ool of the Bees" failed to
whisper a comforting lesson. This was a trouble which she could not seal
up in its cell, and for many days it poisoned all life's honey.
Presently she slipped back into the house for a pencil and box of paper,
and sitting on the swing with her geography on her knees for a
writing-table, she poured out her troubles in a letter to Jack. It was
only a few hundred miles to the mines, and she could be sure of a
sympathetic answer before the blisters were healed on her face, or the
hurt had faded out of her sensitive little heart.

CHAPTER IV.

MARY'S "PROMISED LAND"

It was a hot, tiresome journey back to Kentucky. Joyce, worn out with
all the hurried preparations of packing her mother and Norman off to the
mines, closing the Wigwam for the summer, and putting her own things in
order for a long absence, was glad to lean back in her seat with closed
eyes, and take no notice of her surroundings. But Mary travelled in the
same energetic way in which she killed snakes. Nothing escaped her.
Every passenger in the car, every sight along the way was an object of
interest. She sat up straight and eager, scarcely batting an eyelash,
for fear of missing something.

To her great relief the peeling process had been a short one, and thanks
to the rose balm, not a trace of a blister was left on her smooth skin
to remind her of her foolish little attempt to beautify herself in
secret. The first day she made no acquaintances, for she admired the
reserved way in which her pretty nineteen-year-old sister travelled, and
tried to imitate her, but after one day of elegant composure she longed
for a chance to drop into easy sociability with some of her neighbors.
They no longer seemed like strangers after she had travelled in their
company for twenty-four hours.

So she seized the first social opportunity which came to her next
morning. A middle-aged woman, who was taking up all the available space
in the dressing-room, grudgingly moved over a few inches when Mary tried
to squeeze in to wash her face. Any one but Mary would have regarded her
as a most unpromising companion, when she answered her question with a
grumbling "Yes, been on two days, and got two more to go." The tone was
as ungracious as if she had said, "Mind your own business."

The train was passing over a section of rough road just then, and they
swayed against each other several times, with polite apologies on Mary's
part. Then as the woma