The sun, which was warm to-day, shone down upon her, the soft May breezes played with the daisies that had sprung up about the railroad track, little birds gathered courage from her stillness, and hopped nearer to the small figure, looking at her with inquisitive glances, but Sophy heeded nothing. Many serious thoughts were passing through her childish mind in rapid succession. She wondered why Sirius had to die when they all loved him so, and it made it so hard for Peter. She wondered if there was anything in the world that she could do to make Peter happier. And Victoria! She was so surprised to see real tears on Vic’s face. Was Vic a baby to cry, as Peter always said that Sophy was? She had never seen her do it before except when their father died. Then everybody had cried. Where was her father now, she wondered? Did he know they were all so sad and there was so little money? Where had he gone, and where had they come from? How strange everything was, and how puzzling! Sophy supposed that she should understand it all when she grew up. In the meantime she wished that the train would come. She was tired of waiting, and perhaps Vic was still crying, and Peter still lying so strangely silent, with his face turned away from them, as they went one by one to express their sympathy. Would the train never come? And at last it did come, and, to her intense relief, Mr. Madison was on it. He was the only passenger who left it, and he was greatly surprised when a small and hatless figure danced up to him and seized his hand. “I’m so glad to see you!” cried a lisping voice. “I’ve been waiting ever and ever and ever so long!” Sophy’s face looked almost pretty in her excitement. “I’m not going to ask you to come,” she continued, “for Honor says you must never be asked to do anything; but we want a grown-up man so dreadfully to talk to Peter. Peter won’t say anything, and he knows Sirius is dead. He thinks we’re only girls, and if you were only our brother, you would talk to him. I wish you were our brother!” “But even if I am not, I can talk to Peter,” said Roger Madison, quickly, “and that is what you would like, isn’t it?” “Oh, yes!” exclaimed Sophy; “and I haven’t asked you, have I? Honor said, you know, that you must never be asked to do anything. I don’t exactly see why not. I wouldn’t mind asking you a bit, but I haven’t, have I?” “Oh, no indeed! I’m coming entirely of my own free will. I want to talk to Peter.” “How lovely!” said Sophy, as, with her hand tightly clasped in his, she skipped along at his side. “You are such a nice man. You would make a lovely brother. You see, everything was dreadful this afternoon, and Vic really cried!” Sophy said this with the air of imparting a most unheard-of piece of news. That Vic should cry was to her almost as important as Peter’s broken leg. “Come right upstairs,” said she, when they reached the house. “Come right up to Peter’s room.”