Miss Herrick was long in appearing, and Valentine occupied the time in looking around him. Presently he began to whistle as he walked about the room, knocking over a screen and upsetting a vase. At last he reached one of the windows, where he was confronted by a small figure in a white dress, with golden hair and great solemn brown eyes, which were fixed upon his face.
"Holloa!" he exclaimed, his whistle stopping short in the middle of a bar.
[Illustration: "WHY, I SUPPOSE YOU ARE MY SISTER."]
"Elizabeth! That is a terribly long name for such a short person."
The little girl considered it beneath her dignity to respond to this. Suddenly, however, she remembered her manners.
"How do you do?" she said, rising, and holding out a small right hand.
"How do you do?" replied Valentine, as he took it and shook it warmly.
"Very pleasant, thank you. My eye, aren't you a funny one! I should think you were Miss Herrick herself."
"I am the youngest Miss Herrick. My aunt will come down soon, I think."
"Oh, I say, come off your perch, do! She is my aunt, too. I shall die if you keep on talking like your great-grandmother. Why, how old are you, little Miss Betsey?"
"I am eleven. Did you ever see my great-grandmother?"
Valentine stared. He had not been in Fourth Street long enough to know that Elizabeth's great-grandmother was a very real personage to her, her name being often quoted by the aunts. The titles of their ancestors were too much reverenced to be used as figures of speech.
"Not that I know of," he said. "And so you are eleven. Just the same age as Marjorie, and she would make two of you."
"My cousin, Marjorie Redmond. Your cousin too, as to that."
"Well, I should say so! What do you take me for? I am thirteen, almost fourteen."
And then their conversation was interrupted by the advent of Miss Herrick. Valentine had really extremely good manners, and his aunt was favorably impressed with her new nephew, despite the fact that he was precisely the age which she had most dreaded.
After a little conversation she went out in the carriage, and left the children together. She said to herself that she might as well begin at once to make the boy understand that she could not entertain him, and besides, the brother and sister had better become acquainted.