“That simply shows what an imagination you have. I must go into the library now and scribble a note to Fred. I don’t see when you get your home letters written, Beth. I must send one to Father and Mother twice a week, or they would think that I was sick and rush on here: and Fred, off at Harvard, demands one just as often. I told him that I would write as long as he did, but that when he commenced to shirk on his letters to me, I would stop. So far he has done remarkably well, and Mother likes me to write him often, not mere notes, you know, but long, chatty letters; she thinks that home-letters help to keep boys out of temptation.”
“I presume they do,” said Beth soberly, as if struck by a new thought. “Possibly it would not hurt me to write to Roy, he is off at a preparatory school.”
“Have you a brother? I didn’t know it.”
“I have not been much more communicative than Margaret Hamilton, have I? But I hardly imagine that our reasons are the same for keeping so quiet: If there is time after our letters are finished, I’ll give you a biographical sketch of our family. Roy is my half brother, I have no own brothers or sisters.”
And then Beth commenced to talk of something else as if she repented her momentary confidence, and the girls went in to write their letters.
Beth finished first. “There, the surprise that will strike Roy when he reads that letter may bring on an apoplectic fit. ’Twill be the very first letter he ever had from me.”
“Has he been away from home long?”
“This is his second year. I believe that you are aware of the fact that I live in Philadelphia. Father is a lawyer, and he isn’t a poor one, either. He makes considerable money, but I have my own money that was my mother’s.”
“Have you any other brothers beside Roy?”
“As I said, I haven’t any brothers or sisters really. Roy is ten, Hugh is eight, and Nell is three. I think Roy is far too young to send away to school, and I know that his mother is of the same opinion. But Father seemed to think that it was best.”