em that is keeping me awake at present is, What to do with the
children while we are being made over? It is hard to live in a house and
build it at the same time. How would it be if I rented a circus tent and
pitched it on the lawn?

Also, when we plunge into our alterations, I want a few guest rooms
where our children can come back when ill or out of work. The great
secret of our lasting influence in their lives will be our watchful care
afterward. What a terrible ALONE feeling it must give a person not to
have a family hovering in the background! With all my dozens of aunts
and uncles and mothers and fathers and cousins and brothers and sisters,
I can't visualize it. I'd be terrified and panting if I didn't have lots
of cover to run to. And for these forlorn little mites, somehow or other
the John Grier Home must supply their need. So, dear people, send me
half a dozen guest rooms, if you please.

Good-by, and I'm glad you didn't put in the other woman. The very
suggestion of somebody else taking over my own beautiful reforms before
they were even started, stirred up all the opposition in me. I'm afraid
I'm like Sandy--I canna think aught is dune richt except my ain hand is
in 't.

Yours, for the present,

SALLIE McBRIDE.

THE JOHN GRIER HOME,

Sunday.

Dear Gordon:

I know that I haven't written lately; you have a perfect right to
grumble, but oh dear! oh dear! you can't imagine what a busy person an
orphan asylum superintendent is. And all the writing energy I possess
has to be expended upon that voracious Judy Abbott Pendleton. If three
days go by without a letter she telegraphs to know if the asylum has
burned; whereas, if you--nice man--go letterless, you simply send us a
present to remind us of your existence. So, you see, it's distinctly to
our advantage to slight you often.

You will probably be annoyed when I tell you that I have promised to
stay on here. They finally did find a woman to take my place, but she
wasn't at all the right type and would have answered only temporarily.
And, my dear Gordon, it's true, when I faced saying good-by to this
feverish planning and activity, Worcester somehow looked rather
colorless. I couldn't bear to let my asylum go unless I was sure of
substituting a life packed equally full of sensation.

I know the alternative you will suggest, but please don't--just now. I
told you before that I must have a few months longer to make up my mind.
And in the meantime I