CHAPTER I


OUR HOUSE-BOAT AT HENLEY

It speaks volumes for an amiability I have always claimed for myself
through sundry fierce disputes on the subject with my sister, that, even
after two years of travel in Europe with her and Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie,
they should still wish for my company for a journey across France and
Germany to Russia. Bee says it speaks volumes for the tempers of the
Jimmies, but then Bee is my sister, or to put it more properly, I am
Bee's sister, and what woman is a heroine to her own sister?

In any event I am not. Bee thinks I am a creature of feeble intelligence
who must be "managed." Bee loves to "manage" people, and I, who love to
watch her circuitous, diplomatic, velvety, crooked way to a straight
end, allow myself to be so "managed;" and so after safely disposing of
Billy in the grandmotherly care of Mamma for another six months, Bee and
I gaily took ship and landed safely at the door of the Cecil, having
been escorted up from Southampton by Jimmie.

While repeated journeys to Europe lose the thrill of expectant
uncertainty which one's first held, yet there is something very pleasing
about "_going back_." And so we were particularly glad again to join
forces with our friends the Jimmies and travel with them, for they, like
Bee and me, travel aimlessly and are never hampered with plans.

Everybody seems to know that we do not mean business, and nobody has
ever dared to ask whether our intentions were serious or not.