omobile. Somehow it made
them all feel glad, she had looked so sad and alone all the journey.

What a ride that was home again to the farm, with Mother Marshall
cuddling and crooning to her: "Oh, my dear pretty child! To think you've
really come all this long way to comfort us!" and Father running the old
machine at an unheard of rate of speed, slamming along over the road as
if he had been sent for in great haste, and reaching his big fur glove
back now and then to pat the old buffalo robe that was tucked snugly
over Bonnie's lap.

Bonnie herself was fairly overcome and couldn't get her equilibrium at
all. She had thought these must be wonderful people to be inviting a
stranger and doing all they were doing, but such a reception as this she
had never dreamed of.

"Oh, you are so good to me!" sobbed Bonnie, with a smile through her
tears. "I know I'm acting like a baby, but I can't seem to help it. I've
had nobody so long, and now to be treated like this, I just can't stand
it! It seems as if I'd got home!"

"Why, sure! That's what you have!" said Father, in his big, hearty
voice.

"Put your head right down on my shoulder and cry if you want to, my
pretty!" said Mother Marshall, pulling her softly over toward her. "You
can't think how good it is to have you here! Father and I were so afraid
you wouldn't come! We thought you mightn't be willing to come so far to
utter strangers!"

So it went on all the way, all of them so happy they didn't quite know
what they were saying.

Then, when they got to the house even Father was so far gone that he
couldn't let them go up-stairs alone. He just had to leave the machine
standing by the kitchen door and carry that little hand-bag up as an
excuse to see how she would like the room.

Bonnie, pulling off her gloves, entered the room when Mother opened the
door. She looked around bewildered a moment, as if she had stepped from
the middle of winter into a summer orchard. Then she cried out with
delight:

"Oh! How perfectly beautiful! You don't mean me to have this lovely
room? It isn't right! A stranger and a pauper!"

"Nothing of the kind!" growled Father, patting her on the shoulder.
"Just a daughter come home!"

Then he beat a hasty retreat to the fireplace and touched a match to the
fire already laid, while Mother, purring like a contented old pussy,
pushed the bewildered girl into the big flowered chair in front of the
fire and began unfastening her coat and taking