I had nine from the boys at home, not to count those from the family.
We had just about finished reading our letters when Corny came up to us to the silk-cotton tree, where we were sitting, and said, in a doleful tone: "We've got to go home." "Home ?" we cried out together.

"When ?" "To-morrow," said Corny, "on the 'Tigress.'" All our good news and pleasant letters counted for nothing now.
"How ?--why ?" said I."Why do you have to go?
Isn't this something new ?" Rectus looked as if he had lost his knife, and I'm sure I had never thought that I should care so much to hear that a girl--no relation--was going away the next day.
"Yes, it is something new," said Corny, who certainly had been crying, although we didn't notice it at first.

"It's a horrid old lawsuit.
Father just heard of it in a letter.

There's one of his houses, in New York, that's next to a lot, and the man that owns the lot says father's house sticks over four inches on his lot, and he has sued him for that,--just think of it! four inches only! You couldn't do anything with four inches of dirt if you had it; and father didn't know it, and he isn't going to move his wall back, now that he does know it, for the people in the house would have to cut all their carpets, or fold them under, which is just as bad, and he says he must go right back to New York, and, of course, we've all got to go, too, which is the worst of it, and mother and I are just awfully put out." "What's the good of his going," asked Rectus.

"Can't he get a lawyer to attend to it all ?" "Oh, you couldn't keep him here now," said Corny.