At Linden Hall, as at many other boarding-schools, the matron glanced over each letter which the girls received.
“Oh, I wonder what the exciting news can be,” Carol said as she went forward to take the letter from the wee lassie. “Thank you, little Anne,” she added. Then, when the small girl had skipped away to rejoin her playmates, Carol exclaimed, “Evelyn, there is just one thing that I wish this letter might contain.”
The older girl smiled. Since Carol’s coming to the school, Evelyn had learned to smile again. “Suppose you read it,” she wisely suggested, “and then you will know what it is about.”
“Let’s sit here on this bench and I’ll read it to you,” Carol declared. When they were seated, she opened the missive and turned at once to the end to see who it was from.
“Oh, good!” she said. “Just as I wished, it is from Adele Doring. Now I’ll begin at the beginning:
“‘Dear Carol: We have the best news to tell you. We girls are coming to Linden Hall and expect to arrive on Saturday afternoon at about four o’clock.
“‘We are all coming except Gertrude Willis, but I feel in my bones that something will happen to bring her, too, some day soon. I won’t write any more, for we shall reach Linden almost as soon as this letter.
“‘Give our love to Evelyn Dartmoor, for if she will let us, we mean to love her, too. From what you have written, I know that she must be just ever so nice. Good-bye for now.
“‘Adele Doring and the Sunny Six.’”
Carol sprang to her feet as she exclaimed excitedly, “Why, to-day is Saturday, and it is half-past four now.”