"You'll soon get over that. You see mother doesn't write often, and father never does, and I'm often anxious about them, and if you write and tell me about them twice a month I shall be happier. You see you are doing something for me."
"Yes, thank you. I'll do the best I can. But I can't write like your cousin Helen," she added, jealously.
"No matter. You'll do; and you will be growing older and constantly improving and I shall begin to travel for the house by and by and my letters will be as entertaining as a book of travels."
"Will you write to me? I didn't think of that."
"Goosie!" he laughed, giving her Linnet's pet name. "Certainly I will write as often as you do, and you mustn't stop writing until your last letter has not been answered for a month."
"I'll remember," said Marjorie, seriously. "But I wish I could do something else. Did you have to pay money for it?"
Marjorie was accustomed to "bartering" and that is the reason that she used the expression "pay money."
"Well, yes, something," he replied, pressing his lips together.
He was angry with the shoemaker about that bargain yet.
"How much? I want to pay you."