The week that followed was devoted to studying, for the terrible exams must be passed before the party could be enjoyed.

“Bring your books up to my room this evening at seven,” Adele sang out as the girls from Sunnyside were trooping in after a merry game on the tennis courts. “I’ll play teacher and give you a review.”

“We’ll be there!” Carol replied, then turning to the tall, quiet girl at her side, she added, “Evelyn, suppose we practise for the next half-hour since we are to perform at the closing exercises.”

Gertrude and Adele, arm linked in arm, entered the school and ascended the stairs to their room.

“Trudie,” Adele exclaimed as she sank down on a low stool to remove her tennis shoes, “what nice new friends we have made this year, Carol, Evelyn Dartmoor, and the lassie from the Dakota prairie. What a wonderful girl she is, that Starr! I am so glad that she came to our school. She makes me think of Eva Dearman a little. Not that they look alike. Maybe just because they both live in that glorious West. It seems as if I haven’t heard from Eva in ages.” Then folding her hands over her knees, she added thoughtfully, “Trudie, please don’t think me sentimental or anything like that, but, when I grow up, if I should happen to get married, I do wish that it might be to an Arizona cattleman.”

Gertrude laughed merrily as she began to brush her dark, wavy hair, then she exclaimed, “Donald Burnley is planning to live on his ranch, isn’t he? Of course I mean when he finishes college and is ready to settle down.”

“I believe that he is,” Adele said, springing up, then she added with a smile, “Trudie, are you trying to tease me about Donald the way Peggy delights in teasing Rose about Bob?”

“I feel sorry for Rosamond!” Gertrude replied. “Her mother is such a social butterfly and she seems to have no time for her pretty daughter, in fact she almost never writes to her. I sincerely hope that Rose and Bob will care for each other when they are grown.”

“I wonder who Trudie’s prince is going to be?” Adele said mischievously as she slipped on the simple muslin that she wore in the evening. “I’m going to guess that his initials will be A. E.”

“Della, what a romancer you are to-day,” Gertrude exclaimed.

Adele laughed gaily. “Hark!” she said. “I hear footsteps approaching down Apple-Blossom Alley.” A second later there was a merry rapping on the door, and when it was opened, half a dozen maidens appeared and each one was waving a letter.

“We’re the postman-brigade!” Peggy Pierce called. “Miss Sharpleigh has just finished looking over the mail, and think of it, Della, there are six letters for you, and not one for any of the rest of us.”

Adele’s eyes were shining, for her quick glance had noted one of the postmarks. “Come in!” she called. “I am sure that there is interesting news in these letters that you will want to hear.”

“Whom are they all from?” Betty Burd asked as the six girls sat tailor-wise on the floor.

Adele’s eyes were glowing. She had peeped into the letter that was on top, and then springing up, she pirouetted around the room waving it in the air.

“Oh, something so very, very wonderful is going to happen!” she cried as she seized Gertrude and gave her a bear hug. “Trudie, here’s a letter from the person we were just talking about, and it contains the best news. Who do you think is coming from Arizona to attend our C. E. P. and then is to stay with me in Sunnyside all this summer?”

“Oh, Della, is it Eva Dearman?” Peggy eagerly inquired.

Adele nodded happily. “Mother wrote to Mr. Dearman and asked if Eva might visit me during the vacation and I wrote begging her to try to get here in time for the party. She is coming next week with some friends of her Uncle Dick’s who are traveling to Buffalo.”

“Who is Eva Dearman?” Starr asked. “I know she must be nice, for you all seem to love her.”

“Oh, indeed we do!” Doris Drexel replied. “She is a dear, beautiful, unselfish, sunshiny girl. She lives on an Arizona cattle ranch with her uncle Dick Dearman and an orphan friend, Amanda Brown, who married a cowboy named ‘Rusty Pete.’”

“I wonder how Amanda is!” Betty Burd had just said, when Adele, who was reading the letter to herself, gave another wild whoop. “Oh! Oh!” she cried, “how I do wish that I was there to see it and hold it and hug it.”

“Della, hold what?” Peggy Pierce inquired. “You are so provokingly mysterious.”

“Girls,” Adele said, “the most beautiful something has happened. Amanda Brown has a baby! A darling, little brown-eyed daughter, and Eva writes that poor Mandy, who so yearned for own folks two years ago, now has a heart brimming over with joy. Pete built an adobe house for her down near Silver Creek, only a stone’s throw from the big ranch house, and since they have plenty of water, the porch is just covered with blossoming vines.

“Oh, how I would love to see that happy little mother sitting there crooning to her baby and watching for her cowboy husband as he rides home in the evening.”

“Girls,” Rosamond exclaimed joyfully, “this summer when we are all at home, let’s each make something for Mandy’s baby. Now, Della, whom is your next letter from?”

Adele glanced over the other letters that the postman-brigade had brought to her. Then she gaily announced, “Here is one from Donald Burnley telling me that he will be glad to come to our party. Two of the others are from Daddy and Mummie with just love and home news in them. Oho! Here is one from Jack. It’s such an unusual thing for my devoted brother to write me a letter all by himself that I am inclined to believe that something interesting must have happened. Perhaps he has passed his college preparatory exams, but that would be almost too much to expect from my indolent brother.”

“Adele, it isn’t a bit nice of you to talk that way about Jack,” Doris Drexel protested. “It doesn’t matter, of course, as far as we Sunnyside girls are concerned, since we grew up with him, but Starr and Carol and the others who don’t know him might think that you meant it.”

Adele laughingly hugged the girl next to her, and then turning to Starr she exclaimed, “Yonder on my dresser is Jack’s photograph and if you care to glance in that direction, you will behold a youth both handsome and indolent, who, nevertheless, is the nicest brother in all the world. There, Doris, is that better?”

“Not much,” the other laughingly replied, “but since Jack is coming to the party, Carol and Starr will soon learn for themselves just how nice he is. Now, do read his letter to us.”

Adele, who had glanced ahead, exclaimed gleefully, “Just as I thought, Jack did have something very unusual to write about or he would merely have added a postscript to Mummie’s letter. It concerns every one of us, so harken and you shall hear:

“Oh, Della, what fun that will be,” Doris Drexel exclaimed. “I simply adore camping.”

The other girls were equally overjoyed at the prospect, but a gong was calling them to various tasks and so they had to leave the choosing of a chaperone until another day.