The Happy Hexagons opened wide their eyes. Never before had they seen the usually placid Cordelia like this.
"Why, Cordelia, you're almost girlish!" observed Tilly, cheerfully.
Cordelia did not seem even to hear this gibe.
"It's a letter from Genevieve," she panted, as she hurriedly spread open the sheet of note paper in her hand.
"Dear Cordelia, and the whole Club," read Cordelia, excitedly. "I came up yesterday from New Jersey with the Hardings for two days in New York. I have been to see the animals at the Zoo all the afternoon, and I'm going to see the Hippodrome this evening. That sounds like another animal but it isn't one, they say. It's a place all lights and music and crowds, and with a stage 'most as big as Texas itself, with scores of real horses and cowboys riding all over it.
"I am having a perfectly beautiful time, but I just can't wait to see my own beloved home on the big prairie, and have you all there with me. I sha'n't see it quite so soon though, for father has been delayed about some of his business, and he can't come for me quite so soon as he expected. He says we sha'n't get away from Sunbridge until the fifth; but he's engaged five sections in a sleeper leaving Boston at eight p. m. So we'll go then sure.
"Mrs. Harding is calling me. Good-by till I see you. We're coming the third. With heaps of love to everybody, Your own
"Genevieve Hartley."
"Well, I like that," bridled Tilly. "Just think—not go until the fifth!"
"Oh, but just think of going at all," comforted Alma Lane, hurriedly; "and in sleepers, too! Sleepers are loads of fun. I rode in one fifty miles, once—it wasn't in the night, though."