And anyway , even if she is really as disagreeable as she sometimes seems to be , why , it must make it all the harder for her , do n't you think ? So she needs a letter most of all . I 'll write to her , since it 's my suggestion . We 'll draw lots for the others . '' Besides Miss Marshall , the new music teacher fell to Cyrilla 's share . Mary drew Mrs. Plunkett and the dressmaker , and Carol drew Mrs. Johnson and old Mr. Grant . For the next two hours the girls wrote busily , forgetting all about the rainy day , and enjoying their epistolary labours to the full . It was dusk when all the letters were finished . `` Why , has n't the afternoon gone quickly after all ! '' exclaimed Carol . `` I just let my pen run on and jotted down any good working idea that came into my head . Cyrilla Blair , that big fat letter is never for Miss Marshall ! What on earth did you find to write her ? '' `` It was n't so hard when I got fairly started , '' said Cyrilla , smiling . `` Now , let 's hunt up Nora Jane and send the letters around so that everybody can read his or hers before tea-time . We should have a choice assortment of smiles at the table instead of all those frowns and sighs we had at dinner . '' Miss Emily Marshall was at that moment sitting in her little back room , all alone in the dusk , with the rain splashing drearily against the windowpanes outside . Miss Marshall was feeling as lonely and dreary as she looked -- and as she had often felt in her life of sixty years . She told herself bitterly that she had n't a friend in the world -- not even one who cared enough for her to come and see her or write her a letter now and then . She thought her boarding-house acquaintances disliked her and she resented their dislike , without admitting to herself that her ungracious ways were responsible for it .
She smiled sourly when little ripples of laughter came faintly down the hall from the front room where The Trio were writing their letters and laughing over the fun they were putting XXXXX them .
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