er 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 sho