of service in the right way to let him know and he would put
+up the money part, if I would manage the other part, and it would be a
+little secret between us and nobody else need know anything about it.
+When, last week, I heard Mrs. Richard Stafford say she would rather go
+to a hospital for a month than do anything on earth, I thought my
+chance had come.  At the hospital, she said, a person had the right to
+be waited on and do nothing, and not think about food or servants, and
+not feel they were bothering other people by being sick; and while she
+wasn't sick exactly, a hospital would seem like heaven if she could be
+in one for a little while.  She had laughed when she said it, and
+didn't dream of its being taken in earnest, but I took it in earnest,
+for the tiredness in her face makes me ache every time I see her, and
+right up in my mind popped the little secret Father and I and Miss Polk
+could have.  What I wrote was this:
+
+
+_Father dear, will you please send me five hundred dollars, and if you
+can do it by return mail I will be very much obliged.  The person I
+want part of it for is so tired that she might not be able to ever get
+rested unless she has a chance pretty quick to lie down and do nothing
+for a month, anyhow, and that is why I am in a hurry.  Tiredness is a
+very wearing disease and if it runs on too long it runs a person into a
+state that is almost impossible to get out of, and the whole family has
+to pay up for letting it go on.  Home gets hell-y when there's too much
+tiredness in it.  What I want the money for is this: Mrs. Stafford is
+worn out.  You know her.  She was Miss Mary Shirley, and married a
+perfectly useless man when she was eighteen, and she is now the mother
+of seven children, and has a mother-in-law living with her, and also
+Miss Lou Barbee, who won't go away.  And, of course, the man whom she
+can't turn out.  He isn't bad.  Just lazy, with nothing to him, but she
+loves him and I will skip over that part.  She needs a rest and ought
+to have it.  It's nothing but scrimp and scrape and strive to keep up
+appearances day in and day out, year in and year out, until she is all
+to pieces and the children don't realize what is the matter.  And, of
+course, the Male Person doesn't, for he says that Woman's Place is in
+the Home.  When he told me that yesterday (his heels were on the
+railing of his porch, where he generally keeps them, and his pipe in
+his mouth) I thought to myself that if he were mine he would have to
+get out of my home or prove he had a better right to share it with me
+than he had ever proved to his wife.  But I won't get on that, either.
+I'll go back to Mrs. Stafford._
+
+_Half the time she doesn't have a servant, and all the time she has a
+mother-in-law, who is pie crust, and Miss Lou Barbee, who's a bagpipe,
+and with the doors locked and windows shut so no one can see, she has
+worked herself to death.  What I want done is to have an invitation
+sent her from an old friend to be the guest of the hospital here for a
+month, and you will be the friend and she will never know it.  Miss
+Polk, the superintendent of the hospital, will manage things.  I've
+talked it over with her, and she understands.  Miss Polk is a perfectly
+grand person.  For Simon-pure sense there isn't her equal on earth.
+She and I have decided on what we would do if we had money.  We'd have
+a Fund for Tired Mothers and Fathers.  It would be used to give them a
+Rest before Death._
+
+_I hope you won't mind sending the money.  I don't think you will, for
+everybody says business is so prosperous it's actually unrighteous, and
+it's in the Bible that you ought to put your treasures where you can
+find them again, or something like that.  If you can't send it I know
+there will be a good reason for your not sending it, but I would like
+to have it by Monday if possible, so Mrs. Stafford can go to the
+Hospital the next day.  Later, four other people can have their turn.
+It is to be used not for illness, but for Tiredness; for broken-downers
+and worn-outers who need being waited on and fed up and allowed to keep
+still.  Miss Polk and I are going to decide on who needs a rest the
+most before I go away, and I send you for it, Father dear, an armful of
+squeezes and the biggest bunch of kisses the mail-man can take._
+
+
+That was all I told him about the Rest money, but I said a little
+something about the picnic I thought I ought to give.  Everybody in
+town has given something, and, having accepted, I have to return, and
+the picnic will be the best thing for Whythe and Elizabeth.  I didn't
+mention the ex-lovers to Father, of course.  Even to a father one
+doesn't have to tell everything in life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+I haven't seen Whythe alone but once since the night of the MacLean
+party, and then I stopped any tendencies that showed signs of being
+personal, and talked most of the time about the picnic which we can't
+have until late in the month.  Every day is engaged up to the
+twenty-fourth.  Whythe tried to talk of Mr. Algernon Grice Baker, but I
+cut that out also.  Sarcasm doesn't suit him, and some day he might be
+sorry.  The Superseder has gone, however, and every day Elizabeth
+passes Whythe's office, and every day Whythe happens to be at his
+window at the time of passing.  They speak, but so far that is all.  I
+am sorry the picnic has to wait so long.  They are two silly children.
+Their fingers aren't in their mouths, but their heads are on the side
+when they see each other, and the thing's getting on my nerves.  Almost
+any kind of sin is easier to stand than some sorts of silliness.
+
+I wonder why I stay awake so much at night!  It's very unusual, and I
+try my best to go to sleep, but I can't sleep.  Always I am thinking of
+Mr. William Spencer Sloane and the things I would say to him if he were
+in hearing distance.  Not one line have I had from him for more than
+two weeks.  Not a card or a little present, which he usually sends from
+every place he goes to, or any sign to show he is living.  I got so mad
+when I realized he hadn't noticed me for fourteen days that I couldn't
+keep in things which had to come out, and, seeing Miss Susanna was
+sleeping the sleep of worn-outness, I got up the other night and
+lighted a candle behind the bed, and on the floor I wrote a letter that
+maybe wasn't altogether as accurate as it might have been.  I wouldn't
+have sent it the next day if it hadn't been for a letter I got from
+Jess, but after I read hers I sent mine flying.
+
+I haven't cooled down yet from reading Jess's letter.  I am not going
+to cool down until I see the cause of it face to face, and if Billy
+thinks it makes the least difference to me how he amuses himself or
+with whom he spends his time sightseeing he thinks Wrong!  I was going
+to tear up the letter I had written him in the middle of the night for
+the relief of indignations and because in the middle of the night
+things seem so much bigger and harder and stranger than in the
+daylight; but after I read the letter from Jess I added a postscript to
+mine and almost ran down to the post-office to mail it, for fear if I
+didn't do it quick I mightn't do it at all.  Ever since I sent it off I
+have been perfectly horrid, and I can hardly stand myself.  I have put
+off trying to make Whythe and Elizabeth see how stupid they are, and as
+Elizabeth hasn't been very nice to me I haven't felt it to be my duty
+to show her what a goose she is.  Neither have I told Whythe that
+almost any girl who adored him would do for his wife.  As I don't adore
+I wouldn't do, and I think he is beginning to take it in.  A dozen
+times of late he has told me he doesn't understand me.  He does not.
+And never will.
+
+The thing in Jess's letter which made me hot was this: "What is the
+matter with you and Billy?  Pat says (Pat is Patricia, Billy's sister)
+that you've been pretty horrid about writing him, and he's been
+blue-black at not getting letters from you; but at present he is having
+a good time with a very jolly girl from the West who is at their hotel.
