the time. When she's not away at school she stays in some big hotel with
her fathah, eithah in New York or at some summah resort. He is always so
busy there's no one to pay any attention to her but her maid. They are
very wealthy, and Eugenia has had the best of everything so long that
I'm afraid she'll find the Valley dreadfully poah and poky. I imagine
she's stuck up, too. She used to be, and she's always had her own way
about everything."

"Number one doesn't sound very inviting," said Rob, with a sour grimace.
"Who is your number two?" Lloyd held out the second envelope.

_Miss Joyce Ware,
Plainsville,
Kansas._

"I nevah saw her," said Lloyd, "but I feel as if we had always been old
friends. Her mothah and mine used to go to school togethah heah in
Lloydsboro Valley at the Girls' College, and they've written to each
othah once a month for fifteen yeahs. Mrs. Ware is a widow now, and they
have ha'd times, for they are poah, and she has foah children youngah
than Joyce. But Joyce has had lots of things that neithah Eugenia nor I
have had. Last yeah her cousin Kate took her abroad with her, and she
studied French, and she had lots of beautiful times where they spent the
wintah in France. Mrs. Ware sent some of the lettahs to mothah that
Joyce wrote. One was about a Christmas tree that they gave to thirty
little peasant children,--and so many queer things happened behind a
gate that they called the 'Gate of the Giant Scissahs,' because there
was a pair of enormous scissahs hanging ovah it, you know. Oh, it was
just like a fairy tale, all the things that Joyce did when she was in
Touraine."

"How old is she?" interrupted Rob.

"Just Eugenia's age, I believe, and she must be an interestin' sort of
girl, for she draws beautifully. Mothah says that her sketches are fine,
and that Joyce will be a real artist when she is grown."

"Number two is all right," said Rob, with an approving nod. "Next!" The
Little Colonel held out the third envelope.

"One flew east and one flew west, so I s'pose this will fly into the
cuckoo's nest," said Rob, as he read the address:

_Miss Elizabeth Lloyd Lewis,
Jaynes's Post-office,
Kentucky._

"Why, that's just what mothah calls the place," cried the Little
Colonel, "the cuckoo's nest! She says that the cuckoo is the most
careless bird in the world about the way it builds its nest. They weave
a few