FOURTH LETTER.
"A letter for Miss Bella Curtis," said the postman; "two cents."
Oh, what delightful words those were. Bella began quite to love the postman; and she asked him if he wouldn't please to take three cents—which astonished him so much, that I do believe nobody had ever thought of saying so to him before.
The little girl pulled off the envelope with trembling eagerness, and Edith read this:
"Dear, Darling Bella:
"I was so delighted with your letter that I kissed every word once, and the dear little scratch, that meant your name, about a dozen times. Yesterday was Sunday, and I went to church. Just in front of me sat a dear little girl so like you, that I wanted to lift her over the back of the pew and kiss her. She was such a little thing, that she did not know how to sit still. She had on a pair of worsted sleeves, and the very first thing she did, was to poke all the fingers of one little hand through the ruffle round the other, just as you do with your sleeves. Then she smiled at me, and I smiled at her; then she spread out her little pocket handkerchief, and found a small hole in the corner, about as big as a three-cent piece. She stuck her finger through that, and held it up, and danced it up and down; then she dusted the pew with it, which made it rather dirty. She was such a little bit of a thing that you could hardly expect her to sit quite still; but this that I am going to tell you now, was really naughty.
"There was a boy in the pew just in front. She gave him three pretty hard taps on the back of his head, and when he looked round, she pretended to be asleep. What a girl!
"When we came out I shook hands with her, and said: 'I have a little girl at home in the North, her name is Bella; what is your name?'