+Chirp him something cheerful, Canary Bird.  If I were younger or Billy
+older you shouldn't have him.  I'd have him myself.  I'm not going to
+stand for bad treatment of him, and if those Southern boys who make
+love to every pretty girl they see, and make it better than any boys on
+earth, have made you forget an old friend, I'm coming down and take you
+back home.  Behave yourself, Kitty Canary, and write Billy the sort of
+letter we scream over up here."  And then she went on with other things.
+
+It is ridiculous in Pat to say I haven't written Billy!  I have.  Three
+long letters and three cards, and certainly he can't expect more than
+that, as he hasn't been gone but two months and five days; and,
+besides, friends ought to have such confidence in each other that they
+don't need letters to prove their friendship.  Not a word have I had
+from him in more than two weeks, and if Jess thinks I am going to write
+him a chirp letter (which he won't have time to read if he is going
+around so much with a Western girl and having so much fun) she, too,
+thinks Wrong.  That Westerner explains why I haven't heard from him for
+so long.  It is outrageous in Billy to behave as he has been behaving.
+All men are alike.  Every one of them.  It was ignorance in me to
+imagine Billy was different.  He isn't.  The more I thought of how
+mistaken I had been in him the madder I got, and I just wrote a
+postscript to my letter and flew to the post-office with it.  It seemed
+providential that my letter was ready to send.  I hope he will read it
+while on one of his joyous excursions with the Western Woman, who is
+doubtless twenty-five, maybe thirty, and just making use of Billy, who
+hasn't sense enough to see it.  I nearly cried my eyes out last night,
+before Miss Susanna came up to bed, because it was necessary to send
+him such a letter.  Still, Billy has to learn things in life and he
+might as well learn them early.  What I wrote was this:
+
+
+_Dear Billy,--I have been having such a perfectly grand time lately
+that it has been impossible to squeeze out a scrap in which to write
+you, and yet I have wanted to do so, for I am sure you will be glad to
+know how fearfully happy I am and what is causing the happiness.  I am
+in love.  It is the most wonderful thing I have ever been in, and
+thrillingly interesting.  I suppose you have been in it many times, but
+not my way, or you would have mentioned it, just as I am doing to you,
+as we are such old friends, and friends have the right to know of
+important happenings.  I hope you will like each other when you meet,
+for, though you are very unlike, you are both made of male material,
+and I have often noticed that men have many peculiarities in common.
+One of them is out of sight out of love, and a great readiness to be
+admired and entertained.  He is a lawyer and couldn't be better born,
+though he might be better educated; still, one mustn't expect all
+things in one man, and his eyes are so wonderful, and he uses such
+poetic prose, that the lack of money and a few other lacks shouldn't
+count.  He lives in a beautiful old house which has proud traditions
+and no bathrooms, and his family is one of the oldest and most
+disagreeable in America; still, we would not have to live with them if
+we were married.  Nothing on earth could make me sleep under the same
+roof with his sisters, who are so churchy that the minister himself is
+subject under them.  And neither would it be safe for me to be too
+closely associated with his mother.  However, things of that sort are
+in the distance, which may be far or may not, and I am not thinking of
+immediate marriage, but just how magnificent it is to have somebody in
+love with you who knows how to say so in the most delicious way, and
+with a voice that, when the moon is out, is truly heavenly.  I am
+telling you about it because I thought you might be interested and
+would like to know of my happiness; but, of course, I don't want you to
+tell any one else, as it is still a secret and all so indefinite that
+it wouldn't do to speak of it to any one but you.  I am scribbling this
+in the middle of the night, because I can't sleep for thinking of some
+one, and because there is no time in the day in which to write.  I hope
+you are having a great time.  Give my love to the family and write me
+of your gladness at knowing of mine._
+
+  _As ever,
+    Kitty._
+
+
+Now what do you suppose made me write such slush as that?  And why is a
+female person born with such horridness in her that she can say things
+that are not so with a smile in public and cry her eyes out when alone?
+That's what I have been doing lately, though I can't let tears have
+much time, for I am not by nature a crier, and they would disturb Miss
+Susanna at night.  In my secret heart I just wrote that letter to Billy
+because I was indignant with him for not writing to me for more than
+two weeks, and I didn't intend to let him think I was sitting on a
+tombstone waving a willow branch in one hand and wiping tears away with
+the other.  And, besides, I have been in love.  Summer love.  And it
+has been exciting.  No one could expect me to go through life and not
+have but one experience in love making and hearing, and because a girl
+enjoys the different manners of expression it doesn't mean she is not
+particular about the story not being illustrated.  I don't illustrate
+or allow illustrations, which, of course, lessens some of the thrill,
+but I promised Jess I would always draw the line at the right time, and
+I have.  I have not been engaged for half a minute, and I wouldn't have
+added the postscript if it hadn't been for her letter and what she told
+me about that girl from some Western town who is no more his sort than
+I am her brother's.  Billy is perfectly blind about some things, and
+has no discrimination where it is most needed.  Anyhow, I added the
+postscript:
+
+
+_P.S.--By the time you get this I may be engaged.  Thank you for what
+you would say if here._
+
+_K. C._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+It was after I sent the letter that I got so restless I couldn't sit
+still, and as there was nothing I enjoyed doing I spent a good deal of
+my tune at the hospital with Miss Polk, who is a very splendid person,
+and every day I went in to see Mrs. Stafford.  She is having the
+grandest rest, with rubs and good eats and nothing to do but be waited
+on and cared for, that a tired person ever had, and I am the only one
+who is allowed to see her, which is beyond the understanding of
+Twickenham Town.  I'm cheerful is the reason I'm allowed to see her,
+the town is told, and that's enough for it to know.
+
+It certainly is queer how some things happen in the nick of time.
+Father sent me the money, but told me to try to be as practical as
+possible, knowing I am given to doing impractical things; and I took it
+to Miss Polk, and nobody but she and I know where it came from.  And
+then she invited Mrs. Stafford to be a guest of the hospital for a
+month.  I happened to be at the house when the note came.  I thought it
+best to be there accidentally, in case there should be argument and
+talk, and the Man of the House should still think Woman's Place was in
+the Home, and sure enough there was.  Mrs. Stafford read the note, and
+her face got as white as death, and after a minute she said it would be
+heaven to go, but of course she couldn't.  And the noble creature who
+is her husband said it was very presumptuous in whoever had invited her
+to be the guest of the hospital, and that he wasn't in the habit of
+having his wife visit such places on the invitation of unknown
+interferers, and of course she couldn't go.  And just as he said that
+Mrs. Stafford keeled over in a dead faint right at his feet, as if
+something had given out at the thought of rest.  I knew that was my
+chance, and I took it.
+
+"Stop that automobile!"  I waved to a man who was coming down the
+street, and as he stopped I knelt and did the things Billy had made me
+learn how to do the first year we went to camp.  And seeing the poor,
+tired soul had just fainted, and would come to in a minute, I spoke
+quick to the man looking down at her, scared to death, as were the
+children, who began to cry, and told him he wouldn't have a wife much
+longer to be interfered with if he didn't come down from that horse he
+thought he was riding and have some common sense.
