Page:An American Girl in India.djvu/11



CHAPTER I

MYSELF, AUNT AGATHA, AND SOME OTHERS

Now if you expect to find this book just chock-a-block with American expressions and reeking with an accent, I guess you will be disappointed. I had best tell you straight away that I am not one of the forge-ahead kind of American, who go about with a twang and a guide book, armed with an umbrella to chip off bits of stone from Westminster Abbey and such like places to carry home west as trophies. And I don't love particularly Paris nor catch right on to people straight away.

You see, it was like this. My father died when I was at the fascinating age of four. He wore a thick gold watch chain, and was very fat—that, I am sorry to say, is all I can remember of him. He was rich, too, though what he made his money in I have never to this day been able to discover. Mother is not just exactly communicative about my father. Perhaps that's because she has married again. My step-father is quite well-known in the political world,