In the meantime,
suppose we all suggest something that we can do to welcome her--make her
feel how truly glad we are to see her. Somebody suggest something."

"For goodness' sake, Lucy," Marjorie exclaimed, "you might better have
left me out of this. I'm no good at all when it comes to using any
imagination."

"You have probably as much as any of us, and you can't get out of helping
that way," said Lucile, decidedly.

"From things she has said, I should give her credit for a good deal of
imagination," quoth Jessie, slyly.

"Oh, I'll get even for all those awful things you have said to me and
about me, Jessie Sanderson," Marjorie threatened, good-naturedly. "I'd do
it now, only I'm too busy trying to think up a plan."

"Good girl; keep it up," commended Lucile, and then, as she caught a
murmured "That's just an excuse" from Jessie's direction, she cried, with
a scarcely suppressed laugh, "Perhaps you would be doing a little more
good in the world, Jessie, if you would follow her example."

"Bravo!" cried Evelyn. "That's one for you, Jessie," and promptly
received a withering glance from that young lady, which said as plainly
as words, "You just wait; there'll be a day of reckoning, and then----"

"Here comes the postman," cried Margaret. "Shall I take the mail, Lucy?"

"Please," she answered, and a moment later Margaret handed her half a
dozen envelopes, while the girls looked on in eager silence.

"Is it there?" cried one of the girls, at last.

"Not yet," said Lucile, but as she turned over the last letter, she
uttered a cry of amazement and delight that sent all the girls crowding
about her.

"That is her handwriting," exclaimed Evelyn, and then there ensued such a
babble of wonder and delight and excited speculation as to its contents
that Lucile was finally obliged to shout, "If you will only sit down,
girls. I'll see what's inside, and please stop making such an unearthly
noise--we'll have the reserves out to quell the riot before we know it."

The girls laughed and distributed themselves about the porch, as many as
could possibly get there crowding the rail on either side of Lucile,
while they all listened with bated breath to what their guardian had to
say.

"To Lucile and all my dear camp-fire girls," read Lucile. "I planned to
come to Burleigh long ago, as you all know, and was bitterly disappointed
when I was forced at the last minute to change my plans."

"So were we," said Evelyn, and was gre