+
+"Don't you see she is worn out," I said, "and got nothing to go on
+with?  Everything has given out, and the next time she drops over in
+this way she may never get up again."  I was putting some water on her
+face as I spoke, and, seeing her eyes begin to open a little, I called
+to Mr. Everett, who had gotten out of his car and was on the porch, to
+help Mr. Stafford put his wife in and take her to the hospital, and the
+frightened husband for once did as he was told.  I hopped in with her
+and held her up and told Mr. Everett to drive like old Scratch, and he
+drove.  It was all over so quickly nobody knew what had happened.
+
+It was like somebody being kidnapped and dragged off by highwaymen,
+taking her away so hurriedly, but if it hadn't been done that way there
+would have been endless talk and a thousand reasons why she couldn't
+go; and if she hadn't she would have soon gone for good.  Sometimes
+somebody has to be high-handed, and even if that billy-goat of a
+husband pretends to resent what I did his wife isn't resenting it, and
+she is the one that counts.  I always agree with her that it was such a
+strange thing I happened to be there the day the note came.  And also
+she thinks it strange I decided so quickly to take her to the hospital,
+when she had just said she couldn't go.  I tell her I do a good many
+things on the spur of the moment, and getting the men to pick her up
+and hurry away with her was just another case of spur, and she shuts
+her eyes when I say that and looks as if she is praying.  The lucky
+part was her fainting at the right time.  Anyhow, she is at the
+hospital, and that old rooster of hers is finding out a good many
+things it took her absence from home for him to learn.  I never expect
+to get married.  NEVER!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+I have just found out why Elizabeth and Whythe had their break.  Miss
+Bettie Simcoe told me.  It took Miss Bettie some time to get at the
+bottom of it, but Elizabeth told her last night, and this morning I was
+given the information at the first moment Miss Bettie could get me to
+herself.
+
+Elizabeth was dead right in the stand she took, but her little spurt of
+independence didn't last long, and she is now ready to give in when the
+chance comes to give.  Miss Bettie added that on her own account.
+Whythe couldn't afford to be married, but that wasn't to interfere with
+his marriage.  He had expected to take Elizabeth to his mother's home
+and plant her in it, but when he told her Elizabeth balked.  She
+preferred to stay with her aunt Susanna after her marriage to going to
+Whythe's home, and when she so informed him he said things he
+shouldn't, and then both sent off skyrockets and the whole thing went
+up in the air.  And then I came.
+
+She has now changed her mind and is willing to follow her husband
+wherever he leads.  She is truly womanly, also she is still wearing the
+ring of the beau with whom she sought to bring Whythe to terms, and to
+please her worldly aunt.  But she will return the ring when it is
+proper to do so.  She is waiting to find out.
+
+Elizabeth had more sense than I gave her credit for in refusing to live
+in the House of Eppes; but it's either live there or not live with
+Whythe, and she evidently can't live without him.  I'd hate love to
+make me lose the little gumption I was born with, and even my little
+knows no house is big enough for a son's wife and a mother-in-law and
+three in-law sisters.  It won't be a Home, Sweet Home, place when
+Elizabeth enters the Eppes house, and it will be nip and tuck as to who
+wins out, but that's not my business.  I'm sorry for both sides, and
+thankful I'm not related to either.  Also, I will get out of the way as
+soon as possible, but until the picnic there doesn't seem a possible
+way.
+
+There is nothing in life that is not over if life is long enough, and
+my little love affair with Mr. Whythe Rives Eppes belongs to the past.
+Elizabeth can have him any minute she wants, and unless actions do not
+speak louder than words she wants him right away, and he her.  I do not
+see how she is possibly going to stand his teeth.  Still, there are a
+great many things I do not understand in life.
+
+
+The picnic is over.  By giving it I brought down a good deal of comment
+and criticism on my brown and curly head, but it does not matter.
+Nothing except sin really matters if we have sense enough to see it.  I
+invited everybody in Twickenham Town that I liked to the picnic, and
+some few I didn't, the latter being relations of those I did.  I don't
+think a person ought to be punished for their relations, any more than
+being held responsible for them, and so I included them, too.  What I
+was criticized for was asking to the picnic quite a number of people
+who don't usually go to the same places at the same time the
+Historicals go, and it made talk.  That night Miss Araminta Armstrong,
+on the quiet, told me she knew I meant to do right, but one had to use
+judgment in life, and it wasn't well to put ideas in some people's
+heads.  I told her I knew it, knew certain kinds of heads couldn't take
+in certain ideas, one of which was that people could enjoy friendliness
+and outdoorness and a lunch they didn't have to prepare for themselves,
+even if they were not high-born, and as the ones referred to did not
+have contagious diseases their presence wouldn't prove dangerous and
+the Ancestrals needn't be uneasy.  Also I told her I didn't care for
+judgment as much as I ought, and if human beings knew one another
+better they might find they were not as unlike as they thought.  She
+didn't say anything more.  Neither did any one else say anything to me.
+To one another they said a good deal.
+
+It was at the picnic I had a little talk with Whythe.  We went down to
+a stream under a big willow-tree, and he started on the usual, but I
+told him he must not say anything more to me on that subject, and if he
+were the man I thought him he would not allow Elizabeth to marry the
+Compensator she was no more in love with than I was.  Also, I said a
+few more things that were pleasant for him to hear, such as Elizabeth's
+heart was breaking (it was, as much as her kind of heart could break),
+and I told him it was foolishness to ruin one's life because of a
+misunderstanding, and that both had doubtless been in the wrong.  And
+incidentally I let drop that if, after years of preparation, I ever got
+married I would have nothing to bring my husband but myself, as my
+father had made up his mind that young people should make their own way
+in life (he ought to have so made it up if he hasn't), and Whythe said
+that cut no figure with him, and asked me point-blank if I did not love
+him.  It didn't sound polite to say no, and yet I couldn't truthfully
+say yes, so I just sighed and shook my head.  When he asked me if I
+could give him no hope, I answered _no_ with such uncomplimentary
+quickness that I had to cough to overcome it, and then I told him it
+was impossible for a girl of Elizabeth's taste and training and
+character, who had once loved such a man as he, to really care for any
+one else.  And the blackness in his face, caused by my unnecessary
+emphasis, died out, and I saw he was agreeing with me concerning
+Elizabeth, and that I would not have to insist on what I said being so.
+A man's appetite for flattery is never poor, and usually it is hearty.
+When we got up to go back to where lunch was being served Whythe had
+quite a determined air about him.  I told him if I could help in any
+way to let me know.  An hour later I saw him and Elizabeth going down
+to the same stream and the same old willow tree.
+
+When the time came to go home I pretended I had to see Florence Kensey
+about something that was important, and in the confusion of getting the
+people in the cars I managed to have Whythe put Elizabeth in his, and
+told them to get away quick and I would come on with Mason Page.  They
+got.  And the next day Elizabeth looked like some one who had been
+unbandaged and was letting out breath that for a long time had been
+held in.  Also, she looked pinker and whiter than ever, and so Pure
+that it was not possible for me to stay close to her, so I got away.
+No longer Hurt and Misunderstood, she went about smiling in sweet
+triumphantness that was not put in words, but oozed without them, and
+her manner to me was one of deepest sympathy.  Poor Whythe!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+There are some things not required of human nature to stand.  Elizabeth
+Hamilton Carter is one of them.  I was glad to give her back her beau.
