Just then the door opened and Mary came in with a face all smiles. "O Vi, I'm so glad!" she exclaimed, seating herself on the side of the bed. "What about, cousin?" Violet asked, rousing herself, and with a keen look of interest. "I have just had the offer of a furnished cottage for two or three weeks--to keep house in, you understand--and I can invite several friends to stay with me, and it won't cost half so much as boarding here, beside being great fun," Mary answered, talking very fast in her excitement and delight. "Charlie will stay with me, I think, and I hope you and Edward will, and I have two girl friends at home whom I shall invite. One is an invalid, and needs the change, oh so badly; but though they are not exactly poor people, not the kind one would dare offer charity to, her father couldn't afford to give her even a week at any of these hotels or boarding-houses: and she did look so wistful and sad when I bade her good-bye. 'I can hardly help envying you, Mary,' she said, 'though I am ever so glad you are going. But I have such a longing to get away from home for a while--to go somewhere, anywhere, for a change. I'm so weak and miserable, and it seems to me that if I could only go away I should get well. I haven't been outside of this town for years.'" Violet's eyes filled with tears. "Poor thing!" she said. "I have always travelled about so much, and enjoyed it greatly. I wonder why it is I have so many more pleasures and blessings than other people." "I hope they may never be fewer," Mary said, caressing her. "But isn't it nice that now I can give poor Amy Fletcher--for that is her name--two or three weeks here at the sea-shore?" "Yes, indeed! But you haven't told me how it happens." In reply to this Mary went on to say that a married friend who had rented the cottage she had spoken of for the year, now found that he must take his family away for a short time, mountain air being recommended for his wife, who was in poor health, and as it would cost no more to have the cottage occupied in their absence than to leave it empty, he had offered her the use of it rent free. "He saw father and mother last week," she added in conclusion, "and talked it over with them, and they have written me to accept his offer by all means, and stay as long at the shore as I can." "But you are to visit us, you know." "Yes, afterward, if that will do. I don't intend to miss that pleasure if I can help it," Mary answered gleefully. "Now about my other friend, Ella Neff. She is not an invalid, but she teaches for her support, and I know such a change would do her a world of good. She wanted to come with me, but couldn't afford it; yet I'm sure she can in this way: for beside the difference of board there will not be the same necessity for fine dress." "I should never have thought of that," said Vi.