"Ugh!" cried Joel with a grimace, "I'm not going to write a single scrap of
one."

"Indeed you are," retorted Polly; "everybody has absolutely got to write
some letters. Why, we must have a bushel of them."

"Oh, Polly Pepper!" cried the others, "a bushel of letters!"

"And no one can have a letter who doesn't write some," announced Polly
firmly--"the very idea! So we must all work like everything to get ready
for the post office."




III

CLEM FORSYTHE


Phronsie sat on the stairs, halfway down the long flight. It was the same
staircase on which Jasper had found her, with Polly waiting patiently on
the lower step, when she first came to Grandpapa King's. Now she held
Clorinda in her arms, tightly pressed to her bosom.

"I do wish," she said softly, "that I could see my poor little girl, I do."

Clorinda not replying, Phronsie smoothed down the pink gown.

"It wasn't very nice at that little girl's house"--and a troubled