And then a young man who had got off the same train came up and took
off his hat and asked if he could not do something for me, and I told
him I hoped he could and I certainly would be obliged if he would do it
as quick as possible, as it was getting later every minute and Mother
would be terribly worried if she knew I hadn't been met.

"But where are you going?" he asked, and his eyes, which are his
best-looking part, took me in from top to toe. When I told him I was a
boarder for Miss Susanna Mason and would like to get to her house he
said if I didn't mind a pretty good walk he would take me there with
pleasure, and we started off. It was a perfectly gorgeous night. The
stars were as thick as buttercups in spring, and the moon was
magnificent and the air full of all sorts of old-fashioned fragrances,
as if honeysuckle and mignonette and tea-roses and heliotrope were all
mixed together; and as there didn't seem any real need of grieving
because there was no one to meet me, I thought I might as well enjoy
myself. I did. I could not help the train being late, and I didn't
forget to mail my letter on purpose; and it was an accident, or
coincidence, that a nice man should be on the same train I was, who
lived in the place I was going to spend the summer in, and knew very
well the house I wanted to get to. I didn't know he had been engaged
to the niece of the house and hadn't been to the latter since the
engagement was broken, and I must say as we walked along he didn't show
any evidences of despair or things of that sort. He couldn't possibly
have been naturaler or in better spirits, and he laughed from the time
we left the station until we reached Rose Hill. Not knowing his
history, I told him I had come to Twickenham Town because I thought it
was the most delicious old place in America; the sweetest, slowest,
self-satisfiedest, cocksuredest place on earth, and everybody in it was
a character--that is, everybody over thirty. He said that let him out,