ROSE RED.

“Oh,” cried Clover, catching Katy round the waist, and waltzing wildly about the room, “what a delicious letter!  What fun we are going to have!  It seems too good to be true.  Tum-ti-ti, tum-ti-ti.  Keep step, Katy.  I forgive you for the first time for getting married.  I never did before, really and truly.  Tum-ti-ti; I am so happy that I must dance!”

“There go my letters,” said Katy, as with the last rapid twirl, Rose’s many-sheeted epistle and the “Advice to Brides” flew to right and left.  “There go two of your hair-pins, Clover.  Oh, do stop; we shall all be in pieces.”

Clover brought her gyrations to a close by landing her unwilling partner suddenly on the sofa.  Then with a last squeeze and a rapid kiss she began to pick up the scattered letters.

“Now read the rest,” she commanded, “though anything else will sound flat after Rose’s.”

“Hear this first,” said Elsie, who had taken advantage of the pause to open her own letter.  “It is from Cecy, and she says she is coming to spend a month with her mother on purpose to be here for Katy’s wedding.  She sends heaps of love to you, Katy, and says she only hopes that Mr. Worthington will prove as perfectly satisfactory in all respects as her own dear Sylvester.”

“My gracious, I should hope he would,” put in Clover, who was still in the wildest spirits.  “What a dear old goose Cecy is!  I never hankered in the least for Sylvester Slack, did you, Katy?”

“Certainly not.  It would be a most improper proceeding if I had,” replied Katy, with a laugh.  “Whom do you think this letter is from, girls?  Do listen to it.  It’s written by that nice old Mr. Allen Beach, whom we met in London.  Don’t you recollect my telling you about him?”

MY DEAR MISS CARR,—­Our friends in Harley Street have told me a piece of news concerning you which came to them lately in a letter from Mrs. Ashe, and I hope you will permit me to offer you my most sincere congratulations and good wishes.  I recollect meeting Lieutenant Worthington when he was here two years ago, and liking him very much.  One is always glad in a foreign land to be able to show so good a specimen of one’s young countrymen as he affords,—­not that England need be counted as a foreign country by any American, and least of all by myself, who have found it a true home for so many years.

As a little souvenir of our week of sight-seeing together, of which I retain most agreeable remembrances, I have sent you by my friends the Sawyers, who sail for America shortly, a copy of Hare’s “Walks in London,” which a young protegee of mine has for the past year been illustrating with photographs of the many curious old buildings described.  You took so much interest in them while here that I hope you may like to see them again.  Will you please accept with it my most cordial wishes for your future, and believe me

Very faithfully your friend,
ALLEN BEACH.