of wanting to think!" exclaimed Kitty. "I never stop to
think when I write letters."

"You don't need to tell that to any one who has ever heard from you,"
remarked Blue Bonnet. "The one letter I had from you in New York took
me an hour to puzzle out,--it began in the middle and ended at the top
of the first page, and there were six 'ands' and four 'ifs' in one
sentence."

"That's quite an accomplishment--I'll wager you couldn't get in half
so many," retorted Kitty. And then for a while there was silence,
broken only by the scratching of pens and the query from Blue Bonnet
as to whether there were two s's or two p's in "disappoint."

"TO SUSY AND RUTH DOYLE, WOODFORD,
MASSACHUSETTS.
"THE BLUE BONNET RANCH,
"July the fifth.

"YOU POOR DEARS: You'll never know if you live to be a
thousand years old what a fearful disappointment it
was when Doctor Clark told me the awful news. Where
did you get it? Is it very bad? And do you have to
gargle peroxide of hydrogen? Amanda says she just
lived on it when her throat was bad. Are you honestly
as red as lobsters? It's a perfect shame you should
have to be sick--and in vacation, too. There might be
some advantages if it should happen--say at
examination time. Grandmother says it is very unusual
to have scarlet fever in warm weather,--it just seems
as if you must have gone out of your way to get it--or
it went out of its way to get you.

"The ranch party isn't a bit complete without you. I'm
going to take pictures of everything and everybody so
as to show you when we get back. That sounds as if I
meant to go back again next fall, when really it isn't
decided yet. I'm more in love with the ranch than ever
and feel as if I never wanted to leave it again. It's
so fine and big out here. There's so much air to
breathe and such a long way to look, and you can
throw a stone as far as you like without 'breaking a
window or a tradition'--as Alec says. We have our
traditions, too, but they can stand any amount of
stone-throwing--in fact that's part of them.

"It's worth crossing the continent to see Sarah on
horseback, riding across the saddle