You know," she went on, stooping to retie her shoe, "he and I have been corresponding for some time, and I think of him as one of my oldest and best friends.

I shall always be anxious for news of him." Betty could fairly feel the surprise in Mary's face, even though she was stooping forward too far to see it, and she heard with inward amusement her astonished exclamations.

"Well, of all things! I didn't know you were writing to each other! Jack never said a word about it, and yet he sent you a message nearly every time he wrote to me!" She was still puzzling about it when her train was called, and she had to take leave of Betty.

All too soon the last familiar face was out of sight, and the long, lonely journey home was begun.
It was near the close of the third day's journey when she remembered Phil's book and took it out of its wrappings.

She was not in a reading humour, but time hung heavy, and he had said to open it when she reached the desert.