This agreed upon, the girls said they must go, and Mrs. Hamilton settled down to her letter once more.

“My dear Ruth” (she wrote): 

“I can’t wait any longer to tell you how delighted I am to know that you are coming to us for a whole year.  I have always wanted a daughter of my own, and the next best thing to that will be to have a borrowed one.  I am afraid you are not so full of delight at the prospect as Mr. Hamilton and I are, but we hope to be able to drive away at least a part of the homesickness, and we already feel an affection for the little girl who is coming to us.

“I am going to send you a photograph of some girls who have just been in to see me and who have heard the news of your coming.  I am very fond of them, and they call themselves my ‘visiting daughters,’ and run in to see me at all hours and on all sorts of errands.  They are very glad to know you are coming and are already wondering how you look and whether you will like them.  The one in the middle of the picture is Charlotte Eastman, and the plump little girl on her right is Betty Ellsworth.  The other is Dorothy Marshall.  I shall not tell you anything more about them, because you will soon see them and learn to know them for yourself.”

Just here Mrs. Hamilton paused in her letter.  “She must know that I have a son, and I’m afraid she’ll think it strange if I don’t mention him,” she said to herself.  “I can’t tell her that he is dreading her coming, and I certainly can’t say with truth that he is expecting her with pleasure.  Well, a very little will do and I can explain later.”

“My son, Arthur,” the letter went on, “is slowly recovering from the effects of a severe accident.  He has not yet left his room, but I hope by the time you arrive he will have greatly improved.

“And now, my dear, I’ll close my note and hurry it off so that it may soon assure you of our hearty welcome.  With kindest regards to your father, and love to yourself, I am,

“Yours very sincerely,

“Mary A. Hamilton.”

Mrs. Hamilton’s eyes were very tender as she folded and sealed her letter.  “Poor little girl,” she said half aloud, “I suspect she thinks her heart is broken, but we must try to mend it for her.”

CHAPTER III

THE NEWCOMER

At three o’clock on the afternoon of the twelfth of October the Hamilton house was very still.  Mrs. Hamilton had gone into town, the housemaid was taking her “afternoon out,” and the cook, who had been kept awake by toothache the night before, was enjoying a nap.

Just about this time Arthur peered cautiously from his room.  No one being in sight he came out slowly and carefully on his crutches.  “I can do miles of exercise in this hall,” he said to himself with grim satisfaction, “as long as there is no one to watch me.”