Sidney blinked hard simply to be certain that the words actually lay before her eyes. Then she read it again and again--aloud. Oh, it was too wonderful to believe. It was a _beautiful_ letter--Cousin Achsa must surely live in the square white house on the eminence she had pictured. She had written "we" so perhaps Cousin Asabel still lived or maybe there were young cousins. Anyway, they wanted her. She hugged the letter to her and rushed off to find the girls. Oh, Huldah could stay with her niece if she wanted to! And Trude could go to Long Island! The Leaguers could come and camp in the house! Guided by the murmur of voices Sidney broke headlong into an informal conference of the older sisters. Her drama-loving soul could not have built a more perfect stage, nor asked a more thrilling moment of denouement. Isolde had just declared generously, that she could not enjoy a day of her stay with the Deerings if Trude had to give up the Long Island plans. "It isn't as though we girls received invitations every day," she explained tearfully. "And it'll be stupid for you here, Trude, with just Sidney. Perhaps it's my duty to stay home and help Mrs. Milliken." "Your sacrifice is quite unnecessary!" Sid answered in such a queer voice that the three older girls stared at her in alarm. In truth her flushed face and wild eyes gave strength to the sudden conviction that she had gone mad! She fairly leaped at Isolde and flung her letter into Isolde's lap. "I guess 'just Sid' is capable of making her own plans!" Sidney had a moment's terror that she was "beginning" wrong but Isolde's remark which she had overheard had upset all her preplanned diplomacy. Now she stood back, anxiously, and watched Isolde read the letter. As Isolde read it aloud she punctuated it with excited exclamations. "'My dear little Cousin'--Why, Sid, how did you happen to write to her? How did you know she wasn't dead? Why--'Of course you may come and visit us!' Sid, what _have_ you been doing? Why--" and so, to the end. Sidney drew a long breath and braced herself. Her explanation tumbled out with such incoherence that the girls kept interrupting her to ask her to repeat something. Well, they had told her she could use the Egg any way she wanted to and she wanted to go somewhere a long way off--on a train. One always had to visit someone or with somebody and she'd remembered these cousins-- "Why, how _could_ you, Sid? I don't think you've ever heard us speak of them. I'm sure I'd almost forgotten them--" "Well, I _did_. Blood's thicker than water," witheringly, "and maybe you can just remember relatives without ever hearing anything about them. She's nice, I know, because her father was persevering and thrifty--" A sudden laugh from Vick brought Sidney to an abrupt stop. But Isolde, rebuking Vick with a lift of her right shoulder, turned her attention again to the letter.