"Now just look at Betty's porch," Mollie was beginning in exasperation
when Betty laughingly interfered.

"Oh, let her alone, Mollie," she coaxed. "The porch was dirty anyway
and-- what's that you have in your hand, Dodo?"

"Sumfin' for Mollie," answered Dodo, leaning sulkily against the rail
while the girls regarded her anxiously. "An' if Mollie aren't nice to
me she can't have it."

"Oh, for goodness' sake be nice to her and get it over with, Mollie,"
urged Grace, uneasily conscious of the candy box she had shoved
hastily behind her. She was afraid one corner of it might show.

So Mollie got down from her perch on the railing and went over
coaxingly to the little girl.

"Give it to Mollie, honey," she begged. "I'll even call you Dora, if
you will."

"Always Dora-- never Dodo?" asked Dodo eagerly, for she was growing
out of babyhood just enough to resent being called by her baby name.

"Always Dora," Mollie promised.

For answer Dodo held out the white thing she had waved at them from
the street, and with a little cry of excitement Mollie saw that it was
a letter addressed to her in her Uncle John's firm hand.

At her exclamation the girls crowded round her eagerly. She hastily