CHAPTER VII
THE answer to Reba's little blue note was unfortunate in its arrival. For three days she haunted the post-office, morning and evening, to avoid the possibility of its falling into anybody's hands but her own, and then, on the crucial afternoon, Aunt Augusta announced that it was too stormy for Reba to stir out! David could bring the mail home with him, as usual, when he came at six o'clock, if there was any. Reba was wary enough to make no inquiries of her father when he came in, and it wasn't until she had begun on her preserved peach, and David, who had been eating swiftly and silently as usual, at his end of the table, had shoved back his chair, preliminary to leaving the room, that the important missive was tossed before her.
"What's that mean?" he asked briefly.
The letter had been opened! That did not surprise Reba. What brought the color to her face, and made her suddenly choke over the piece of peach she was trying to swallow, was the shock of her unpreparedness. She had planned to submit her scheme to them gently, one by one, and in the spirit of a petitioner—not like this! Still coughing, she reached for the letter, but Aunt Augusta was quicker, and snatched it up first.
"What is it, anyhow?" she remarked, unsuspectingly. "Humph!" she scorned, as her eye fell upon the printed name-head in the corner of the govern-
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