ort,
thinking we were trying to play some kind of joke on her."

"It would never do to leave her out," said Cyrilla decisively. "Of
course, she's a bit queer and unamiable, but, girls, think of thirty
years of boarding-house life, even with the best of Plunketts.
Wouldn't that sour anybody? You know it would. You'd be cranky and
grumbly and disagreeable too, I dare say. I'm really sorry for Miss
Marshall. She's had a very hard life. Mrs. Plunkett told me all about
her one day. I don't think we should mind her biting little speeches
and sharp looks. And anyway, even if she is really as disagreeable as
she sometimes seems to be, why, it must make it all the harder for
her, don't you think? So she needs a letter most of all. I'll write to
her, since it's my suggestion. We'll draw lots for the others."

Besides Miss Marshall, the new music teacher fell to Cyrilla's share.
Mary drew Mrs. Plunkett and the dressmaker, and Carol drew Mrs.
Johnson and old Mr. Grant. For the next two hours the girls wrote
busily, forgetting all about the rainy day, and enjoying their
epistolary labours to the full. It was dusk when all the letters were
finished.

"Why, hasn't the afternoon gone quickly after all!" exclaimed Carol.
"I just let my pen run on and jotted down any good working idea that
came into my head. Cyrilla Blair, that big fat letter is never for
Miss Marshall! What on earth did you find to write her?"

"It wasn't so hard when I got fairly started," said Cyrilla, smiling.
"Now, let's hunt up Nora Jane and send the letters around so that
everybody can read his or hers before tea-time. We should have a
choice assortment of smiles at the table instead of all those frowns
and sighs we had at dinner." Miss Emily Marshall was at that moment
sitting in her little back room, all alone in the dusk, with the rain
splashing drearily against the windowpanes outside. Miss Marshall was
feeling as lonely and dreary as she looked--and as she had often felt
in her life of sixty years. She told herself bitterly that she hadn't
a friend in the world--not even one who cared enough for her to come
and see her or write her a letter now and then. She thought her
boarding-house acquaintances disliked her and she resented their
dislike, without admitting to herself that her ungracious ways were
responsible for it. She smiled sourly when little ripples of laughter
came faintly down the hall from the front room where The Trio were
writing their lette