Texas girls. I didn't want anything that wasn't Texas. That's what I'd
been saying that very day out under the trees there, when Aunt Julia
looked toward the street, saw you, and called you into the yard."

"Is _that_ why she introduced me as the boy who was born in Texas?"
laughed Harold.

"Yes; and you know how I began to talk Texas right away."

"But I couldn't help much--I left there when I was a baby."

"I know, but you'd been there," laughed Genevieve, "and that helped.
Then, through you, I met your cousin Alma, and the rest was easy, for I
always had you for that safety valve, to talk Texas to. You see, it was
just that I got homesick. All my life I'd lived on the ranch, and things
here were so different. I didn't like to--to mind Mrs. Kennedy and Miss
Jane, very well, I suspect. You see, at the ranch I'd always had my own
way, and--I liked it."

"Well, I'm sure that's natural," nodded Harold.

"I know; but I wasn't nice about it," returned the girl, wistfully.
"Father said I must do everything--everything they said. And I tried to.
But Miss Jane had such heaps of things for me to do, and such tiresome
things, like dusting and practising, and learning to cook and to sew!
And it all was specially hard when you remember that I didn't want to
come East in the first place. But I love it here, now; you know I do.
Every one has been so good to me! Aunt Julia is a dear."

"And--Miss Jane?" queried Harold, eyeing her a little mischievously.

Genevieve blushed.

"Miss Jane? Well, she's 'most a dear, too--sometimes. As for
Sunbridge--I love both the East and the West now. Don't you see? But,
to-day, coming up from Boston, I got to thinking about it--my dear
prairie home; and how I had hated to leave it, and how now I was going
back to it with Aunt Julia and the girls all with me. And I was so
happy, so wonderfully happy, that a great big something rose within me,
and I felt so--so queer, as if I could fly, and fly, and _fly_! And
then, when I saw the girls all dressed alike so prettily, and heard the
'Texas, Texas, Texas'--what did I do? I didn't do anything but
cry--_cry_, Harold, just as if I didn't like things. And the girls were
so disappointed, I know they were!"

"Never mind; I guess you can make them understand--anyhow, you have me,"
said Harold, trying to speak with a lightness that would hide the fact
that her words had made him, too, feel "queer." Harold did not enjoy
feeling "queer."

A moment later