"You said you hated it!" cried Harold. "You never told me that. Why, I thought you liked it here." "I do, now, and I did--very soon, specially after I'd met some one I could talk Texas to all I wanted to--_you_, you know! I reckon I never told you, but you were a regular safety valve for me in those days." "Was I?" laughed the lad. "Yes, even from that first day," nodded Genevieve, with a half-wistful smile. "Did I ever tell you the reason, the real reason, why Aunt Julia called you into the yard that afternoon?" "Why, no--not that I know of." Harold's face showed a puzzled frown. "Well, 'twas this. I'd been here a week, and I was so homesick and lonesome for father and the ranch and all. I was threatening to go back. I declared I'd walk back, if there was no other way. Poor Aunt Julia! She tried everything. Specially she tried to have me meet some nice girls, but I just wouldn't. I said I didn't want any girls that weren't Texas girls. I didn't want anything that wasn't Texas. That's what I'd been saying that very day out under the trees there, when Aunt Julia looked toward the street, saw you, and called you into the yard." "Is _that_ why she introduced me as the boy who was born in Texas?" laughed Harold. "Yes; and you know how I began to talk Texas right away." "But I couldn't help much--I left there when I was a baby." "I know, but you'd been there," laughed Genevieve, "and that helped. Then, through you, I met your cousin Alma, and the rest was easy, for I always had you for that safety valve, to talk Texas to. You see, it was just that I got homesick. All my life I'd lived on the ranch, and things here were so different. I didn't like to--to mind Mrs. Kennedy and Miss Jane, very well, I suspect. You see, at the ranch I'd always had my own way, and--I liked it." "Well, I'm sure that's natural," nodded Harold. "I know; but I wasn't nice about it," returned the girl, wistfully. "Father said I must do everything--everything they said. And I tried to. But Miss Jane had such heaps of things for me to do, and such tiresome things, like dusting and practising, and learning to cook and to sew! And it all was specially hard when you remember that I didn't want to come East in the first place. But I love it here, now; you know I do. Every one has been so good to me! Aunt Julia is a dear." "And--Miss Jane?" queried Harold, eyeing her a little mischievously. Genevieve blushed.