Produced by Clare Boothby and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
From the Painting by Oliver Dennett Grover]
"THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF AN OLD MAID," "THE EXPATRIATES," ETC.
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO _My Dear Father_, WHOSE HIGH TYPE OF PATRIOTISM, STEADFAST LOYALTY TO THE GOVERNMENT, AND DEVOTION TO HIS FAMILY HAVE TAUGHT ME WHEREIN LIE THE IDEALS OF LIFE.
If the critical public had cared to snub Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie and Bee, I, who am a fighting champion of theirs, would never have run the risk of boring it by a further chronicle of their travels. But from a careful survey of my mail, I may say that the present volume of their doings and undoings is a direct result of the friendships they formed in "As Seen by Me," and has almost literally been written by request.
With which statement, as the flushed and nervous singer, who responds to friendly clappings, comes forward, bows, sings, and retires, so do I, and the curtain falls on the Jimmies and Bee and me, all kissing our hands to the gallery.
It speaks volumes for an amiability I have always claimed for myself through sundry fierce disputes on the subject with my sister, that, even after two years of travel in Europe with her and Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie, they should still wish for my company for a journey across France and Germany to Russia. Bee says it speaks volumes for the tempers of the Jimmies, but then Bee is my sister, or to put it more properly, I am Bee's sister, and what woman is a heroine to her own sister?
In any event I am not. Bee thinks I am a creature of feeble intelligence who must be "managed." Bee loves to "manage" people, and I, who love to watch her circuitous, diplomatic, velvety, crooked way to a straight end, allow myself to be so "managed;" and so after safely disposing of Billy in the grandmotherly care of Mamma for another six months, Bee and I gaily took ship and landed safely at the door of the Cecil, having been escorted up from Southampton by Jimmie.
While repeated journeys to Europe lose the thrill of expectant uncertainty which one's first held, yet there is something very pleasing about "_going back_." And so we were particularly glad again to join forces with our friends the Jimmies and travel with them, for they, like Bee and me, travel aimlessly and are never hampered with plans.