Page:Jean Webster--Dear enemy.djvu/11

 DEAR ENEMY

Stone Gate, Worcester,

Massachusetts,

December 27, Dear Judy:

Your letter is here. I have read it twice, and with amazement. Do I understand that Jervis has given you, for a Christmas present, the making over of the John Grier Home into a model institution, and that you have chosen me to disburse the money ? Me — I, Sallie McBride, the head of an orphan-asylum! My poor people, have you lost your senses, or have you become addicted to the use of opium, and is this the raving of two fevered imaginations? I am exactly as well fitted to take care of one hundred children' as to become the curator of a zoo.

And you offer as bait an interesting Scotch doctor? My dear Judy, — likewise my dear Jervis, — I see through you ! I know exactly the kind of family con- ference that has been held about the Pendleton fire- side.