"Of course they do, and you're getting to be one of the girls, I see. Well, I'm glad of it. And what's the mighty secret?"
"You won't tell?"
"Not I." Mrs. Hunt emphasized her promise by bringing down her cake-cutter firmly on the dough she had spread on the board before her.
"Well, it's this: I'm learning to write on the typewriter, and I'm going to write a letter to papa myself."
"Well, I vow to man! Isn't that a trick worth knowing? Won't he be pleased?"
"Do you think he really will? I didn't know, for you see he has written to me only once a year just as he does to grandpa and grandma, and I have never been sure that he really cared very much about me."
"Listen to the child," exclaimed Mrs. Hunt, shaking her head. "Who'd have thought she gave it any thought one way or the other. Don't you believe that he doesn't care. I knew Ralph Otway before you were born, and I can tell you that when he gets to knowing that you've thought enough about him to want to write to him he will write to you often enough. He's got it into his head that you are as well off not hearing from him oftener, and besides he feels that as a lone widower he can't take as good care of you as his mother, a woman, can do, and he's just steeled his heart to endure what he thinks is best for you without thinking of what he would like for himself. Don't you suppose he would a thousand times rather have you with him than to live off there by himself?"
"No, I didn't think so," replied Marian, with the idea that somehow she had said something she ought not. "But, Mrs. Hunt, if he does care, why doesn't he come over and get me?"
"Just as I told you; because he thinks you are better off here with your kith and kin. What would you do all day alone, with him off at his business and you by yourself in lodgings or a boarding-house, I'd like to know. He wouldn't want to send you to boarding-school, for then you'd not be so well off as where you are. Oh, no, don't you be getting it into your head that your father doesn't care for you." Mrs. Hunt made decided plunges at the yellow dough at each attack leaving behind a scalloped circle. "How I talk," she said as she deftly lifted the cookies into a pan, "but my tongue runs away with me sometimes. When do you think you'll be smart enough to get that letter off?"
"Oh, in another week, perhaps. Miss Dorothy thinks I will."