Active Links in Welcome email??

Active Links in Welcome email??
I have searched the above topic and read over the many posts but I didn’t find one that applies to my request. I would like to add an http:// links so that my new customers can visit one of my other web sites. So, in the create_account.php e-mail section define (‘EMAIL_WELCOME’, I want to add the links below. Here is what I have.

define('EMAIL_WELCOME', '<b>We welcome you to</b><b>' . STORE_NAME . '</b>. some copy then<br>
<a href="http://www.netclubshoppingmall.com/catalog/index.php"> Net Club Shopping Mall </a>.
<br>
<a href="http://www.abookstore.biz/catalog/index.php"> A Book Store Biz</a>.
<br>
<a href="http://www.stock-information.com/catalog2/index.php"> Stock-Information.Com</a>.</b> ' . "\n\n");

The names of the web sites show up but the links are not active so they can’t click through to the other web sites. What is the proper coding to make these links work either in text mode or in html mode??
Thanks,

For those who might want to add active clicks to their welcome e-mail I am posting up the answer to my question.
Thanks to Mark over at the oscommerce forum he suggested to:

goto your osc admin->Configuration->Email Options
Set Use MIME HTML When Sending Emails to true and retry.

Thanks, Mark!!