But it was Billie's pleading face that made him change his mind.
"Please, Teddy," she begged, "I've just been dying for some letters from home. Don't keep me waiting."
"All right, your word is law," said Teddy gallantly, remembering that he had read the phrase somewhere and it had sounded very good. "Here you are, and here's one for Vi and two for Laura."
"Goodness, what have I done to get only one?" cried Violet, feeling very much abused.
"Well, your one looks fat enough to make up for our two," Billie assured her diplomatically, then settled back to enjoy her own letters, while Teddy ran out to join the boys downstairs.
One of her letters was from her mother, and with a loving smile she laid it aside to be read last—she always saved the best till the last. The writing on the other envelope puzzled her.
"Now, who is writing to me from Mayport, Long Island?" she demanded, and the girls looked up inquiringly from their letters.
"Another mystery?" asked Laura, for there were not enough mysteries in the world to satisfy Laura.
"It doesn't look very mysterious," answered Billie, turning the envelope around and around in her hand and finally holding it up to the light to see if she could get any clew to its contents that way. "But I surely never did see that handwriting before. I wonder—"
"Well, why don't you open it?" Violet inquired impatiently. "It seems to me that's the best way to find out."