o the sofa.

"Oh, we will be put out of the hotel," gasped Lucile, between laughs.
"We're making no end of noise. Now, if you two girls will only sit down
and behave like sensible--"

"Huh!" broke in Evelyn. "We were only demanding our just rights."

"You would better hasten, Lucile Payton," said Jessie, with her best
heavy-villain scowl. "My patience is dangerously near an end."

"All right," Lucile capitulated, patting the sofa on either side of her
invitingly. "Sit down here and I'll hand them out just as they come."

"And we'll read each one aloud before we open the next one," Jessie
suggested, eagerly.

"That's right," assented Evelyn. "Whom is the first one from, Lucy?"

"The first one," drawled Lucile, turning it up with aggravating
deliberation, "is for Evelyn, from----"

"Miss--er--our guardian," cried Evelyn, snatching the envelope
unceremoniously. "Oh, oh, oh! Got a letter opener, Lucy? Oh, all right;
anything. Hairpin? Thanks! Oh, girls, what has she got to say?"

"I might suggest that the best way to find out is to read it," said
Jessie, and immediately became the recipient of a withering stare from
Evelyn, who was opening the letter with trembling, clumsy fingers.

"My dear little girl," she read and then stopped and looked from one to
the other pleadingly. "I can't do it; I can't read it out loud----"

"Don't try," said Lucile, putting an arm around her. "I know exactly how
you feel. We would better read them first and compare notes afterward."

"That's right," agreed Jessie. "I didn't think how hard it would be to
read them out loud when I suggested it. Better give them all out
together, Lucy."

"Well, here's one to you from your mother, I guess, Jessie, and another
from your father, and one for you from your mother, Evelyn, and one for
me----"

"From whom?" interrupted Jessie.

"Our guardian," answered Lucile, touching it lovingly. "And here is
yours, Jessie," she added, handing her a letter in the well-known and
well-loved handwriting. "Isn't she dear to remember each one of us like
that? And oh, here are whole stacks of letters from the girls--one from
Margaret--here, Jess----" And so on until each had a little pile of her
own.

"And whom is that from, Lucy?" asked Evelyn, as Lucile picked up the last
letter, looked at the unfamiliar handwriting curiously, then looked again
more closely, while the tips of her ears became very pink.

"I--I don't know," she stammered. "It's for me, a