"Haven't you got a Christian name?" asked Kitty, staring frankly with
her wide-open eyes at Alice's friend.

"Bessie is my name," answered Bessie Challoner.

"Do you mind my calling it to you? I like Challoner awfully, and if I
were to say Challoner without the Miss it might do, but Miss is so
stiff. I hope I may be Kitty to you, and then you won't object to being
Bessie to me."

"Not a bit," answered Bessie heartily; "but we are a little late, and
had better walk on as fast as we can."

Gwin Harley lived in a beautiful house about two miles away, and the
girls turned down a path which led across some fields in the direction
of Harley Grove. The time of year was toward the end of May, and the
weather was perfect.

Kitty, who had been silent for a time, now stood in the middle of the
field, threw both her hands to her sides, let her parasol drop on the
ground, and opened her mouth wide.

"Have you gone quite mad?" asked Alice in a severe tone.

"Mad is it?" said Kitty; "not I. I am taking in some of the air." Here
she began to breathe very deeply and with considerable noise. "Why, my
ducky girls, the pair of you, I was fairly suffocated in that bandbox of
a house; now the breeze here is fine and fresh, and I want to fill my
lungs. Is there any objection?"