But when she looked from her cousin’s hair to her cousin, a sudden sense of shyness came over her, and it was awkwardly enough that she advanced.

“Ought I to kiss her,” she was asking herself, “on a platform like this, and before a lot of people?  She might think it silly;” and while she was still debating the point, she had held out her hand and shaken Anna’s stiffly, with a prim “How do you do,” and that was all.

Her aunt she had overlooked entirely, until that lady recalled her wandering wits peremptorily.  “Well, Katherine, is this the way you greet your aunt and cousin?  Have you quite forgotten me?  Come and kiss us both in a proper manner.—­Well, Daniel, how are you?  Yes, I shall be obliged to you if you will go in search of our luggage;” for Dan, fearing that he, too, might be ordered to kiss them both, had shaken hands heartily but hastily, while uttering burning desires to assist them by finding their boxes.—­“Anthony, come and be introduced to your cousin Anna.  I dare say you scarcely remember her.”

Tony kissed his severe-looking cousin obediently, but his hopes of a playmate died there and then.

“Elizabeth, I do not see her!”

“No—­o; she has not come, Aunt Pike,” said Kitty lamely.  She felt absolutely incapable at that moment of giving any reason why Betty had absented herself, so she said no more.

“Anna was particularly anxious to meet her cousin Elizabeth,” continued Mrs. Pike.  “Being so near of an age, she hopes to make her her special companion.—­Don’t you, Anna?”

“Yes, mother,” said Anna, rubbing her cotton-gloved hands together nervously, and setting Kitty’s teeth on edge to such an extent that she could scarcely speak.  But somehow the enthusiasm of Anna’s actions was not echoed in her voice.

Dan, who had rejoined them, smiled to himself wickedly as he thought of Betty’s last speech about her cousin.

“The porter is taking the luggage out to the omnibus,” he said.  “Will you come out and get up?” He led the way, and they all followed.  The big yellow ’bus with its four horses stood in the roadway outside the platform palings.  The driver and conductor, who knew the Trenires quite well, beamed on them, and touched their hats.

“I’ve kept the front seat for you, missie,” said Weller, the conductor, to Kitty, and he moved towards the short ladder placed against the ’bus in readiness for her to mount.  “Will the other ladies go ’pon top, too?” he asked; and Kitty, with one foot on the lower step, looked round at her aunt to offer her her seat.

“Katherine!  Katherine! what are you doing?  Come down, child, at once.  You surely aren’t thinking of clambering up that ladder?  Let Dan do so if he likes, but you will please come inside with Anna and me.”

Kitty’s face fell visibly.  She could hardly believe, though, that she had heard aright.  “I feel ill if I go inside, Aunt Pike,” she explained.  “Father always lets us go on top; he tells us to.  He says it is healthier; and it is such a lovely evening, too, and the drive is beautiful.  I am sure you would—­”