aps it's all for the best, and that if I
really left you all, and went away to school, I might have died of
homesickness. But when I read that story, and thought of all the people
and things there are in the world that I've never seen, it was just a
little bit hard to feel cheerful. Mother teaches me all she can, and so
do you and Father, but I'm fourteen and a half, and I hate to think of
growing up without any real education. If I were well educated, I might
teach, and be a real help to you all, but there isn't anything I can do
now but just sit still and make the best of things."

"Making the best of things is what we all have to do," said Miss Graham,
smiling rather sadly. "You do it very well, too, Marjorie dear. Your
father and I were talking last evening of how bravely you have borne
this disappointment. We all realize what it has meant to you, but we are
not a family who are much given to talking about our troubles."

"I know we're not," said Marjorie, "and I'm glad of it. How
uncomfortable it would be if you and Mother were always saying you were
sorry for each other, and if Father looked solemn every time a cow died.
I should hate to be condoled with, and treated as if I needed pity, but
still I can't help wishing sometimes that I could do some of the things
other girls do. Why, just think, Aunt Jessie, I've never had a friend of
my own age in my life. I've never been on a train, or seen a city since
I can remember."

Miss Graham continued to stroke the fluffy hair, and a troubled look
came into her eyes.

"I understand, dear," she said, "and I don't blame you in the least. I
know the feelings of loneliness and longing too well for that."

"Do you really, Aunt Jessie?" questioned Marjorie, looking up in
surprise. "I didn't suppose you ever longed for anything; you're such
an angel of patience. I suppose it's wrong, but I can't help being glad
you do, though, because it makes it so much easier to explain things to
you. I can't bear to have Father and Mother think I'm not perfectly
happy and contented; it makes Father look so sad, and I know Mother
worries about my education. I never thought of it before, but you were a
girl, too, when you first came here, weren't you?"

Miss Graham smiled. She was only twenty-eight, and girlhood did not seem
so much a thing of the past, but Marjorie was fourteen, and to her
twenty-eight seemed an age quite removed from all youthful aspirations.

"I was just sixteen when