Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

I meant to write to you before and thank you for your Christmas cheque,
but life in the McBride household is very absorbing, and I don\'t
seem able to find two consecutive minutes to spend at a desk.

I bought a new gown--one that I didn\'t need, but just wanted.
My Christmas present this year is from Daddy-Long-Legs; my family
just sent love.

I\'ve been having the most beautiful vacation visiting Sallie.
She lives in a big old-fashioned brick house with white trimmings set
back from the street--exactly the kind of house that I used to look
at so curiously when I was in the John Grier Home, and wonder what it
could be like inside. I never expected to see with my own eyes--
but here I am! Everything is so comfortable and restful and homelike;
I walk from room to room and drink in the furnishings.

It is the most perfect house for children to be brought up in;
with shadowy nooks for hide and seek, and open fire places for pop-corn,
and an attic to romp in on rainy days and slippery banisters with a
comfortable flat knob at the bottom, and a great big sunny kitchen,
and a nice, fat, sunny cook who has lived in the family thirteen years
and always saves out a piece of dough for the children to bake.
Just the sight of such a house makes you want to be a child all
over again.

And as for families! I never dreamed they could be so nice.
Sallie has a father and mother and grandmother, and the sweetest
three-year-old baby sister all over curls, and a medium-sized brother
who always forgets to wipe his feet, and a big, good-looking brother
nam............