"I have the most astonishing news from Uncle Johnny," and she held up a fat envelope.
"Oh, when's he coming back?" cried Tibby.
"Very soon. But what do you think he wants to do—bring back with him a little girl he found up there in the mountains—or rather, she found him—when he got lost on a wrong trail. Listen:
"'...She is a most unusual child. And she has outgrown the school here. I'd like, as a sort of scholarship, to send her for a year or two to Lincoln School. But there is the difficulty of finding a suitable place for her to live—she's too young to put in a boarding house. Could not you and the girls stretch your hearts and your rooms enough to let in the youngster? I haven't said anything to her mother yet—I won't until I hear from you. But I want to make this experiment and it will help me immensely if you'll write and say my little girl can go straight to you. I had a long talk with John Randolph, just before I came up here—we feel that Lincoln School has grown a little away from the real democratic spirit of fellowship that every American school should maintain; he suggested certain scholarships and that's what came to my mind when I found this girl. Isobel and Gyp and all their friends can give my wild mountain lassie a good deal—and she can give Miss Gyp and Isobel something, too——'"
"Humph," came a suspicion of a snort from Isobel and Gyp.
"Wish he'd found a boy," added Graham.
From the moment she had read the letter, Mrs. Westley's mind had been working on ways and means of helping John Westley. She always liked to do anything anyone wanted her to do—and especially Uncle Johnny.
"If Gyp would go back with Tibby or——"
"Mother!" Gyp's distress was sincere—the spring before she had acquired this room of her own and she loved it dearly.
"And Gyp's things muss my room so," cried Tibby, plaintively.