This letter was brief enough, but it was freighted with a message
of weighty import. I sat gazing stupidly at the sheet after I had
read it until Felix exclaimed,

"Bev, what's the matter with you? What's in that letter?"

"Father is coming home," I said dazedly. "He is to leave South
America in a fortnight and will be here in November to take us
back to Toronto."

Everybody gasped. Sara Ray, of course, began to cry, which
aggravated me unreasonably.

"Well," said Felix, when he got his second wind, "I'll be awful
glad to see father again, but I tell you I don't like the thought
of leaving here."

I felt exactly the same but, in view of Sara Ray's tears, admit it
I would not; so I sat in grum silence while the other tongues
wagged.

"If I were not going away myself I'd feel just terrible," said the
Story Girl. "Even as it is I'm real sorry. I'd like to be able
to think of you as all here together when I'm gone, having good
times and writing me about them."

"It'll be awfully dull when you fellows go," muttered Dan.

"I'm sure I don't know what we're ever going to do here this