r. The house is said to be immense, in a splendid
estate near the river. I am all excitement when I think of going there
for ten days. There are to be fifty guests and the other forty-nine
are invited as a means of getting Annabel under his roof. Won't I feel
like a little girl in an old English novel! The best of it is that
nobody will bother ME--I'm too poor to be looked at a second time, I
mean, what THEY call poor. Sometimes I laugh when I'm alone, for I
feel like I'm a gold mine filled with rich ore that nobody has
discovered. Remember the 'fool's gold' we used to see among the granite
mountains? I think the gold that lies on the surface must always be
fool's gold. The name of the country-house we are to visit is the same
as that of the man who owns it--"

Wilfred Compton held the letter closer to the light.

Brick Willock spoke impatiently: "No use to stare at that there
word--we couldn't make it out. I guess she got it wrong, first, then
wrote it over. Just go ahead."

Bill suggested, "I think the first letter is an 'S.'"

Wilfred scrutinized the name closely.

"Besides," said Willock, "we knows none of them high people, the name
wouldn't be nothing to us--and her next letter will likely have it
more'n once."

Wilfred resumed the letter: "I must tell you good-by, now, for
Annabel's maid has come to help me dress for dinner, and it takes
longer than it did to do up the washing, at the cove; and is more
tiresome. But I like it. I like these fine, soft, beautiful things.
I like the big world, and I would like to live in it forever and ever,
if you could bring the dugout and be near enough for me to run in, any
time of the day. I wish I could run in this minute and tell you the
thousands and thousands of things I'll never have time to write.

"Your loving, adoring, half-homesick, half-bewildered, somewhat dizzy
little girl,

"Lahoma.

"P. S. Nobody has been able to tell from word or look of mine that I
have ever been surprised at a single thing I have heard or seen. You
may be quite sure of that."

"I bet you!" cried Willock admiringly. "NOW, what do you think of it?"

"She won't be there long," remarked Bill, waving his arm, "till she
finds out what I learned long ago--that there's nothing to it. If you
want to cultivate a liking for a dugout, just live a while in the open."

"I don't know as to that," Willock said. "I sorter doubts if Lahoma
will ever care for dugouts again, excep