COSY NOOK, July 11, 188- .

My own dear Elsie,--Your weekly chronicle is almost ready for
Monday's stage, and I am allowed to come in at the close with as many
pages of 'gossip' as I choose; which means that I may run on to my
heart's content and tell you all the little things that happen in the
chinks between the great ones, for Uncle Doc has refused to read this
part of the letter.

First for some commissions: Aunt Truth asks if your mother will
kindly select goods and engage Mrs. Perkins to make us each a couple
of Scotch gingham dresses. She has our measures, and we wish them
simple, full-skirted gowns, like the last; everybody thinks them so
pretty and becoming. Bell's two must be buff and pink, Polly's grey
and green, and mine blue and brown. We find that we haven't clothes
enough for a three months' stay; and the out-of-door life is so hard
upon our 'forest suits' that we have asked Mrs. Perkins to send us
new ones as soon as possible.

We have had a very busy and exciting week since Polly began this
letter, for there have been various interruptions and an unusual
number of visitors.

First, there was our mountain climb to the top of Pico Negro; Phil
says he has written you about that, but I hardly believe he mentioned
that he and the other boys worried us sadly by hanging on to the
tails of our horses as they climbed up the steepest places. To be
sure they were so awfully tired that I couldn't help pitying them;
but Uncle Doc had tried to persuade them not to walk, so that it was