"I'd be so awfully obliged to you," she said. "I know it's a cool sort of thing to ask, but I want to write a letter--it's to Jim, my brother. He is staying with people of the name of Holroyd. They're very nice people; they're your sort, you know. He has gone off rather suddenly, and there's something he was going to do for me, and I want to remind him. Do you greatly object to my writing him a little note here?" "Of course not, dear," said Marcia, in her kindest tone. "Come along into this room. I'll give you pen, ink, and paper." She supplied Pen with the necessary materials, and the little girl wrote her note. "My Darling Jim: "Don't forget father and the big fat purse on Saturday morning. Your loving and distracted Pen. "P.S.--You went off in such a hurry I suppose you forgot, you old darling. But please, please remember your most wildly distracted sister Pen." This note was put into an envelope, and was addressed to Mr Jim Carter, care of the Holroyds, The Chase, Dewsbury. Pen took out her little purse, which alas! held little or no coins, produced a sticky stamp, put it on the letter, and prepared to leave the house. In the hall she met Marcia. "Is your letter ready?" she said. "I am just going to the post. I'll post it for you." "When do you think it will get to Dewsbury?" asked Pen, raising an anxious face. "Oh, that's no way off; it will get there to-night." "Thank you, so very, very much." "Good-bye, dear," said Marcia. "I don't seem to know you as well as the others." "Good-bye. I'm ever so grateful," said Pen. She wrung Marcia's hand. "How nice she is. How kind she is--not a bit like the others," thought the child. Marcia, as she dropped the letter into the post, glanced at the address. She smiled a little and then forgot all about it. Penelope went home in a far happier state of mind. Surely there was deliverance at hand. Jim, if he could not come back, and she did not expect him even for her sake, to leave such wonderfully grand people as the Holroyds, would at least write a long, explanatory letter to his father. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. SEASIDE ANTICIPATIONS. Meanwhile Nesta was very full of her own interests. Things were going in what might be considered a middling way at the Aldworths'. Mrs Aldworth was no worse, but she was not much better. She was suffering greatly from the heat, and yet she was not strong enough to be moved. Nurse Davenant still remained, and kept the invalid in comfort, and saw that she got the necessary food, and was not worried or neglected. Molly and Ethel were busy over their own concerns; they were forced to devote so much time, and Nesta was also required to be on duty for a certain time each day. The fright the girls had sustained when their mother was so seriously ill had not yet passed from their minds. Its memory still had power to move them. They were still alarmed when they thought of it.