"Sacramento. But the operation was on Sunday, so he should have been here yesterday, at latest," Julia said. "However, he'll rush in to-night or to-morrow; he knows you're all going to be here. Give her to me, Aunt Sanna, she's getting hungry, bless her little old heart! Ah, here's Ellie with something for Mother's girl!"
"And tea for you in the library," Ellie said in an aside, receiving the baby into her arms with a rapturous look.
"Tea, doesn't tea sound good!" Julia caught Miss Toland by the hand. "Come and have some tea, Aunt Sanna!" said she. "I'm starving!"
They were loitering over their teacups half an hour later when Lizzie came into the library with a special delivery letter.
"For me?" Julia smiled, reaching for it. "It's Jimmy!" she added ruefully, for Miss Toland's benefit, as she took it. "This means he can't get here!"
"Drat the lad!" his aunt said mildly. "What has he got to say?"
Julia pulled out a hairpin to open the letter, her face a little puzzled. She unfolded three pages of large paper closely written.
"Why, I don't understand this," said she. "Jimmy writes such short letters!"
And immediately fear, like cold iron, entered her heart, and she felt a chill of distaste for the letter; she did not want to read it, she wished she might fling it on the ere, and rid her hands of the horrible thing.
"It is Jim, isn't it?" Miss Toland said, with a sharp look. "Is he coming?"