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,