+I felt truly Virginian in doing it, for Virginians always say, when
+giving you something, that they don't want it; I certainly didn't want
+Whythe.  I wouldn't have known what to do with him after the summer was
+over, and I was conscious of great relief in getting him off my hands
+without further loss or trouble.  I couldn't tell Elizabeth this, of
+course, though there were times when it took a good deal of something I
+did not know I had to keep from doing so.  Also, it took more strength
+to keep several other things to myself than I knew I possessed.  It
+took praying and the end of the sheet to do it, but I did it, and I'm
+getting encouraged about K. C.
+
+What encourages me is this: Two nights after the picnic Elizabeth came
+to my room and asked if she might have a little talk with me, as she
+felt she ought to.  I told her she could, and she sat down and began.
+Miss Susanna was back in her own quarters, the people from Florida
+having gone, and I had just finished saying my prayers and was ready to
+hop into bed when Elizabeth knocked at my door.  I knew what was coming
+from the look on her face and her manner of walking, and the way she
+held her head.
+
+If ever I write that book I am always thinking about I am going to put
+Elizabeth in it as well as Miss Araminta Armstrong, and if I could get
+some men to match them I would have some corking characters to begin
+with.  But no kind of pen-and-ink picture of Elizabeth would do her
+justice.  Her sweetness of speech when she is particularly nasty is
+beyond the power of human portrayal.  I got in bed quick when she said
+she wanted to talk, because I was afraid I might have to hit something,
+and the pillow was the only thing I could manage without sound.  I put
+it where I could give it a dig when politeness required control, and
+told her to go ahead.
+
+In her last sleep Elizabeth will pose.  She took her seat near the
+window where the moonlight could shine on her (she looked very pretty
+in her pink-silk kimono, a hand-over from her rich aunt, and shabby but
+becoming in color), and for a moment she didn't say anything, just
+fooled with the pink ribbon on her hair.  And then she said she had a
+secret to tell me; said it so soft, with her head on the side, that I
+had to ask her to speak louder please, and I got nearer the edge of the
+bed.  Elbow on it and chin in the palm of one hand, I prayed hard to be
+polite in my own room, and reached out for an end of the sheet with the
+other.  Again I told her to go ahead.  After a minute she went.
+
+"You and Whythe have been such friends that I think you should be the
+first to know that--"
+
+"Have you and Whythe made up?"  I stuck my bare foot over the edge of
+the bed and wriggled it.  "If you have you had better be married quick
+and not take any more chances.  I'm awfully glad if things are settled.
+Have you bounced the other fellow yet?"
+
+It was cruel in me to take out of her mouth what she was moistening her
+lips to say, but I was sleepy and I didn't want details.  She had no
+idea of being cut out of saying what it was her determination to say,
+however, considering I had been responsible for some unhappy days
+during the past two months, and before she got through she had said all
+she wanted me to hear.  If it hadn't been for the pillow I would have
+rolled out of bed.  The nerve of her!  The belief of her!  And, oh, my
+granny! the punishment, as she imagined, of me!
+
+Before she left the room she told me she could no longer hold out
+against Whythe's pleadings.  Told me he had suffered so during the
+summer she was uneasy about him, and, though he had tried to forget, it
+had been useless, and, unable to endure it any longer, he had come to
+her and told her he could stand no more, and if she did not promise to
+marry him at once he would--he would--  Her voice trailed, but I said
+nothing, the end of the sheet being stuffed into my mouth for
+politeness' sake, and when her tears had been wiped away she began
+again.
+
+"It is hard to forgive Whythe, because you are so young, and he knows
+how fascinating he is and how little experience you have had with young
+men, but his father was a flirt before him" (poor Father!  I thought of
+the retribution that had come to him in Mother, and I pushed in more
+sheet), "and it is natural in a man to seek amusement and entertainment
+when he is suffering as Whythe was.  I hope you will forgive him.  It
+is because he may have made you imagine things that were not so, and
+because you have been so nice to him, that I thought you should be the
+first to know."
+
+I rolled back to the side of the bed facing her, from which I had
+rolled the other way for safety, and took the end of the sheet out of
+my mouth.  "Have you told IT?" I asked.  "It doesn't make any
+difference about my knowing as I knew before you did, but something is
+due that which you brought back with you.  Have you told IT, Elizabeth?"
+
+"Told who?  I don't understand."  She sat up.  "I don't know who you
+are talking about."
+
+"Don't you?"  I too sat up and swung my bare feet over the side of the
+bed.  "I am talking about the person to whom I read in the Twickenham
+Town Sentinel that you were engaged.  He dresses like a man, and he may
+be one, but even if he isn't he deserves to be treated decently by the
+lady who had promised to marry him.  I suppose he knows."  I nodded to
+her hand, on which was the ring he had given her and which she had been
+twirling as she talked.  "That is, if you have had time to tell him."
+
+"That is entirely my affair!"  When not hurt or injured Elizabeth is
+superior, and she added scorn to the tone of her voice, but stopped
+fooling with the ring, which I know she hated to send back.  "I see you
+do not appreciate the confidence I am putting in you or the compliment
+I am paying you by telling you first, and if that is the case I will
+go."  She made movement as if to get up, but she had no idea of going,
+so I didn't notice it, but kept on swinging my feet, and then I asked
+her if she had told Miss Susanna, and if she hadn't she ought to at
+once, Miss Susanna being closely related and I nothing but a summer
+boarder.  And I said I hoped she would be married right away, as I
+would love to be at the wedding, and if she would ask me to be one of
+the bridesmaids I would be one with pleasure.  But she wouldn't answer
+me.  Seeing she still had something to say, and wouldn't leave until
+she said it, I put my feet back in bed and lay flat with my hands under
+my head and my eyes shut, and when at last I was fixed and quiet she
+began for a third time.
+
+I don't remember a thing after that except a sort of monotone voice and
+something about people talking about me because I had accepted Whythe's
+attentions when everybody knew--I didn't hear what everybody knew, and
+not until I did hear a sound at the door did I wake up good, and then I
+jumped as if shot and asked her, half-asleep, if she were going to live
+with Mother and Sister and Sister Edwina and Miss Lily Lou when she was
+married, but she answered not.  And since her midnight confession she
+hath not opened her mouth unto me and her little lips get together when
+she sees me coming, and from her friends I have learned that she is
+deeply distressed at my treatment of her.  And to her friends I have
+said Rats! and so endeth the efforts at friendship which she imagined
+she had made.  I am never going to pretend to be friends with a person
+who is not truthful, and whom I understand as I understand Elizabeth
+Hamilton Carter.  I don't like her, and though it is not necessary to
+say so unless occasion requires, neither is it necessary to appear to
+be what I am not.  I like Whythe, and when I saw him a few days after
+Elizabeth gave herself the satisfaction of communicating to me the
+return of his tempted affections, I shook hands with him good and hard
+and wished him all the happiness I knew there was little chance of his
+getting.  If I were a man and had to live in the house with a female
+who shut her mouth tight every time she got mad and was continually
+hurt and always sensitive, there would likely be in that house battle,
+murder, or sudden death.  Any kind of outspokenness is better to be
+endured than silent offense.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+This is the last day of August, and it is a day
+Twickenham Town is going to remember for
+a long time.  I have done again that which I
+should not have done, and I guess I had better go
+home.  I had expected to stay until the twenty-seventh
+of September and return with Father, who
+was to spend a week here with me, but he can't come.
