“What did I do with my letters, Virg?” Margaret had suddenly recalled that she had not opened her mail. “I put them into something for safe keeping. Oh yes, here they are! Why, I declare. One of them is for you.”
“Oho, this is great! It’s from Eleanor Pettes! I was hoping to hear from her soon. She told me when she came to our closing exercises at Vine Haven that she had written a story which she believed to be the very best thing she had ever done and she was actually going to send it to a real magazine. I suppose by now she has heard from it. How I do hope that it was accepted.”
“Eleanor writes so exceptionally well and had so much experience editing the school magazine before she went to college prep that I am sure, in time, she is bound to succeed,” Margaret was remarking when her companion, having opened the letter, uttered a little squeal of delight.
“What is it, Virg? Has Eleanor sold her story? I am sure by the way your eyes are shining that there must be good news.”
Virginia had continued to silently read down the first page, then she looked up, her face aglow. “Good? It’s glorious! Just wait until you hear.” Then she read aloud from the delicately scented missive:
“Dear Kindred Spirit,
“If I were not afraid of falling from the literary pedestal upon which I know that you two girls have placed me, I would begin this letter with some expressive school girl slang. ‘Gee whiliker, but it’s corking good news.’ But since Betsy Clossen can use that more naturally than I can, I’ll simply say that I am amazed beyond comprehending what this wonderful thing is which has happened. I find myself rubbing my eyes and pinching myself as did Alice in Wonderland. ‘Can it be really true?’ I ask myself a dozen times a day. Then, fearing it to be but a dream, or a plot that I have planned for a story, I go again to my desk and take the letter therefrom and re-read what it has to say on the subject. You never could guess what it is, no one could. I couldn’t myself if I didn’t know, so I will have to tell you.
“I have inherited Something. I just had to start that with a capital letter, for the inheritance surely deserves it. In fact it ought to be all capital letters. Have I sufficiently aroused your curiosity? Well, then, harken and you shall hear.
“A great-aunt of my Dad’s (goodness knows how old she was, I don’t), has left me her estate. Think of that, Virginia, if you can grasp a thing so stupendous. I’ll agree it’s very hard to believe all at once and sudden like. This same estate, it seems, is located in the Garden of Eden, not figuratively, but really true. The name of the place, however, on the railroad map (I don’t suppose it’s big enough to be on a school geography), is San Ceritos and it’s in California, that Paradise-on-earth that you and I have heard so much about. When I say that I am wild to behold it with my own eyes, I only faintly describe my feelings. Think of it, Virg, you who love nature as much as I do, this estate of mine has mountains to shelter it at the back and its wooded acres slope down to the sea. Dad says that the water in that sheltered cove is at times as blue as the Mediterranean, and I own it; or, that is, I own half of it, but the mysterious part of all this is that I don’t know who owns the other half and I haven’t any way of finding out. The will is the queerest!
“Dad says that his Great-Aunt Myra was always called eccentric by everyone who knew her. It seems that when she was a young girl she was engaged, but on the very eve of her wedding day something happened. Dad doesn’t know what, but his Great-Aunt Myra never married.