xtra one in case." She tucked in a little curl
that had escaped from Thea's careful twist. "Don't forget to brush your
dress often, and pin it up to the curtains of your berth to-night, so it
won't wrinkle. If you get it wet, have a tailor press it before it
draws."

She turned Thea about by the shoulders and looked her over a last time.
Yes, she looked very well. She wasn't pretty, exactly,--her face was too
broad and her nose was too big. But she had that lovely skin, and she
looked fresh and sweet. She had always been a sweet-smelling child. Her
mother had always liked to kiss her, when she happened to think of it.

The train whistled in, and Mr. Kronborg carried the canvas "telescope"
into the car. Thea kissed them all good-bye. Tillie cried, but she was
the only one who did. They all shouted things up at the closed window of
the Pullman car, from which Thea looked down at them as from a frame,
her face glowing with excitement, her turban a little tilted in spite of
three hatpins. She had already taken off her new gloves to save them.
Mrs. Kronborg reflected that she would never see just that same picture
again, and as Thea's car slid off along the rails, she wiped a tear from
her eye. "She won't come back a little girl," Mrs. Kronborg said to her
husband as they turned to go home. "Anyhow, she's been a sweet one."

While the Kronborg family were trooping slowly homeward, Thea was
sitting in the Pullman, her telescope in the seat beside her, her
handbag tightly gripped in her fingers. Dr. Archie had gone into the
smoker. He thought she might be a little tearful, and that it would be
kinder to leave her alone for a while. Her eyes did fill once, when she
saw the last of the sand hills and realized that she was going to leave
them behind for a long while. They always made her think of Ray, too.
She had had such good times with him out there.

But, of course, it was herself and her own adventure that mattered to
her. If youth did not matter so much to itself, it would never have the
heart to go on. Thea was surprised that she did not feel a deeper sense
of loss at leaving her old life behind her. It seemed, on the contrary,
as she looked out at the yellow desert speeding by, that she had left
very little. Everything that was essential seemed to be right there in
the car with her. She lacked nothing. She even felt more compact and
confident than usual. She was all there, and something else was there,
too,--in her hea