Godmother Jocelyn will get her some new dresses and I am simply dying to wear it. "And now I must tell you about the good ship _Arabella_. It is a very old boat--I think it is a schooner--and Mr. Dugald says it has probably been in every port in the world. When it got too old to sail any more Mr. Dugald bought it for Lavender. And it is all Lavender's own. I am sure I never heard of anyone before having a real big boat just to play on. But, then, Lavender is different. It is fastened with a great big anchor and can't move only when the water is in it swings around on it just as though it was going. And when the water is out the boat is up real high and looks so funny and lopsided, like that dreadful old drunken man who walked past school one day. Mr. Dugald and Lavender took me out to the _Arabella_ the very first day. We went out in a rowboat--I mean dory, and Mr. Dugald rowed. Oh, it was so thrilling, my heart sang within my breast. It seemed as though I was going far out to sea and the little waves danced and were so blue and everything smelled so salty and there were boats all around and some of them moving with big sails and a three-masted schooner went right close to us--I mean we went right close to it because it was fastened--and I could breathe only with difficulty I was so excited. Dear friend--at that moment I said to myself I did not mind my relatives not living in a big house on an eminence. This, meaning all the boats and the lovely docks and things, is worth my quest. It was very hazardous climbing on to the _Arabella_ for it wiggled so but at last we were on and then!--Oh! Do you know, it was like a pirate's ship. And it has a wheel and a little house and the cutest cabins downstairs and a funny little kitchen. I am going to ask Aunt Achsa--I have decided to call her that because she seems too old to be a cousin--to let me cook out on the _Arabella_. Mr. Dugald will not let Lavender cook on it for fear he will set the boat on fire. It would be funny to have a boat burn right in the water, but then I have read of ships that burned at sea. Mr. Dugald has fixed everything up real nice and he goes out a lot and draws. He says that as long as I know how to swim I can go out anytime with Lavender. It is certainly the most different thing I ever dreamed of doing and next best to sailing far away on a young boat. The boat rocked like a cradle and we laid down on the deck in the sun and it was a delightful sensation. I am going to take books out there and I will sometime take you, dear friend, and write in you as I rock upon the bosom of the ocean--though this is a bay it is ocean water.