"Read that, Sis. No, I'll not read it aloud to you. Look at it with your own eyes."
The Breckenridge Engineering Company.
office of the superintendent.
Roderick T. Hallowell, C. E.,
c/o Contract Camp, Grafton, Illinois.
Sir: I beg to state that certain changes in the engineering force of the company have brought about a change in the position occupied by yourself with our firm. Beginning upon the first day of June, 1912, you will be transferred to the post of assistant superintendent on a large drainage contract in northern Iowa. While your position will be second to that of Mr. McPherson, our supervising engineer, yet you will be given entire charge of the assembling of the plant and its construction. Your salary will be two thousand dollars. Payment quarterly, as is our custom.
Some objections to this promotion have been raised by members of our company on the score of your limited experience. Mr. Breckenridge, however, considers from his observation of your methods that you will prove fully equal to this exacting and responsible position.
I am, very respectfully,
The Breckenridge Engineering Company.
Per R. W. Austin, Sec'y.
Silent, wide-eyed, Marian read this amazing document. Then, with a cry of surprise and delight, she turned to her brother. But before she could speak, a storm of eager feet dashed up the cabin steps. In burst Sally Lou and Ned, headlong. Ned, breathless with excitement, waved a long official envelope. But Sally Lou, close at his heels with Thomas Tucker crowing on her arm, poured out the wild tale.
"Oh, Marian! Oh, Roderick! Oh, it's too good and grand and glorious to be true! We're going home, home, straight back to Virginia!"
"Yes, we're going home, we're fired," puffed Ned, as Sally Lou paused for breath. He sank down on the bench with a sigh of ecstasy. "Don't look so dazed, Hallowell. There is more news coming. We're ordered off this contract. But we're not ordered out of the Breckenridge Engineering Company. Not quite yet. Instead, I'm directed to report on the Dismal Swamp Canal the first of the month. My position will be practically the same as the one that I'm now holding. But we can live at home. At home, I say! Right in Norfolk, right in the midst of all Sally Lou's own home-folks, right around the corner from my own father's house. Won't we have a glorious year of it! And won't Edward Junior and Thomas Tucker be good and spoiled, though!"