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." "I hate home," she said hotly, "it's lonely, and I miss my little brother. They won't let me go to school, and mother takes lessons from an opera singer, and there is no quiet place to read. I never go to the Top Floor where we used to play." She clung to his hand. "Let me stay, Cousin Antony," she pleaded, "I want to live with you." She coloured furiously and stopped. And Fairfax saw that she was like his mother, and that the promises were fulfilled. Her low collar, edged with fine lace, fell away from the pure young throat. Her mouth, piquant and soft, half-coaxing and half-humorous, and her glorious eyes fast losing the look of childhood, were becoming mysterious. "You are too big a girl," he said sternly, "to talk such nonsense. You are too old to be so silly, Bella. Why, your people must be insane with anxiety." But her people, as it turned out, were at Long Branch for the summer, and Bella, presumably to go to the dentist, had come up to stay for a day or two with the little Whitcomb ladies. She had chosen her time well. "No one knows where I am. The Whitcombs don't know I am coming to New York, and the family think I am with Miss Eulalie and Miss Mitty." "There is a train to New York," he said, "in half an hour." "Oh," she cried, "Cousin Antony, how horrid! You've changed perfectly dreadfully. I see it now. You used to be fond of me. I thought you were fond of me. I don't want to force myself on you, Cousin Antony." Fairfax was amazed, charmed and bewildered by her. What did Mrs. Kenny think? He opened the door and called her, and said over his shoulder to Bella-- "What did you tell the woman downstairs?"