ke thought. And with my little Charlotte--be very patient, Lanse. She
will miss us most--and show it least."

"I doubt that," thought Lanse, but aloud he said, "We'll all hang
together, mother, you may count on that. We have our differences and
our, eccentricities, but we've a lot of family spirit, and no one of us
is going to sacrifice alone while the rest fail to take notice. And
you're going to know all that goes on. We've planned to take turns
writing so that at least every other day a letter will start for New
Mexico."

"And if anything should go wrong?"

"Nothing will," asserted Lansing.

"That you don't know, dear," said the gentle voice, not quite so
steadily as before. "If anything should come we must know."

"I'll remember," he promised, reluctantly, his hand under pressure from
hers. But inwardly he vowed, "Anything short of real trouble you'll not
know, little mother. Your children are stronger than you now, and they
can bear some things for you."

At the train it took all Lansing's determination, sturdy fellow though
he was, to keep up his cheerful front. The colour had ebbed away from
Mrs. Birch's face once more, and as she put up her arms to her tall son,
in the little state-room, she seemed to him all at once so small and
frail that he could not endure to see her go away from them all, facing
even the remote possibility that in the new land she might fail to find
again her old vigour.

It had to be done, however. Lansing received her clinging good-by,
whispered in her ear something which would have been unintelligible to
any but a mother's intuition, so choky was his voice, gripped his
father's hand with both his own, turned and smiled back at the two as he
pulled open the door, and swung off the train just as it began to move.

He raced away over the streets to take a trolley-car for home, having
dismissed the carriage, and craving nothing so much as a long walk in
the cool September night.

At home he found everybody gone to bed except Celia, who met him at the
door. She smiled at him, but he could see that she had been crying.
Although he had carried home a heavy heart, he braced himself to begin
his task of keeping the family cheered up.

"Off all right!" he announced, in a casual tone, as if he had just sent
away the guests of a week. "Splendid train, jolly state-room, porter one
of the '_Yassir, yassir_' kind. Judge and Mrs. Van Camp were taking the
same train as far as Chicago. That wi