Alex read and re-read the postscript, and tried not to think that the rest of the letter was disappointing.
"Your great friend doesn't write you nearly such long letters as you write her," observed Barbara, eyeing the four small sheets which Queenie's unformed, curiously immature-looking writing had barely succeeded in covering.
"She hasn't got time," said Alex quickly and defensively.
"More like she's got a sensible governess who doesn't let her waste good pen and paper on such rubbish," old Nurse severely pointed the moral.
"What do girls want to write to one another for?" said Cedric. "They can't Have anything to say."
Barbara, who was secretly curious, seized the opportunity.
"What does she write about, Alex?"
Alex would have liked to tell them to mind their own business, but she knew that any accusation of making mysteries would bring down Nurse's wrath upon her, and as likely as not the confiscation of the letter.
She read it aloud hastily, with a pretence of skipping here and there, leaving out the "dear Alex" at the beginning, and the whole of the last sentence and the postscript.
"I suppose you've left out all the darlings and the loves and kisses," Cedric remarked scornfully, more from conventionality than anything else.