ad more
significance than either of those other gifts, for it was considerable
of a condescension for Rosalia.

Ross put her and all her belongings directly into the charge of the
conductor and asked him to please see that she was comfortable every
moment, and then the train pulled out. And it pulled out bearing such a
different Arethusa from the one who had started to the city so happily
and so confident of a Wonderful Time, barely three months ago. But it
actually seemed much more like three years to Arethusa, when she
considered all that happened to her in that short calendar space.

But after all, as those wheels revolved, faster and faster, it was hard
to remain wholly unhappy. She was going back to the Farm and to the
warmest sort of welcome from all of them there, she knew; even if she
had been guilty of that which would have Miss Eliza's heartiest
condemnation should it ever come to her ears. And how glad she,
Arethusa, was that she was so soon going to see the folks at the Farm!
She was really a little homesick now, for almost the first time since
the twenty-fifth of October.

There was no Mrs. Cherry to entertain on this train, and as Arethusa
was well worn out with excitement, the whole of the latter half of her
journey she slept; and she only woke when the fatherly old conductor
bent over her to tell her she had reached Vandalia.

CHAPTER XXIV

Arethusa stood on top of the stile a moment or two and surveyed the old
House with eyes that saw none too clearly anything that was before
them, before she climbed down; yet she had no real need to actually see
it, she knew it all, in every well-loved detail, so well.

It stood there, facing the West, and hugging the earth with that
curious appearance of having grown in its place like some sort of solid
plant, the green blinds every one swung hospitably open. The January
sun was far down in the afternoon sky, and its golden light was
reflected in every small and shining square of the square-paned front
windows, to make each twinkling pane seem to be smiling a welcome.

And it was all just as neat and precise as ever, although in winter
garb instead of that of summer. For the clematis vine over the front
porch was a matted heap of dead tendrils (they had died for the season
in an orderly way, however) and the little garden at one end of the
House was all covered over with straw for the cold weather, and queer
little miniature straw stacks were bound aro