Down on the floor the Sunny Six sat, tailor-fashion, and Adele began: “I’ve been over to the Orphans’ Home to see the matron, Mrs. Friend. She’s a dear! She was so pleased to hear that we wanted to give Eva Dearman a birthday party, and what do you think? That little girl was brought up just as nicely as we have been. Her father was a wealthy broker, but he lost his money, and then both of her parents died. Some neighbors took care of Eva until her money was all gone and then they sent her to the orphanage.”
“Heartless wretches!” exclaimed the impulsive Betty Burd. “Seems like it wouldn’t have cost them much to have given the poor motherless girl a corner in their home.”
“Well, they didn’t,” Adele continued, “and Mrs. Friend says that all Eva Dearman has to her name is the deed to some worthless desert property in Arizona.”
“Oh, girls,” exclaimed the romantic Rosamond Wright, “what if there should be gold on that desert land, and what if our Orphans’ Home girl should turn out to be an heiress!”
“Such things only happen in story-books,” said the practical Bertha Angel. “Now don’t let’s interrupt Adele again. We want to hear the plans for the party.”
“Mrs. Friend told me that there are twelve girls in the Home who are just about our own age. One of them, Amanda Brown, is so surly and disagreeable that none of the others like her, and the matron said that we need not ask her unless we wish, but of course we would not think of leaving her out.”
“Perhaps a party is just what she needs,” suggested Gertrude Willis, the minister’s daughter.
“And now,” said Adele, “don’t you think it would be nice to give a present to each one of the Home girls?”
“It would be a nice thing to do, surely,” Gertrude answered. “How much money have we in the club treasury?”
The girls had each given what they could to start a Sunnyside fund, and Doris Drexel, whose father was a bank president, had contributed a small bank in which to keep their wealth.