of the girls at home--what
they are having. They are getting their tables ready, this very minute.
They will darken the parlors and have gas-light, and pretty dresses and
lots of callers."

Here Lilian broke down and sobbed. Her mother came to her side and
stroked her hair.

"Be brave, daughter," she whispered. "I know it is a great change. But I
have often told you we must bear in mind why we left the East, and why
we are here. Father would not have been alive but for this change of
climate and open-air life. You know he is getting well, and is so happy
in that. We ought not to mind anything if he can be well again."

Lilian felt ashamed, and tried to dry her tears. Yet she was unwilling
to quite give up her discontent.

"If only something would happen!" she said. Then, desperately, "I wish
there would be a cyclone or a blizzard, or a prairie fire! I wish the
Indians would make a raid!"

"We don't have cyclones and prairie fires in winter," her mother said,
calmly.

Just then Lilian heard a great stamping of feet and gay voices outside
on the kitchen threshold.

Her four brothers were coming in from doing their morning chores. As
they entered they let in a great rush of cold air. Jack spied Lilian
through the half-open sitting room door.

"Hello, Lil!" he called.

She did not answer.

"Lil in the dumps again?" he asked his mother.

"She is a little homesick this morning."

"Why doesn't she get out, as we do, and stir up her spirits?" said
Harry. "It's nothing but moping makes her homesick."

"This is a thousand times better than poky old Deerfield," asserted Ben.
"There was nothing to do there but slide down hill on a hand-sled, and
here we have the ponies, and the cattle, and--"

"But you are a boy, Ben," interposed Mrs. Wyman, "and can do a great
variety of things. Lilian isn't strong enough for hard riding, and,
besides, she misses her friends."

"Let her make new ones," piped up Jamie. "There's lots of nice people
all over these prairies."

"She will find them in time," said Mrs. Wyman. "But you must cheer her
all you can meanwhile."

Lilian overheard herself discussed, and began to sob afresh.

Jack went into the sitting-room and playfully pulled her ears, and tried
to laugh her out of her gloom.

"Come now, Lil. What is it you want--a gallop, a sleigh-ride?"

Lilian could confess anything to Jack.

She told him all that had been in her thoughts--how the Deerfield girls
were getting r