you to think for a minute that I came back from Paris a little
Frenchified miss. No, indeed! I'm as American as they make them.
When I boasted to the other girls, whether in Paris or New Orleans,
I always boasted about two things: Dad and California. And I've an
idea I'll go on boasting about them till my dying day.

Of course, when I returned from Paris, Dad met me in New York. It
was a good thing he was rich, for it took a lot of money to get me
and my seven trunks through the custom-house. It might have taken
more, though, if it hadn't been for a young man who came over on the
same boat.

He was such a good-looking young man; tall and broad-shouldered and
fair, with light-brown hair, and the nicest eyes you ever saw. It
wasn't their color so much (his eyes were blue) as the way they
looked at you that made them so attractive. He was awfully well
bred, too! He noticed me a lot on the boat (I had a perfect love of
a Redfern coat to wear on deck), but he didn't try to scrape
acquaintance with me. He worshipped from afar (a woman can always
tell when a man's thinking about her), and while I wouldn't have had
him act otherwise for the world, I was crazy to have him speak to
me.

Our boat docked at Hoboken, and by tipping right and left I managed
to be the very first passenger down the gangway. I half ran, half
slid, but I landed in Dad's arms.

My boxes and bags passed through the custom-house with flying
colors. But my trunks--I couldn't even find them all. Five of them
were stacked in the "M" division, but the other two. . . . Then