“Where are you, girls?” Adele called one crisp November day as she whirled down Apple-Blossom Alley and entered the corner room where many of her particular friends were assembled. They looked up eagerly at her entrance, and Betty, noting that her hands were behind her, exclaimed in little-girl fashion, “Oh, Della, what are you hiding? If it’s candy, I choose the right.”
“It’s better than candy,” Adele declared. “Do you all give up?”
“It’s a letter!” Peggy Pierce said mischievously.
“Oh, Peg, that isn’t fair! You peeked!” Adele protested, then bringing the missive around front, she added, “It was really sent to Gertrude, but she is busy with the baby class, so she asked me to read it to you. In a thousand years you couldn’t guess whom it is from or what is in it. Gertrude is delighted about it, and so am I.”
“Della, you are so provoking! Please don’t keep us ‘suspended’ this way, as Bob says,” Rosamond pleaded. “Nothing exciting has happened in ever so long, not since we tamed Katrina.”
“That was only last Saturday, and this is Wednesday,” Adele replied merrily. “I’ll give you a tiny hint. It’s an invitation from a neighbor.”
“Oho, I know then,” Doris Drexel sang out, “for the only neighbor with whom we are any of us acquainted are those nice Ellsworths about whom you and Gertrude were telling us.”
“Right you are, Dory dear! Now, lend me your ear and you shall hear!” Adele chanted as she sat on the rug tailor-wise and unfolded the pale-blue sheet of note-paper.
“My dear Miss Gertrude and Miss Adele:”
she read—