and Cousin Robert has gone away. He has a little shop,
not a big one. I like Maria, she is the servant, and is
very kind to me. There is a boy here; he is—"
At this point John Monday interrupted her by saying—
"You're writing about me, I know you are!"
"Yes," Mousey confessed, considerably taken aback, "I am telling Aunt Eliza about you. How did you know?"
"Because you kept on looking at me, and I guessed what you were up to. What are you saying?"
But Mousey declined to tell, and proceeded with her letter, taking care not to glance at her companion again. At last she wanted to use a word she could not spell, and had to turn to John for assistance. He was most obliging, and told her how to spell the difficult word, and, after that, several others as well. The letter was finished in due course, and the envelope directed in Mousey's round, childish handwriting.
"I shall have to ask Cousin Robert for a stamp," the little girl remarked.
"Take one from his secretaire," John Monday suggested; "he won't miss it."