"Not a bit of it. But there, tell me what is the wonderful thing you have been doing?"
"I have written a letter to papa all by myself, and Miss Dorothy has mailed it. She put the stamp on and took it to the post-office just now with her letters."
"Well, well, well, but won't he be pleased to get it? That's a fine young woman, that Miss Dorothy of yours."
"Isn't she?"
"She is so. She made us a nice visit the other evening. She is a girl after my own heart, none of your vain, self-absorbed young persons, always concerned in her own affairs, but one of the real hearty kind that thinks of others as well as herself, and has her eyes open to what is best in life. I like her."
"And she likes you."
"I'm glad to hear it."
"I wish you could see the kind of letters she writes to her father, but then," Marian added thoughtfully, "he must be the kind of father it is easy to write that way to."
"I'll be bound he is the right kind to have a daughter like that. She has no mother, she tells me. Her aunt keeps house for them, and there is quite a family of children."
"Yes, and Patty is the youngest. She is going to write to me."