Adele laughed gaily. “Hark!” she said. “I hear footsteps approaching down Apple-Blossom Alley.” A second later there was a merry rapping on the door, and when it was opened, half a dozen maidens appeared and each one was waving a letter.
“We’re the postman-brigade!” Peggy Pierce called. “Miss Sharpleigh has just finished looking over the mail, and think of it, Della, there are six letters for you, and not one for any of the rest of us.”
Adele’s eyes were shining, for her quick glance had noted one of the postmarks. “Come in!” she called. “I am sure that there is interesting news in these letters that you will want to hear.”
“Whom are they all from?” Betty Burd asked as the six girls sat tailor-wise on the floor.
Adele’s eyes were glowing. She had peeped into the letter that was on top, and then springing up, she pirouetted around the room waving it in the air.
“Oh, something so very, very wonderful is going to happen!” she cried as she seized Gertrude and gave her a bear hug. “Trudie, here’s a letter from the person we were just talking about, and it contains the best news. Who do you think is coming from Arizona to attend our C. E. P. and then is to stay with me in Sunnyside all this summer?”
“Oh, Della, is it Eva Dearman?” Peggy eagerly inquired.
Adele nodded happily. “Mother wrote to Mr. Dearman and asked if Eva might visit me during the vacation and I wrote begging her to try to get here in time for the party. She is coming next week with some friends of her Uncle Dick’s who are traveling to Buffalo.”
“Who is Eva Dearman?” Starr asked. “I know she must be nice, for you all seem to love her.”
“Oh, indeed we do!” Doris Drexel replied. “She is a dear, beautiful, unselfish, sunshiny girl. She lives on an Arizona cattle ranch with her uncle Dick Dearman and an orphan friend, Amanda Brown, who married a cowboy named ‘Rusty Pete.’”