She kissed Beth sincerely, but with no more display of emotion than she would have shown on ordinary occasions, if on ordinary occasions Aunt Rebecca ever kissed. Beth threw her arms around Aunt Rebecca and kissed her again and again with the full consciousness that this was a crisis, an era in her life, upon which no calm embrace would be suitable. [Illustration: “OH! GOOD-BYE, AUNT REBECCA.”] “I’ll be as good, as good as goodness, Aunt Rebecca! And I’ll be dreadfully homesick and lonely without you, but I know I shall have a beautiful time. Please don’t let Tabby forget me, and if she should have an all yellow kitten while I’m gone, you will keep it for me, won’t you? Oh, good-bye, Aunt Rebecca,” Beth cried with a last frantic hug and desperate kiss. Then she ran out of the door laughing and crying, darted back to bid Ella Lowndes good-bye, finally rushed down the walk and into the station carriage. The driver leaned over and shut the door, turned his horse, guiding him with the reins laid over Beth’s trunk on end beside him, and drove down the street. Beth watched the familiar buildings drop back of her with a puzzled sense of being in a dream. Except for a trip to Boston for a day she had never been away from the world these buildings represented; the Centre Church, the small shops, the new hall, the brick schoolhouse, the library. New York would certainly be different from this; Boston was different, and Beth knew to a figure how much smaller than New York Boston was. The maid did not talk; Beth glanced at her uneasily. She had no idea how to address her, and she looked capable of resenting the wrong form of address. Beth decided to wait for her to begin the conversation; she was so unexpectedly elderly that that was surely her right. The maid bought Beth’s ticket, checked her trunk for Boston, and that left little time to spare before the train came. Beth mounted the steps with rapidly beating heart and flutteringly took the inside seat by the window which the maid indicated. “You’ve been to Boston, it’s likely, Miss Elizabeth?” said the maid at last to Beth’s relief. “Yes, several times,” said Beth. “But I’ve never traveled anywhere else. Have you traveled much?” “I came across the ocean when I wasn’t much above your age. I’ve traveled pretty much all over America with different ladies, and I’ve been much about Europe, Miss Elizabeth,” said the maid indifferently. “Oh, my! Have you?” cried Beth. “I’m not Miss Elizabeth, please. Aunt Rebecca doesn’t call me Elizabeth unless she’s displeased with me, and nobody else ever does. I’m Beth.” “You’ll have to be called Miss Beth then, for it’s not suitable for your uncle’s servants to call you by your name, so free,” said the maid. “Isn’t it?” asked Beth. “Of course I don’t know as well as you do. Ella always calls me Beth, but she’s just Ella. What ought I to call you, please?”