“Oh, what delightfully funny people!” cried Hilda.  “What did the wife say when you came in to supper, Farmer Hartley?”

“She warn’t thar,” replied the farmer.  “She had a headache, the gals said, and had gone to bed.  I sh’d think she would have had a headache,—­but thar,” he added, rising suddenly and beginning to search in his capacious pockets, “I declar’ for ’t, if I hain’t forgotten Huldy’s letter!  Sary an’ her bunnit put everything else out of my head.”

Hilda sprang up in delight to receive the envelope which the farmer handed to her; but her face fell a little when she saw that it was not from her parents.  She reflected, however, that she had had a double letter only two days before, and that she could not expect another for a week, as Mr. and Mrs. Graham wrote always with military punctuality.  There was no doubt as to the authorship of the letter.  The delicate pointed handwriting, the tiny seal of gilded wax, the faint perfume which the missive exhaled, all said to her at once, “Madge Everton.”

With a feeling which, if not quite reluctance, was still not quite alacrity, Hildegarde broke the pretty seal, with its Cupid holding a rose to his lips, and read as follows:—­

     SARATOGA, July 20.

MY DEAREST, SWEETEST HILDA,—­Can it be possible that you have been away a whole month, and that I have not written to you?  I am awfully ashamed! but I have been so TOO busy, it has been out of the question.  Papa decided quite suddenly to come here instead of going to Long Branch; and you can imagine the frantic amount of work Mamma and I had to get ready.  One has to dress so much at Saratoga, you know; and we cannot just send an order to Paris, as you do, my dear Queen, for all we want, but have to scratch round (I know you don’t allow your subjects to use slang, but we DO scratch round, and nothing else can express it), and get things made here.  I have a lovely pale blue Henrietta-cloth, made like that rose-colored gown of yours that I admire so much, and that you SAID I might copy.  Mamma says it was awfully good of you, and that she wouldn’t let any one copy her French dresses if she had them; but I told her you were awfully good, and that was why.  Well, then I have a white nun’s-veiling, made with triple box-plaits, and a lovely pointed overskirt, copied from a Donovan dress of Mamma’s; and a dark-red surah, and oh! a perfect “frou-frou” of wash-dresses, of course; two sweet white lawns, one trimmed with valenciennes (I hate valenciennes, you know, but Mamma will make me have it, because she thinks it is jeune fille!), and one with the new Russian lace; and a pink sateen, and two or three light chambrays.

But now I know you will be dying to hear about my hats; for you always say that the hat makes the costume; and so it does!