"Yesindeed," replied the young woman, all in one word, but her face brightened. Suddenly she was looking at me like a long-lost friend. "I guess you're expected. Mrs. Hale, that's the lady of the house here, sent the telegram on, and Miss Woodburn telegraphed back about you. Mrs. Hale went to meet your train, but maybe she didn't recognise you or else she got caught at the bridge. Anyhow she hasn't come back yet. I guess you'd better come in. Your room is all ready for you." "My room?" I stammered. "Why--yes, of course. Mrs. Hale expects you to stay with us till you're good and ready to go somewhere else. You'll like her. She's a nice lady, if I do say it myself." "She's too kind," I exclaimed. "I never heard of such kindness to a stranger." "Oh, maybe you haven't been in America long," said the kind lady's servant. "I guess it would be just the same in most any house over here. You come right in, and I'll take you up to your room." I hadn't thought at first I could like that girl so much, but my heart warmed to her and her mistress, and everything that was hers. Only I couldn't stay. I would have to move on somewhere, like the poor tramps in the Park at home. "I can't do that, though I'm very grateful indeed to Mrs. Hale," I said. "I--I have other plans. I'll just scribble a little note to tell her so, and thank her, then I must go." "She'll just never forgive me if I let you," protested the young woman. I began to be a little afraid that I might be detained by well-meant force; but when I had written a letter to Mrs. Hale, (squeezing Vivace under one arm and sitting at a desk in a bright, charming drawing-room where three Persian cats, six Japanese spaniels and a number of birds played about the floor) I contrived to persuade the hospitable creature that my immediate departure was practically a matter of life or death. Then I threaded my way out of the drawing-room without squashing any of the little tropical, flowerlike things that hopped about and--according to the maid--were worth more than their weight in gold. I knew I should have loved Mrs. Hale, for her own sake and Sally's and the happy family's in the drawing-room, but I felt I must vanish before she came home, or I should be saddled upon her, and she would feel bound to keep me indefinitely, till Sally returned or I was sent for like a missing parcel by my own people. So instead of writing my news to Mr. Brett, I went back with it to him, like a bad penny. He must have been surprised when he heard that a lady was waiting in the drawing-room of his hotel, and hurried in to see me sitting there. I should have felt ready to die if he had looked bored, but he didn't a bit.