ried off," she continued.
"The house seems too big now. I do' know but what, if you don't like
where you're goin', I will take ye in, long's you feel to stop."

"Oh, thank you," said Betty gratefully. "I'm sure I should have a good
time. I'm going to stay with my grandaunts this summer. My father has
gone to Alaska."

"Oh, I do feel to hope it's by sea!" exclaimed the listener.

The cars rattled along and the country grew greener and greener. Betty
remembered it very well, although she had not seen it for four years, so
long it was since she had been in Tideshead before. After seeing the
stonewalled and thatched or tiled roofs of foreign countries, the wooden
buildings of New England had a fragile look as if the wind and rain
would soon spoil and scatter them. The villages and everything but some
of the very oldest farms looked so new and so temporary that Betty
Leicester was much surprised, knowing well that she was going through
some of the very oldest New England towns. She had a delightful sense of
getting home again, which would have pleased her loyal father, and
indeed Betty herself believed that she could not be proud enough of her
native land. Papa always said the faults of a young country were so much
better than the faults of an old one. However, when the train crossed a
bridge near a certain harbor on the way and the young traveler saw an
English flag flying on a ship, it looked very pleasant and familiar.

The morning was growing hot, and the good seafarer in the seat beside
our friend seemed to grow very uncomfortable. Her dress was too thick,
and she was trying to hold on her bonnet with her chin, though it
slipped back farther and farther. Somehow a great many women in the car
looked very warm and wretched in thick woolen gowns and unsteady
bonnets. Nobody looked as if she were out on a pleasant holiday except
one neighbor, a brisk little person with a canary bird and an Indian
basket, out of which she now and then let a kitten's head appear, long
enough to be patted and then tucked back again.

Betty's companion caught sight of this smiling neighbor after a time and
expressed herself as surprised that anybody should take the trouble to
cart a kitten from town to town, when there were two to every empty
saucer already. Betty laughed and supposed that she didn't like cats,
and was answered gruffly that they were well enough in their place. It
was one of our friend's griefs that she never was sure of be