"Yes, it's pretty well," answered Mr. Arbuton, "but it's not such a rare thing in the East, you know."
"I suppose not. The Ellisons are not an old family. If we went back of my uncle, we should only come to backwoodsmen and Indian fighters. Perhaps that's the reason we don't care much for old families. You think a great deal of them in Boston, don't you?"
"We do, and we don't. It's a long story, and I'm afraid I couldn't make you understand, unless you had seen something of Boston society."
"Mr. Arbuton," said Kitty, abruptly plunging to the bottom of the subject on which they had been hovering, "I'm dreadfully afraid that what you said to me—what you asked of me, yesterday—was all through a misunderstanding. I'm afraid that you've somehow mistaken me and my circumstances, and that somehow I've innocently helped on your mistake."
"There is no mistake," he answered, eagerly, "about my loving you!"
Kitty did not look up, nor answer this outburst, which flattered while it pained her. She said, "I've been so much mistaken myself, and I've been so long finding it out, that I should feel anxious to have you know just what kind of girl you'd asked to be your wife, before I—"
"What?"
"Nothing. But I should want you to know that in many things my life has been very, very different from yours. The first thing I can remember—you'll think I'm more autobiographical than our driver at Ha-Ha Bay, even, but I must tell you all this—is about Kansas, where we had moved from Illinois, and of our having hardly enough to eat or wear, and of my mother grieving over our privations. At last, when my father was killed," she said, dropping her voice, "in front of our own door—"
Mr. Arbuton gave a start. "Killed?"
"Yes; didn't you know? Or no: how could you? He was shot by the Missourians."