+
+I suppose it was the awful disappointment of
+knowing Father couldn't come, and being so miserable
+myself (not one line yet from that person named
+William Spencer Sloane, who is probably married
+to an elderly woman by this time), and because
+of my sureness that no human being could be
+depended on in time of temptation, especially
+vigorous, aggressive temptations that come out
+of the West, that I gave help where help seemed
+to be needed, and now again I am in everybody's
+mouth.  Also my ankles are still a little sore from
+the weight of the window being on them as I hung
+out, but they are nearly well, and even if they
+were not it would not matter.  Two young hearts
+are happy and a proud person is not, and the
+blame is on me.  That also doesn't matter.  I am
+soon going away.
+
+The thing I did, which maybe I shouldn't have
+done, was to help little Amy Frances Winston
+get married.  She is the property of her
+grandmother, who is a very important part of
+Twickenham Town.  Having no parents or sisters or
+brothers, and only enough money of her own for
+her keep, and no spunk or spirit, she has gone on
+for years loving an awfully nice chap named
+Taylor French, with little chance of ever marrying
+him, and then in hops this Miss Frisk, who asks
+her why she doesn't quit fumbling and stop fearing,
+and the thing is done.
+
+There is nothing the matter with Taylor French
+except he is not Ancestral.  Mrs. Brandon, Amy's
+grandmother, is diseased on the subject of
+ancestry, and the first thing she asks about a man
+is who is he.  Knowing she would want to know
+who I was, I mentioned to her one day that I
+had never had any grandparents on either side
+(living ones I meant), and that we were not
+historic, and no member of our family had ever
+been distinguished (for righteousness, though I
+didn't use the word), and that we had made our
+own way in life, which was true, for Father didn't
+have a thing but what he was making when he
+married Mother.  I also told her I did not mind
+in the least, and if I did I would try to remember
+that Christ was a carpenter and St. Paul a
+sail-maker, though I'd never care to be intimate
+with St. Paul.  And I told her I thought it was
+yourself that counted most, after all, and not dead
+people, though it must be nice to know somebody
+in your family had been something if you were not.
+All she said was, "Are you a suffragist?"  When
+I said I was and I hoped I didn't look as if I
+were not, for I wouldn't like anybody to be
+mistaken about it, she gave me a long look and left
+the room.
+
+She did not exactly draw her skirts aside with
+her hand as she passed me, but she did it inwardly;
+that is, I imagined she did from the expression
+of her face, and the next day she must have
+fumigated the house, for when I went by an awful
+smell of sulphur was coming from it.  She is a
+low bender and bower in church at the mention
+of a name belonging to one she believes a Prince
+in disguise, who in another life will receive her
+into His kingdom, and whom she professes to
+follow in the expectation of being rewarded for so
+doing, but her head is held high when she doesn't
+care to see the lowly ones He came to give light
+and life to.  I don't mean she doesn't give old
+clothes and food and sometimes a little wood to
+old Mrs. Snicker, who can't move, from
+rheumatism, but she would no more speak other than
+stiffly to some of the people I know here than she
+would go in for suffrage.  She doesn't realize she
+is a living woman.  She thinks she is an Ancestor.
+For years she has forbidden Taylor French to
+come to her house, and Amy has to see him elsewhere.
+
+She has seen a good deal of him lately, Amy
+has.  Taylor doesn't live in Twickenham Town
+now.  He is living in North Carolina and has a
+good position, and is able to get married (I know
+because I asked him), and any minute day or
+night in the past eighteen months in which Amy
+would have agreed he would have married her
+and taken her away, but Amy wouldn't agree.
+Things have been dragging along this way so
+long that the nerves of both are frazzled out, and
+there's nothing to hope for but death, and, of
+course, it isn't respectful to think too hopefully
+of death and a grandmother.  And then I popped
+in and gave things a little push and the curtain dropped.
+
+The way it dropped was this.  I mean the way
+they got married.  Taylor was in town the last
+two weeks in August, and, as everybody invited
+him to their parties, he and Amy managed to see
+a good deal of each other (also the seeing wasn't
+altogether at places where other people were
+around).  But she wasn't allowed to meet him
+on the square or to receive letters from him
+straight.  And sometimes, if he wanted to say
+something in a hurry, or send her candy or a new
+book, or any of the usuals, he had to give a signal
+by throwing pebbles on her window at night,
+and then she would throw out a string and he
+would tie the thing to it and she would haul
+up, and the Personage, who was usually asleep,
+would be none the wiser.  The Personage is deaf,
+which is a great help.
+
+Well, one night three of the town girls and
+myself, with a boy apiece, had been to see Amy,
+and when we went up-stairs (just the girls) to
+see a new hat a city cousin had sent her, we heard
+a little tap at the west window.  It had been
+raining, which accounted for our being indoors
+with the windows lowered, and when we heard
+the tapping we were so excited we could hardly
+breathe.  It was fearfully thrilly, just like things
+one reads about in books, and I told the girls
+to put out the light quick, and when it was out
+I went to the window and saw Taylor standing
+in the shadow of a big tree.  He signaled me to
+drop the line, but when I threw the piece of
+twine Amy gave me I threw it wrong and it got
+caught in a broken piece of shingle on the edge
+of the porch and hung there.  I couldn't get it
+back and Taylor couldn't get it down, and,
+seeing it was necessary for something to be done, I
+pushed aside the curtains (they were made of
+striped calico, blue and white) and told the girls
+I was going to lean out of the window on the roof
+of the porch to get the string loose, and they
+must hold on to my feet, for the roof sloped and
+I might slip if they didn't.  They tried to stop
+me, and Amy wrung her hands, being very
+nervous from living on a strain and loving in
+secret, but I was out head foremost in a jiffy,
+and all four made a grab for my feet and legs.
+Being flat on my stomach, and having long arms,
+I got the string off from the piece of shingle, and
+just as I did it and threw it to Taylor I heard
+a noise and a little cry from the girls, something
+about, "Oh, my goodness! here she comes!" and
+I knew what had happened.
+
+"Pull the window down on my feet and let
+go," I called, as loud as I dared, "and draw the
+curtains so she won't see my shoes.  If she asks
+where I am, tell her I am outdoors.  Quick!
+Let it down!"
+
+They got it down and drew the curtains just
+as her Royal Highness walked in, and as she went
+toward the window Katherine Hardy says that
+never before had she prayed as she prayed that
+minute, and then she thought of mice, which was
+a quick answer.  She gave a little scream and
+jumped with her hands over her eyes and bumped
+into the lady, who, being a woman first, was also
+afraid of mice, and she moved, too.  Seeing the
+girls flying around, she told them to stop, told
+them Maud Hendren's mother had telephoned
+that she must come home at once and, not
+missing me, owing to the girls moving about so
+she wouldn't notice, she went out of the room,
+skirts still held up, and the minute she was out
+they rushed for the window and pulled me in.
