Kitty Canary | Page 4

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