"How I wish I could suddenly drop in on you this morning for a long talk. There is so much I should like to tell you which I haven't time to write. Anne, the faithful, delivered your message. Don't worry about my not waiting for you. I won't buy even a paper of pins without your august sanction and approval. I am anxiously looking forward to seeing you. So are Kathleen, Anne, Arline and Mabel Ashe. "Elfreda is with me. She is a never-failing joy, and to quote her pet phrase, 'I can see' that there will be a vast amount of celebrating done when you arrive. Please forgive me for not writing much this time. I am expecting Everett and his sister at any moment. We are going to motor down to their home on Long Island for the day. I have decided to put in the time usefully until they have arrived. Hence this fragmentary epistle. Kindly note my laudable promptness as a correspondent and fall in line. With much love, "As always, "MIRIAM." "I'll reply this very morning," nobly resolved Grace. "Oh!" She gave a gleeful chuckle as she recognized a dear, familiar script. "It's from Emma, good old friend." The chuckle continued as she perused the flowery salutation: "MOST GRACIOUS AND ESTIMABLE GRACE: "Having made a triumphal return to the humble habitation of the Deans, of whom I am which, I now derive a most excruciating pleasure in taking up my sadly neglected pen to inform you that I am well and hope you are the same. By this time you are no doubt mourning me as hopelessly lost in the wilds of darkest Deanery. Such is not the case. Though I have wandered disconsolately about my childhood haunts and camped out despondently under the fruitful pear-tree in our back yard, which, so far as I can remember, has never boasted of a single solitary pear, I am by no means lost. In fact, I am really beginning to feel quite at home. But how I miss you! Living in a 'Graceless' world is a cross even to a person of my excellent and amiable qualities. "There's a grain of comfort in store, thank goodness. Before many weeks the Sempers will congregate together somewhere for a glorious reunion. Elfreda has written me that you are soon to be in New York City. I suppose the momentous question of 'Where shall we reunite?' will be decided then." Grace read on through page after page of the long letter, written in Emma's most humorous vein. Finishing it at last, she gathered the closely written sheets together with a happy little sigh. Good-natured, fun-loving Emma Dean occupied a foremost place in her affections. Grace wondered sometimes if the bond between them did not stretch as tightly even as that between herself and Anne. Emma had been and always would be the perfect comrade.