+
+My dress was a sight when I got in, and I
+didn't have much skin on my elbows, and my
+hands were stuck up with splinters, as I had to
+hold on to anything I could clutch, being afraid
+the window would not hold my feet and the
+shingles being rotten.  But otherwise no damage
+was done, and I got the note Taylor had tied
+to the string, which I had pulled up by the time
+the Ogress had departed.  I gave it to Amy and
+told her to read it quick.
+
+She read it, and after doing it turned so white
+and looked so queer we were frightened.  For a
+minute she couldn't speak, then she handed me
+the note, and when I asked if I must read it
+aloud she nodded her head and sat down, as if
+to stand up was impossible.  I glanced over it
+first so as to leave out the little love decorations
+and just read the practical part, and what
+Taylor told her was that he had just gotten a
+telegram from his house (it's iron-works I think)
+saying he must leave on important business for
+South America on the 6th of September.  The
+house had been talking of sending him for some
+time, and had been waiting for certain developments
+which had suddenly developed, and he
+would have to go.  Would she go with him, and
+if she would not he never expected to come back
+again, but would stay over there and take charge
+of the South-American branch of the house he was
+going to establish.  She would have to decide
+at once, as he couldn't stay a minute later
+than the 30th.  They could be married anywhere
+she said, only it must be quickly done.  He had
+gotten the telegram an hour before, and in the
+morning she must get Kitty Canary to fix things
+so he could see her and talk more fully.  Kitty
+could be depended on and would manage
+somehow.  The rest being private and personal, I
+skipped it and gave the note back to Amy, who
+was as white as the dress she had on, and her
+hands as limp as wet kid gloves.
+
+Excited!  To my dying day I will never
+forget the thrill of it.  Being in love myself, as I
+had once thought, wasn't a circumstance to it,
+and the other girls were as bad as I.  To help
+a heart-yearning, backboneless young girl
+escape from the captivity of a cast-iron
+grandparent was something no red-blooded person
+could refuse, and every one of us agreed that the
+only thing for Amy to do was to walk into the
+den of lions and tell the head lioness the truth;
+ask her permission to many the man she loved,
+and, if she would not give it, to take it, anyhow,
+and tell her farewell and leave at once for South
+America.  That, at least, was what I thought
+ought to be done, and after a while the others
+thought so, too.  At first there was a lot of
+argument, but I told them I would never agree to
+Amy's running away to be married without her
+first telling her grandmother she was going to do
+it.  That is, if she would not let her be married
+at home.  If the G. M. would not let, then Amy
+could take the first train out, but she mustn't
+take it until she had shown her grandmother the
+respect she did not deserve.  I never could bear
+runaway marriages.  There's always something
+so common about them, and I wasn't going to be
+party to one if I could help it.
+
+All the time we were talking we left Amy out
+of it, and never once asked her what she
+preferred in the matter.  The reason we didn't was
+the poor little thing was so frightened and
+distressed that she could not open her lips.  We
+would not let her come down-stairs with us, and
+when we said good night I whispered that I would
+see Taylor on my way to Rose Hill, and at ten
+o'clock the next morning we would meet her at
+the back of Miss Susanna's vegetable garden
+under the big locust-tree, and that she mustn't
+worry, we'd fix it, he and I.  Also I told her she
+might bring up some toilet things and little
+traveling necessities and leave them with me;
+and though she clung to me like a frightened
+child and didn't speak, she was down by the
+barn the next morning at ten, and so was Taylor.
+I let them get there a little ahead of me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+They are married and gone, and for two days Twickenham Town has talked
+of nothing else.  It made a regular soup of the marriage.  The bride
+and groom were the stock, the grandparent and maiden aunts were the
+thickening, and I was the seasoning; but all that does not matter now.
+The ancestralized person has learned that the twentieth century sees
+some things clearer than the eighteenth did, but she will never admit
+that she has learned it.  Taylor and Amy were not unmindful of what was
+due her, however.  Taylor wrote her a very nice letter, asking her
+permission to marry her granddaughter and take her to South America,
+and her answer was low-down.  He wrote as a gentleman should, and she
+answered as a lady shouldn't, for her answer was insulting, and a real
+lady never humiliates any one.  After reading it Taylor told Amy to
+meet him at seven o'clock on Wednesday morning, and they would be
+married in the church with no one present but his brother (the only
+relative Taylor has in town is a bachelor brother), and the sexton, the
+minister, and me.  She met and the marriage took place.
+
+We didn't tell a soul about the marriage.  The night before Amy spent
+with me at Rose Hill, and, thinking it best Taylor should not be there,
+I told him not to come, and sent the other boys home early.  In my room
+I packed my suitcase and put in it two dresses I had never worn, which
+I was glad to do, as it would mean that much less to pack when I went
+home, and also I put in some other things; and though Amy cried a good
+deal and didn't think she ought to take them, she was very particular
+about how they went in.  She is very neat and careful, and I'm
+fearfully quick, so it was well she watched me.  I told her she was
+doing me a favor to dispossess me of what I didn't want and what was in
+my way, and as we were the same height, though Amy is a little thinner,
+owing to secret love and distress of mind, I knew the things would fit
+her, and I was more than glad to get rid of them.  Also she didn't have
+any of her own convenient, and she might as well be sensible.  She was,
+and put in her own tooth brush and powder and left the rest to me, and
+by eleven o'clock everything was ready.
+
+When the next day the news flew around that the marriage had taken
+place and I had been the leading spirit in it, I went to bed and stayed
+there until the town had finished chewing me up, and then I came out
+again.  It was the most sensible thing I ever did and saved a lot of
+talk and argument.
+
+Another reason I went to bed was because I was so homesick and so
+lonely, and so something I had no name for, that I knew it was wiser to
+be by myself.  I can't be much in life, but I can keep from being a
+nuisance, and when you feel you haven't a friend on earth outside of
+your family, who sometimes are queer also, you're apt to be a trial to
+those you come in contact with.  For two whole days I stayed in my room
+and thought of nothing but a big, brawny, domineering, dictating girl
+from the West who was giving Billy no time to write letters; and though
+I would die before I would let anybody know it, even Jess, I nearly
+cried my eyes out under the bedclothes the day of the marriage.
