"You've come to stay all day, haven't you?" cried Lily, joyously.
She was a fair, bright-haired lassie, very like her mother and poor little Frank.
"You must stay," she went on, "for father's in Gattigo, and won't be home until dinner-time."
"Well, we can stay, Miss Apple-cheeks," said her uncle. "Janet, we've brought you a letter. Who on earth can be so behind the times as to write to you still at the Ferry Farm?"
"I don't know, but I'm glad of anything that brings you here. You and Aimée don't take a holiday half often enough. Lily, call Karl to take the ponies."
Karl having been found, the others all went into the house and had some luncheon, after which Janet asked for her letter.
"I declare I had forgotten it!" said Gilbert. "Here it is."
"The Hemsborough postmark!" Janet said. "I don't know the hand. Who can it be from? Oh, Gilbert, it is from Mrs. Rayburn!"
"Fred's mother—stepmother, I mean?"
They all crowded round Janet. Janet gave the letter to her brother.