"There wasn't anybody else _to_ go," said Janice, sadly. "The stockholders might lose all they put into it. And our money, too. Why! we had to rent our house furnished. That's why I am coming East to Uncle Jason's while father is away." "Too bad! too bad!" returned the old lady, shaking her head. "But you see," Janice hastened to say, with pride, "my father is that kind of a man. The other folks expected him to take hold of the business and straighten it out. He--he's always doing such things, you know." "I see," agreed Mrs. Scattergood. "He's one o' these 'up an' comin' sort o' men. And you're his darter!" and she cackled a little, shrill laugh. "I kin see _that_. You're one o' these new-fashioned gals, all right." "I hope I'm like Daddy," said Janice, quietly. "Everybody loves Daddy--everybody depends on him to go ahead and _do_ things. I hope Uncle Jason will be like him." With the light breeze fluttering the little crinkles of hair between her hat and her brow, and an expression of bright expectancy upon her face, Janice was worth looking at a second time. So Mrs. Scattergood thought, as she glanced up now and again from her knitting. "Poketown--Poketown," the girl murmured to herself, trying to spy out the land ahead as the _Constance Colfax_ floundered on. "Oh! I hope Daddy's remembrance of it is all wrong now. I hope it will belie its name." "What's that, child?" put in the sharp voice of her neighbor. "Why--why--if it _is_ poky I know I shall just die of homesickness for Greensboro," confessed Janice. "How could the early settlers of these 'New Hampshire Grants' ever _dare_ give such a homely name to a village?" "Pshaw!" ejaculated Mrs. Scattergood. "What's a name? Prob'bly some man named Poke settled there fust. Or pokeberries grew mighty common there. People weren't so fanciful about names in them days. Why! my son-in-law lives right now in a place in York State called 'Skunk's Hollow' and the city folks that's movin' in there is tryin' to git the post office to change the name to 'Posy Bloom.' No 'countin' for tastes in names. My poor mother called _me_ Mahala Ann--an' me too leetle to fight back. But I made up my mind when I was a mighty leetle gal that if ever I had a baby I'd call it sumthin' pretty. An' I done the right thing by all my children. "Now here's 'Rill," pursued Mrs. Scattergood, waxing communicative. "Her full name's Amarilla--Amarilla Scattergood. Don't you think that's purty yourself, now?" Janice politely agreed. But she quickly swung the conversation back to Poketown. "I suppose, if mills had been built there, or the summer boarders had discovered Poketown, its name would have been changed, too. And you haven't been up there for twelve years?" "No, child. But that ain't long. Ain't much happens in twelve years back East here." Janice sighed again; but suddenly she jumped from her stool excitedly, crying: "Oh! what place is _that_?"