+
+Life is a poor thing at times.  And it is never so poor as when you
+think a friend has failed you.  There was nothing on earth that could
+have made me believe Billy would ever fail me when we had known each
+other since children, and he had saved my life three or four times; but
+how can I help believing it when he is letting a perfectly ordinary,
+straight-haired, large-footed girl from the West make him forget that I
+am living and spending the summer in Twickenham Town?  If he had not
+forgotten, would he not write?  He would.  I am miserable and I will
+never be happy until I can say some things to William Spencer Sloane
+that he ought to hear.  But I'm trying to keep my miserableness to
+myself.  People aren't interested in other people's miseries.  I wonder
+if I will ever again get a letter from Billy!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+It is a perfectly magnificent thing to be alive!  And this world is a
+perfectly glorious place to be alive in!  There isn't a bird in
+Twickenham Town that isn't singing to-day, or a flower that isn't
+blooming, and, owing to the rain last night, the dust is laying.  As
+for the sun--there couldn't be a more shining one, and the sky is a
+blue so gorgeous that it seems heaven turned inside out, and in the air
+is the snap of coolness that makes one want to walk and walk and walk,
+and its crispness means fall is coming.  I love the fall.  I can't
+think of anything I do not love to-day except Elizabeth Hamilton Carter
+and Grandmother Brandon, and I don't exactly abhor them.  I just don't
+like them, and prefer to stay out of their way.  But everybody else in
+town is a dear, and I wish I knew I was coming back next summer.  That
+is--
+
+It doesn't matter what is or what isn't.  The thing that matters is
+that this morning I went to the post-office, as usual, but, what was
+not as usual, I got what I had long been looking for, and which had
+come not for endless, endless days.  When I saw the big batch of
+letters and things from Billy, and knew that all my fears were at an
+end, I was so excited I could not speak without signs that shouldn't
+show, and, lest some one stop me, I put the mail inside my shirt-waist
+and hopped on Skylark and flew out of town.
+
+I didn't stop until I got to a big chestnut-tree about three miles from
+Rose Hill, and there I took off Skylark's bridle and let her have all
+the grass she could eat, and then I sat down and sorted the letters
+out.  There were four from Billy and twelve cards and two packages, and
+at first I couldn't understand why they had been held up, why I hadn't
+gotten them before; and then I saw they were postmarked from the same
+place, and had been mailed within three days of one another.  That
+puzzled me, so I decided to open them and find out what was the
+matter--whether it was the Western girl or something else.
+
+I ought to have known it was something else!  And I have been
+wondering, ever since I read the letters and found out about the
+accident to Billy's eyes, when he came near being shot and the powder
+got in them and nearly put them out, why it is that people are so
+mistrusting and why we let one thing we can't understand make us forget
+what we ought to understand very well.  Ten thousand kind things, right
+things, nice things we take for granted, and then at the first thing we
+think isn't kind or right or nice we forget the others and howl and
+snort about the one we do not like.  At least that is what I did.  Not
+outwardly, of course, but inwardly, for I'm pretty toplofty about being
+treated right, and I flare out and say things I shouldn't at times, and
+afterward I am so ashamed of myself that a worm of the dust is a perky
+animal to me for a few minutes.  That condition of mind doesn't last
+very long, however.  I am not by nature a humble-minded person.  While
+it does last it is awful.  Perfectly awful.
+
+When I read Billy's letter I laid right down on the grass and put my
+face deep down in it, and there wasn't anything abominable that anybody
+could have said about me that I would not have agreed to.  All the time
+I had been furious with him for not writing as usual, he had been shut
+up in a dark room, not able to see the food he was eating, much less
+able to write letters, and then when they took the bandages off he
+wrote so much they had to be put back again, and he was forbidden to
+write more than a few lines, which accounted for so many cards.  He
+wouldn't let any one else write me, and I don't understand exactly how
+it happened except he saw a drunken man on the street waving a pistol,
+and there were some children around, and before the policeman could get
+to him Billy had caught his hand and the thing had gone off and some of
+the powder got in his eyes.  He made light of it, but I know exactly
+what he did.  I thought it was a Western product that was engrossing
+him, and it was the children he was trying to save.  Oh, Billy, I'm a
+pig!  A perfectly horrid pig!
+
+And then I suddenly thought of the astonishing letter I had written
+about being in love and maybe engaged, and I prayed hard that he would
+never get it; but I knew it was too late for prayers.  And then I got
+mad with Pat for writing to Jess about the girl from the West, and with
+Jess for writing what Pat had written, and not for some time did I come
+to my senses and realize I was the only person I had any right to get
+mad with.  I got, all right.  And then I wondered what to do.  Billy
+said they would sail on the 21st and reach New York on the 29th, so I
+decided to go back to Rose Hill and begin to pack.
+
+Father could not come to me, so I would go to Father and be home by the
+time Billy got there.  It was only the 3d of September, but I decided I
+would leave as soon as I could do so without remarks being made about
+my going sooner than I expected, and to prevent remarks I would have to
+invent a good reason for getting away.  Father's loneliness would make
+a perfect reason for Twickenham Town, and a most dutiful one, and no
+one would be apt to ask me why I hadn't thought of his loneliness
+before; but it wouldn't do for the family.  They wanted me to stay out
+of the city as long as possible, and while I was wondering what I could
+do to get back, Mrs. Pettigrew passed with five of the children in the
+buggy and asked if I knew there was a telegram for me at the station.
+I told her I did not, and my heart got right where hearts always get
+when telegrams are mentioned, and in the twinkling of an eye Skylark's
+bridle was on and I on Skylark, and we raced like mad to town.
+
+On the way I was thinking all the awful things that telegrams start one
+to thinking, and I remembered it was just eleven days since I had sent
+the letter to Billy, who had, of course, gotten it by this time, and,
+not realizing how fast I was going, I was at the station before it
+seemed possible to get there, and so out of breath I could not speak.
+I slipped off the horse and held out my hand to Mr. Pepper for the
+telegram, and when he handed me the yellow envelope I slid down on a
+bench and held it as if it were a death-warrant, and not for some time
+could I open it.  I was positive it was about Mother, who wasn't very
+well when she last wrote, and everything I had ever done that I ought
+not to have done, and everything I had left undone which I should have
+done, walked right up in front of me and clutched me by the throat, and
+I had to shut my eyes to keep my head steady.  I had inside the same
+sinky feeling I felt the first time I went to Europe, on the first day
+out.
+
+Mr. Pepper was looking at me, and so were several other people who
+happened to be standing around, so I tried to get a grip on, and after
+awhile I opened the envelope; but at first I couldn't see the words on
+it.  Finally I took them in after three times reading them over, and at
+last I understood.
+
+
+Cut it out.  You are engaged to me.  Sailing to-morrow.  See you
+September fifteenth.--BILLY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+There never was a sinner saved by grace who so wanted to make a noise
+as I wanted to make one when I got into my head what had happened.  The
+relief from fear and the joyfulness of knowing I had been pulled out of
+another ditch made me dizzy for a moment, and down went my elbows into
+my lap and down my face into my hands, and not until Mr. Pepper said
+something to me did I lift my head and get up.  Then I threw my
+riding-crop in the air, tossed up the Pepper baby, danced around with
+him, and, suddenly seeing all present were watching me, and knowing
+they felt they had a right to hear what was in the telegram without
+waiting for Mr. Pepper to tell them, I said an old friend of mine, who
+was anxious to know Twickenham Town, was coming to see it when he got
+back from Europe.  After which I gave Mr. Pepper a little wink which he
+understood, and I am sure no one was told the wording of the message I
+had received.  Mr. Pepper has a good deal of sense.
+
+Happy?  I was the happiest girl in all the world that day.  I nearly
+sang my throat off when I got to my room, but I did not mention the
+telegram to anybody save Miss Susanna, and I didn't go into details
+with her about it.  I just said a friend was coming to see me when he
+got back from Europe, and I said it in such a way she didn't think I
+was interested very much.  She is so astonished by Elizabeth's
+behavior, and so surprised at her marriage, which is to be in November,
+that I don't think she paid any attention to what I said and got the
+impression it was a friend of Father's who was coming to Twickenham
+Town.  I let her keep it.  I did not give it to her knowingly, but
+there was no need to take it away.
