"My dear Daughters,"—
"It's for you too, you see," said Katy.
"Last week came your letter of the 31st, and we were glad to hear that you were well and ready to go back to school.
By the time this reaches you, you will be in Hillsover, and your winter term begun.
Make the most of it, for we all feel as if we could never let you go from home again.
Johnnie says she shall rub Spalding's Prepared Glue all over your dresses when you come back, so that you cannot stir.
I am a little of the same way of thinking myself.
Cecy has returned from boarding-school, and set up as a young lady.
Elsie is much excited over the party dresses which Mrs. Hall is having made for her, and goes over every day to see if any thing new has come.
I am glad on this account that you are away just now, for it would not be easy to keep steady heads and continue you studies, with so much going on next door.
I have sent Cousin Olivia a check to pay for the things she bought for you, and am much obliged to her for seeing that you were properly fitted out.
Katy was very right to consider expense, but I wish you to have all things needful.
I enclose two ten-dollar bills, one for each of you, for pocket-money; and, with much love from the children, am,
"Yours affectionately, P. Carr."
"P. S.—Cousin Helen has had a sharp attack, but is better."
"I wish papa would write longer letters," said Katy.
"He always sends us money, but he don't send half enough words with it."
She folded the letter, and fondled it affectionately.
"He's always so busy," replied Clover.
"Don't you remember how he used to sit down at his desk and scrabble off his letters, and how somebody always was sure to ring the bell before he got through?
I'm very glad to have some money, for now I can pay the sixty-two cents I owe you.
It's my turn to read.
This is from Elsie, and a real long one.
Put away the bills first, Katy, or they'll be lost.
That's right; now we'll begin together."
"Dear Clover,—You don't know how glad I am when my turn comes to get a letter all to myself.
Of course I read papa's, and all the rest you write to the family, but it never seems as if you were talking to me unless you begin
'Dear Elsie.'
I wish some time you'd put in a little note marked 'private,' just for me, which nobody else need see.
It would be such fun!
Please do.
I should think you would have hated staying at Cousin Olivia's.
When I read what she said about your travelling dresses looking as if they had come out of the Ark, I was too mad for any thing.
But I shouldn't think you'd want much to go back to school either, though sometimes it must be splendid.
John has named her old stockinet doll, which she used to call 'Scratch- face,'
'Nippy,' after Mrs. Nipson; and I made her a muslin cap, and Dorry drew a pair of black spectacles round her eyes.
She is a perfect fright, and John plays all the time that dreadful things happen to her.
She pricks her with pins, and pretends she has the ear-ache, and lets her tumble down and hurt herself, till sometimes I nearly feel sorry, though it's all make-believe.
When you wrote us about only having pudding for dinner, I didn't a bit.
John put her into the rag-closet that very day, and has been starving her to death ever since, and Phil says it serves her right.
You can't think how awfully lonely I sometimes get without you.
If it wasn't for Helen Gibbs, that new girl I told you about, I shouldn't know what to do.
She is the prettiest girl in Miss McCrane's school.
Her hair curls just like mine, only it is four times as long and a million times as thick, and her waist is really and truly not much bigger round than a bed-post.
We're the greatest friends.
She says she loves me just exactly as much as if I was her sister, but she never had any real sisters.
She was quite mad the other day because I said I couldn't love her quite so well as you and Katy; and all recess-time she wouldn't speak to me, but now we've made up.
Dorry is so awfully in love with her that I never can get him to come into the room when she is here, and he blushes when we tease him about her.
But this is a great secret.
Dorry and I play chess every evening.