able. "I have a kind of a sort of a feeling that I'm in disgrace, and I
want some fun to console me."

Allie laughed.

"How silly you are to mind what Marjorie says!" she answered. "She'll be
all over it by to-morrow, and like you better than ever; I know just how
angelic she always is, after one of these times. But if you want a ride,
I'll be ready in an hour. I've promised to write a letter for Janey,
first."

"To his Goatship?" inquired Howard disrespectfully. "All right; we'll go
out and play ball till time to get the ponies." And they went away,
while Allie stood in the door, saucily calling after them to be good
boys and not get into mischief.

"Now, Janey," she said, as she went out into the kitchen; "I'll write
that letter for you before you wash the dishes or anything; because Mr.
Charlie wants me to go to ride with him, as soon as I can." And she
seated herself at the table, while Janey went after her writing
materials.

"How you done like my paper, Miss Allie?" the girl asked proudly, as she
laid upon the table a sheet of vivid, rose-colored paper, and its
accompanying envelope, which brought with them an aggressive fragrance
of musk. Then she dropped down on the floor behind her young mistress,
coiling herself up in the corner, with her back against the wall, that
she might dictate at her ease.

"My dear frien'," she began slowly, and with the air of searching her
mind for properly sonorous phrases; "I have done receive your letter,
an' I take my pen in han' to now reply. I was very glad to know dat you
is well, an' I am sorry to say I am not; I think I have de
consumption"--

"Why, Janey," interposed Allie; "what do you mean? Aren't you well?"

"Yes, I's well enough," answered Janey, as she shot a sudden mischievous
glance from the corners of her downcast eyes; "but I reckon he'll think
more of me, ef he thinks I's goin' to die. I am not very happy," she
resumed, in the same stilted tone as before; "an' las' night you came to
me in a dream, an' tol' me you was dead. I done specks he'll cry like
everything, when he reads dat," she interpolated, with a nod of triumph.
"Sometimes I reckon we sha'n' never see each other no mo'; but you mus'
never forget your Janey. Um-mm," she went on, in an inarticulate mumble.

"What?" inquired Allie, pausing, with her pen in mid air, as she turned
around to see Janey with her cap off, a row of hair-pins between her
lips, and a pair of gleaming scissors raised to o