MY OWN DEAR ELSIE,—Your weekly chronicle is almost ready for Monday’s stage, and I am allowed to come in at the close with as many pages of ‘gossip’ as I choose; which means that I may run on to my heart’s content and tell you all the little things that happen in the chinks between the great ones, for Uncle Doc has refused to read this part of the letter. First for some commissions: Aunt Truth asks if your mother will kindly select goods and engage Mrs. Perkins to make us each a couple of Scotch gingham dresses. She has our measures, and we wish them simple, full-skirted gowns, like the last; everybody thinks them so pretty and becoming. Bell’s two must be buff and pink, Polly’s grey and green, and mine blue and brown. We find that we haven’t clothes enough for a three months’ stay; and the out-of-door life is so hard upon our ‘forest suits’ that we have asked Mrs. Perkins to send us new ones as soon as possible. We have had a very busy and exciting week since Polly began this letter, for there have been various interruptions and an unusual number of visitors. First, there was our mountain climb to the top of Pico Negro; Phil says he has written you about that, but I hardly believe he mentioned that he and the other boys worried us sadly by hanging on to the tails of our horses as they climbed up the steepest places. To be sure they were so awfully tired that I couldn’t help pitying them; but Uncle Doc had tried to persuade them not to walk, so that it was their own fault after all. You cannot imagine what a dreadful feeling it gives one to be climbing a slippery, rocky path, and know that a great heavy boy is pulling your horse backwards by the tail. Polly insisted that she heard her mule’s tail break loose from its moorings, and on measuring it when she got back to camp she found it three inches longer than usual. The mule acted like original sin all day, and Polly was so completely worn-out that she went to bed at five o’clock; Jack was a good deal the worse for wear too, so that they got on beautifully all day. It is queer that they irritate each other so, for I am sure that there is no lack of real friendship between them; but Jack is a confirmed tease, and he seems to keep all his mischief bottled up for especial use with Polly. I have tried to keep him out of trouble, as you asked me; and although it gives me plenty to do, I am succeeding tolerably well, except in his dealings with Polly. I lecture him continually, but ‘every time he opens his mouth he puts his foot in it.’