all
carelessly to one of her neighbors:

"I've just had a letter from my sister Jane in Fall River. Plague the
girl! What can she be writing to me about?"

Nevertheless, in spite of this ungracious observation Mrs. O'Dowd was
much pleased to be seen with the letter and overhear her friends
whispering among themselves:

"Julie O'Dowd had a letter from Jane to-day. It was in a blue envelope
and looked like quite a thick one. What do you suppose the girl had to
say? Most likely Julie will tell us by and by."

And sure enough! The prediction was a true prophecy, for before the day
was out Julie had made an errand to every flat in the house and before
leaving had read to each family extracts from the letter, interspersing
the paragraphs with a running line of comment concerning Jane and her
history since babyhood. By evening the letter had become blurred and
dingy with much handling and Julie could recite it from beginning to
end.

Yet for all the interest evoked by Julie's letters and the other rare
epistles that found their way into Mulberry Court these missives came
after all only from American cities which lay within a radius of a
hundred miles of Baileyville. They had not traveled far, any more than
had the persons to whom they were addressed. They were not letters
written on thin foreign paper and bearing unfamiliar postmarks and the
fascinating stamps of other nations. Only the McGregors could boast
such splendor as that.

Realizing this, Mrs. McGregor would have been short of human if she had
not been a wee bit self-conscious and forced to suppress from her voice
the satisfaction that echoed in it when she observed in off-hand
fashion:

"Oh, by the way, I had a letter to-day from my brother who is in
China."

China! It was a name to conjure with. What a medley of visions it
brought to the imagination!

And if you could not go to China, as none of Mulberry Court ever
expected to do, think of having a relative who did! And if you were not
blessed with such an illustrious connection why the next best thing was
to know some one who was. Even to know some one who had a brother in
China and who sent home letters from that magic realm imparted a
certain glory.

There was no denying the McGregors' foreign correspondence lent
prestige to Mulberry Court. Perhaps a Manila postmark was cut out and
bestowed on Mrs. Murphy, who tucked it away in a cracked cup and
displayed it on occasions to a visitor; or maybe the