"No one, Cousin Antony."
"What do you mean?"
"I came alone."
"From New York? You're crazy, Bella!"
She sat up with spirit, brought her heavy braid around over her shoulder and fastened the black ribbon securely.
"I lose my hair ribbons like anything," she said. "Why, I've done things alone for years, Cousin Antony. I've been all over New York matching things. I used to buy all Gardiner's things alone and have them charged. I know my way. I'm going on fourteen. You dropped your telegram, the one Miss Mitty sent you, when you rushed out that night. I found it on the stairs." She fished it out of her pocket. "Mr. Antony Fairfax, 42, Nut Street, West Albany. I had to watch for a good chance to come, and when I got to Forty-second Street I just took a ticket for West Albany, and no one ever asked me my name or address, and the people in the cars gave me candy and oranges. At the station down here I asked the ticket man where Nut Street was, and he said: 'Right over those tracks, young lady,' and laughed at me. Downstairs the woman gave me a glass of milk—and aren't the children too sweet, Cousin Antony, with so many freckles? And doesn't she speak with a brogue just like old Ann's?"
"This is the wildest thing I ever heard of," said her cousin. "I must telegraph your mother and take you home at once."
She gasped. "Oh, you wouldn't do that? I'm not going home. I have run away for good."
"Don't be a goose, little cousin."