inspiration.

"And Rhoda's folks must be awfully nice people," Grace said warmly.
"And her mamma--"

But Nan was deep in her own letter from Momsey, and here follows
the part of it dealing with this wonderful news which had so
excited all three of the girls:

"Your new friend, Rhoda, must be a very lovely girl, and I want you
to bring her home to Tillbury the day school closes. I know she
must be a nice girl by the way her mother writes me. Her mother is
blind, but she has had somebody write me that she wants very much
to 'see' Nan Sherwood, who has been so kind to her Rhoda during the
latter's first term at Lakeview.

"This makes me very happy and proud, Nan dear; for if your
schoolmates love you so much that they write home about you, I am
sure you are doing as well at school as Papa Sherwood and I could
wish you to. And this Mrs. Hammond is very insistent that you shall
visit Rose Ranch this summer. Mrs. Harley came to see me about it,
and we have decided that you and Elizabeth can go home with Rhoda,
if the Masons likewise agree to let Grace and Walter go. There is a
lady going West to Rose Ranch at the same time--a Mrs. Janeway--who
is a friend of Mrs. Hammond's. She will look after you young folk
en route, and will return with you.

"But we must have you a little while first, my Nan; and you must
bring Rhoda here to the little cottage in amity for a few days, at
least, before the party starts West. And--"