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