+
+And last night, not being able to sleep, I knew I had not been in love
+with Whythe at all.  I don't know a thing in the world about being in
+love.  I had tried to think I knew something, but I was mistaken.  I
+must say I enjoyed hearing Whythe's crescendo, obligato, diminuendo way
+of making it, but I realize now I am not the sort of person to really
+fall in love with strange men.  Certainly I could never do it with a
+wabbly, changery, one-or-the-othery kind of man that Whythe is, and
+while it was pretty scrumptious thinking a twenty-five-year-older was
+in love with me, I soon found out it was a summer case and not at all
+serious.  And I am thankful I never thought I was enough in love to
+become engaged.  There might have been things to remember that one
+likes to forget when the real one comes along, and I have nothing of
+that sort to be sorry for.  I'm right particular at times.
+
+If I am ever really and truly engaged I wonder if I will be as
+particular as a sixteen-year-old person, a girl person, ought to be?  I
+guess it will depend on whom I am engaged to, but, of course, not being
+in love, I couldn't be engaged, and there is no use in thinking what I
+might do under circumstances that might warrant the doing of it, and
+when I see Billy I will just shake hands; that is--
+
+Every time I think of his coming I feel like opening my arms so wide I
+could take the whole world in, but I don't open them.  I just go look
+at the calendar to see if another day hasn't gone by yet.  When this
+morning I saw it was the 14th and realized there wasn't but one more
+day to wait, I went to the window and did open my arms, and I sent a
+message into the air.  And then, because I felt so sorry for Miss
+Araminta Armstrong, who has nothing to wait for but older age, and for
+Miss Bettie Simcoe, who has long since stopped hoping, I went
+down-stairs and asked them if they wouldn't like to motor to Glade
+Springs, and they said they would, and we went.  Also Mr. Willie
+Prince.  I didn't want to ask him, but I couldn't leave him out, and of
+course he wanted to go.  The going made the day pass a little quicker,
+but it has been a long day!  Awful long!
+
+For the last week I have been going around to almost every house in
+town to say good-by.  I don't know the exact day I will leave, as that
+will depend on when Mother says I must be home; but I didn't want to go
+away and not say good-by to everybody and tell them what a good time I
+have had, and I started telling very soon after I got Billy's message
+saying he was coming.  I have thanked everybody for their niceness and
+kindness to me, and told every one I hope to come back next summer, and
+sometimes we have had little weeps, for they put their arms around me
+and held me so tight I could hardly breathe.  And I know now there is
+nothing as good as friendliness, and loving-kindness is more to be
+desired than all things else on earth, and I am going to try to make it
+grow wherever I live.  I will have a garden of it--have it in my heart.
+
+I am afraid I will always have some practical things in my heart, too,
+for of late I've been thinking about all that money Billy had to spend
+in cabling me from Europe.  When Billy wants to do a thing he never
+lets obstacles stand in his way, and he would have sent that cable if
+he'd had to borrow the money from the Bank of England at an awful rate
+of interest.  What he did do I guess was to get it from his mother.
+She would take her head off and her heart out and hand both over if he
+wanted them, and it isn't her fault that William, as she calls him,
+isn't a ruined person.
+
+I know she hated him to leave ahead of time, which he had to do to get
+here on the 15th, the rest not sailing, Jess says, until the 20th; but
+that's William again.  He doesn't waste time when he has anything to
+attend to, and I know exactly what he said to his mother.  He will make
+every arrangement and fix everything for them and then tell them
+good-by.  He isn't much with words, Billy isn't.  He acts.  There's no
+fumble in him, and even his mother, who thinks his mold was broken when
+he was born and that the Lord never made but one like him, has to admit
+he is a high-handed person when occasion requires.  I don't agree with
+his mother in a good many things concerning William, but in some I do.
+I wish he wasn't an only son.  An only son for a husband is hard on a
+wife.
+
+The thing I have been thinking about most since I got his cable,
+however, is a certain thing that was in it.  I've worn the paper out
+reading it, and at first there was no argument in my mind, but it is
+coming, argument is.  And though I know it is a bad habit, especially
+in girls and women and disliked by the other sex, how can you help it
+when things are said that are not so?  Billy said, "You are engaged to
+me."  How does he know?  I never told him so.  He hasn't exactly asked
+me--that is, in a way that I would answer him--and he always got so
+choky when on such subjects that I changed them quick, and yet he
+announces that I am his, and with never so much as by your leave!
+
+I am afraid, I'm terribly afraid, I am going to agree with him.  It's a
+relief to have some things settled for you, and as he imagines I will
+always be falling overboard, he doubtless thinks he had better keep a
+life-preserver on me in case he isn't near enough to jump in after me.
+He knows if I ever agree to put one on I will keep it on.  I have a
+good deal of Father in me, and when I give my word I stick to it.
+
+If any one had told me when I came to Twickenham Town that the chief
+thing I would find out before I went away was that I wouldn't really
+mind owning a life-preserver, my head would have gone up and I would
+have been as chesty as a hen who tries to crow; and now I'm nothing but
+a humble-minded person waiting for a high-handed one to come and take
+me back home.  And I am perfectly willing to go.  Another thing I have
+found out this summer is that it doesn't much matter where you are or
+what you are doing; whether there is purple and fine linen or just
+ancestors, or both together, or neither; if the one you want most isn't
+with you, you will be pretty lonely after a while.
+
+I have had a grand time in Twickenham Town, but I don't want to come
+here again by myself.  If Mrs. William Spencer Sloane wants to take her
+son away with her next summer, she won't be able to do it.  Her son
+will be twenty-one next summer, and though I hope he will always be
+respectful and obedient, as far as possible, to his mother's wishes,
+still, she will have to remember there are other wishes in this world
+besides hers.  I trust she will be nice about the discovery.  Mrs.
+Sloane is a very handsome woman, but spoiled.  And very fond of having
+her own way.
+
+We are not apt to have much money, Billy and I.  We have often said we
+thought young people ought to do their own scrambling, and I think
+that's what we'll have to do, as our fathers think much the same way.
+I'm not fond of herbs, but I can stand a dinner of them if Billy can,
+and besides, it will be nice for us to work up together and not have
+too quick a shove.  And another thing we agree about.  We know the
+thing that counts most, and we are going to keep a good deal of it on
+hand.  Father says neither poverty nor riches can kill love if it is
+the right sort.  I know Billy's is the right sort, but I am crazy to
+hear him put it into words.
+
+He will have traveled thousands of miles to say something he could have
+written, to tell me I am engaged to him and I might as well understand
+it; but there won't be an extra sentence in the way he says it.  He
+will be here to-morrow, and I bet the best thing I've got that all he
+will say is: "Kitty Canary, we are going to decide right now on the day
+and the month and the year.  I will wait until you get through college,
+as you say I've got to, but I won't wait a day longer.  Let's get a
+calendar and work it out."
+
+And I, being a weak-minded person at times, will say, "All right,
+Billy," and then--
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Kitty Canary, by Kate Langley Bosher
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