split upon the subject of
red petticoats. I don't see how any little girl can preserve any
self-respect when dressed in a red flannel petticoat an irregular inch
longer than her blue checked gingham dress; but he thinks that red
petticoats are cheerful and warm and hygienic. I foresee a warlike reign
for the new superintendent.

In regard to the doctor, there is just one detail to be thankful for: he
is almost as new as I am, and he cannot instruct me in the traditions
of the asylum. I don't believe I COULD have worked with the old doctor,
who, judging from the specimens of his art that he left behind, knew as
much about babies as a veterinary surgeon.

In the matter of asylum etiquette, the entire staff has undertaken my
education. Even the cook this morning told me firmly that the John Grier
Home has corn meal mush on Wednesday nights.

Are you searching hard for another superintendent? I'll stay until she
comes, but please find her fast.

Yours,

With my mind made up,

SALLIE McBRIDE.

SUP'T'S OFFICE,

JOHN GRIER HOME,

February 27.

Dear Gordon:

Are you still insulted because I wouldn't take your advice? Don't you
know that a reddish-haired person of Irish forebears, with a dash of
Scotch, can't be driven, but must be gently led? Had you been less
obnoxiously insistent, I should have listened sweetly, and been saved.
As it is, I frankly confess that I have spent the last five days in
repenting our quarrel. You were right, and I was wrong, and, as you
see, I handsomely acknowledge it. If I ever emerge from this present
predicament, I shall in the future be guided (almost always) by your
judgment. Could any woman make a more sweeping retraction than that?

The romantic glamour which Judy cast over this orphan asylum exists only
in her poetic imagination. The place is AWFUL. Words can't tell you
how dreary and dismal and smelly it is: long corridors, bare walls;
blue-uniformed, dough-faced little inmates that haven't the slightest
resemblance to human children. And oh, the dreadful institution smell!
A mingling of wet scrubbed floors, unaired rooms, and food for a hundred
people always steaming on the stove.

The asylum not only has to be made over, but every child as well, and
it's too herculean a task for such a selfish, luxurious, and lazy person
as Sallie McBride ever to have undertaken. I'm resigning the very first
moment that Judy can find a suitable successor, but that, I fear, will
not b