JUNE 6th.

Joyce came to-day on the noon train.  She has the blue room across the hall from mine.  It suits her, for she is a blonde like Lloyd, but her hair doesn’t curl any.  It is just soft and wavy, and hangs in two long braids below her waist.  Her eyes are gray, with long dark lashes, and while she isn’t exactly pretty, she has a face that you like to keep looking at.  It is so bright and jolly, as if she was always thinking funny things, and having a good time all to herself.

She came all the way alone, and didn’t mind it a bit, although she had to change cars twice, and was all night on the sleeping-car.  She brought a sketch-book in her satchel that is almost full of pictures she drew on the train.  There is one that is so funny.  It is the head of an old man, gone to sleep with his mouth open.  She wrote under that one, “As others see us.”  Then she drew two cunning babies playing peek-a-boo in the aisle.  She called that “Innocence abroad.”  There are ever so many more that godmother says are really clever, and remarkably well done for a girl of thirteen.  I thought they were perfect.

It didn’t take long to get acquainted with Joyce.  She has been here only a part of a day, and already I feel as if I had known her always.

     JUNE 7th.

It was nearly six o’clock yesterday when Eugenia came.  Godmother and Lloyd drove down to the station to meet her, but Joyce and I walked up and down under the locusts, wondering what she would be like.

We could hardly wait for the carriage to come, we were so eager to know.  I couldn’t tell what it was about her, but somehow, when she stepped out of the carriage and shook hands with us, she made me feel awkward and shy and out of place.  Maybe it was because she had such a grown-up manner and seemed so young-ladified, although she is only Joyce’s age.  Then she spoke in such a superior sort of way to her maid, when she ordered her to follow up-stairs with the satchels.

They went straight to the green room to dress for dinner, and Joyce and I locked arms again, and strolled down to the gate.  Joyce asked me what I thought of her.  I told her that I would be thankful to the end of time that I got here first.  Seeing her arrive in such a stylish travelling suit, gloves, and Knox hat, and carrying such a handsome leather bag, opened my eyes to the way I must have looked when I came.  It tickled Joyce, the way I described myself, travelling in a sunbonnet and carrying my belongings in an old-fashioned willow basket.

She gave my chin a soft nip and kissed rue on each cheek, and said, “You funny little Bettykins!  As if it made any difference to your friends what you wore.”