“Eugenia is a sort of cousin of mine,” explained Lloyd.  “At least her fathah and my fathah are related in some way.  I used to know her when we lived in New York, but I haven’t seen her since we left.  I was five then and she was seven, so she must be neahly thirteen yeahs old now.  When we played togethah she would scream and scream if I didn’t give up to her in everything, and as I had a bad tempah, too, we were always fussin’.  She was dreadfully spoiled.  I’ll nevah fo’get how my hand bled one day when she bit it, or how she clawed my face till it looked as if a tigah had scratched it.”

“Then what did you do?” asked Rob, with a grin.  He had experimented with Lloyd’s temper himself in the past.

“I believe that that was the time I pounded her on the back with my little red chair,” answered Lloyd, laughing at the recollection.  “Or maybe it was the time I banged her ovah the head with a toy teakettle.  I remembah I did both those bad things, and that we were always in trouble whenevah we were togethah.  I didn’t want mothah to invite her, but she said she felt that we ought to.  Eugenia’s mothah is dead.  She died three yeahs ago, and since then she’s been kept in a boa’din’ school most of the time.  When she’s not away at school she stays in some big hotel with her fathah, eithah in New York or at some summah resort.  He is always so busy there’s no one to pay any attention to her but her maid.  They are very wealthy, and Eugenia has had the best of everything so long that I’m afraid she’ll find the Valley dreadfully poah and poky.  I imagine she’s stuck up, too.  She used to be, and she’s always had her own way about everything.”

“Number one doesn’t sound very inviting,” said Rob, with a sour grimace.  “Who is your number two?” Lloyd held out the second envelope.

Miss Joyce Ware,
Plainsville,
Kansas.

“I nevah saw her,” said Lloyd, “but I feel as if we had always been old friends.  Her mothah and mine used to go to school togethah heah in Lloydsboro Valley at the Girls’ College, and they’ve written to each othah once a month for fifteen yeahs.  Mrs. Ware is a widow now, and they have ha’d times, for they are poah, and she has foah children youngah than Joyce.  But Joyce has had lots of things that neithah Eugenia nor I have had.  Last yeah her cousin Kate took her abroad with her, and she studied French, and she had lots of beautiful times where they spent the wintah in France.  Mrs. Ware sent some of the lettahs to mothah that Joyce wrote.  One was about a Christmas tree that they gave to thirty little peasant children,—­and so many queer things happened behind a gate that they called the ‘Gate of the Giant Scissahs,’ because there was a pair of enormous scissahs hanging ovah it, you know.  Oh, it was just like a fairy tale, all the things that Joyce did when she was in Touraine.”

“How old is she?” interrupted Rob.

“Just Eugenia’s age, I believe, and she must be an interestin’ sort of girl, for she draws beautifully.  Mothah says that her sketches are fine, and that Joyce will be a real artist when she is grown.”