rs and laughing over the fun they were putting into
them.

"If they were old and lonesome and friendless they wouldn't see much
in life to laugh at, I guess," said Miss Marshall bitterly, drawing
her shawl closer about her sharp shoulders. "They never think of
anything but themselves and if a day passes that they don't have 'some
fun' they think it's a fearful thing to put up with. I'm sick and
tired of their giggling and whispering."

In the midst of these amiable reflections Miss Marshall heard a knock
at her door. When she opened it there stood Nora Jane, her broad red
face beaming with smiles.

"Please, Miss, here's a letter for you," she said.

"A letter for me!" Miss Marshall shut her door and stared at the fat
envelope in amazement. Who could have written it? The postman came
only in the morning. Was it some joke, perhaps? Those giggling girls?
Miss Marshall's face grew harder as she lighted her lamp and opened
the letter suspiciously.

"Dear Miss Marshall," it ran in Cyrilla's pretty girlish writing, "we
girls are so lonesome and dull that we have decided to write rainy-day
letters to everybody in the house just to cheer ourselves up. So I'm
going to write to you just a letter of friendly nonsense."

Pages of "nonsense" followed, and very delightful nonsense it was, for
Cyrilla possessed the happy gift of bright and easy letter-writing.
She commented wittily on all the amusing episodes of the
boarding-house life for the past month; she described a cat-fight she
had witnessed from her window that morning and illustrated it by a
pen-and-ink sketch of the belligerent felines; she described a lovely
new dress her mother had sent her from home and told all about the
class party to which she had worn it; she gave an account of her
vacation camping trip to the mountains and pasted on one page a number
of small snapshots taken during the outing; she copied a joke she had
read in the paper that morning and discussed the serial story in the
boarding-house magazine which all the boarders were reading; she wrote
out the directions for a new crocheted tidy her sister had made--Miss
Marshall had a mania for crocheting; and she finally wound up with
"all the good will and good wishes that Nora Jane will consent to
carry from your friend, Cyrilla Blair."

Before Miss Marshall had finished reading that letter she had cried
three times and laughed times past counting. More tears came at the
end--happy, tender tears such