“Oh! Here’s the mail pouch!” Virginia exclaimed gleefully. “Someone has been to town.”
“I do hope that there is a letter from Babs,” Margaret said.
“I am so eager to know if she has learned more, as yet, about her lost brother, Peyton.”
CHAPTER XXV—THE SHERIFF’S VISIT.
A letter from Babs was the first one that tumbled out on the big library table when Virginia held the pouch upside down. Other papers and letters rattled out, but both girls were eager to hear the news from Margaret’s former room-mate in the far-away boarding school.
“Dearest Megsy and Virg,” Margaret read aloud.
“I’m so happy today that I could sing like a lark, but since it is silence period, I would better just pen my joy to you two dear girls, who will, I know, rejoice with me. I am just absolutely convinced now that I know where my dear brother Peyton is. Of course his messages to me continue to be mysterious; that is, he doesn’t sign his full name, only his initials. I’m sure that they must be his, for I do not know anyone else in the world whose name begins with P. and W.
“It is just as I supposed in the very beginning. He did run away to sea, for I have now received five picture postcards signed P. W., and they were mailed at different ports in China, Japan and the East Indies. I know he is sending them to me because he realizes how unhappy I would be if I had no knowledge of his whereabouts.
“I do wish that I could write to him and tell him how happy I am just to be assured that he is well and alive, but since he wishes to be so mysterious, I will have to be content.
“And now I will tell you something else. I am saving every penny of my allowance, and before I start for the West I am going to buy a whole khaki outfit like the girls wear in the moving pictures. Oh, Megsy, how you would have laughed the other day if you could have seen our French riding master’s expression when I asked him if he would try to get a horse that bucks, upon which I might practice riding.