"I don't know but you'll have to go back and write it all over again,
Clementina," she said, "if you've told him not to come. I've been
thinkin', if you don't want to have anything to do with him, we betta go
ouaselves."

"Yes," answered Clementina, "that's what I've said."

"You have? Well, the witch is in it! How came you to--"

"I just wanted to talk with you about it. But I thought maybe you'd like
to go. Or at least I should. I should like to go home, Mrs. Landa."

"Home!" retorted Mrs. Lander. "The'e's plenty of places where you can be
safe from the fella besides home, though I'll take you back the'a this
minute if you say so. But you needn't to feel wo'ked up about it."

"Oh, I'm not," said Clementina, but with a gulp which betrayed her
nervousness.

"I did think," Mrs. Lander went on, "that I should go into the Vonndome,
for December and January, but just as likely as not he'd come pesterin'
the'a, too, and I wouldn't go, now, if you was to give me the whole city
of Boston. Why shouldn't we go to Florid?"

When Mrs. Lander had once imagined the move, the nomadic impulse mounted
irresistably in her. She spoke of hotels in the South, where they could
renew the summer, and she mapped out a campaign which she put into
instant action so far as to advance upon New York.

Part 2.

XV.

Mrs. Lander went to a hotel in New York where she had been in the habit
of staying with her husband, on their way South or North. The clerk knew
her, and shook hands with her across the register, and said she could
have her old rooms if she wanted them; the bell-boy who took up their
hand-baggage recalled himself to her; the elevator-boy welcomed her with
a smile of remembrance.

Since she was already up, from coming off the sleeping-car, she had no
excuse for not going to breakfast like other people; and she went with
Clementina to the dining-room, where the head-waiter, who found them
places, spoke with an outlandish accent, and the waiter who served
them had a parlance that seemed superficially English, but was inwardly
something else; there was even a touch in the cooking of the familiar
dishes, that needed translation for the girl's inexperienced palate.
She was finding a refuge in the strangeness of everything, when she was
startled by the sound of a familiar voice calling, "Clementina Claxon!
Well, I was sure all along it was you, and I determined I wouldn't stand
it another minute. Why, child, how you ha