The tense little figure in the big chair leaned forward with sudden, swift confidence. "I'm going home," announced Bonita in a tone that made no reservations. Belinda received the news without the quiver of an eyelash or a sign of incredulity. "When?" she asked with interest warm enough to invite confession and not emphatic enough to rouse distrust. "I don't know just when, but I have to go. I can't stand it, and I've written to Daddy. He'll understand. Nobody here knows. They're all used to it. They've always lived in houses like this, with little back yards that have high walls around them, and sidewalks and streets right outside the front windows, and crowds of strange people going by all the time, and just rules, rules, rules everywhere! Everybody has so many manners, and they talk about things I don't know anything about, and nobody would understand if I talked about the real things." "Perhaps I'd understand a little bit," murmured Belinda. The Queer Little Thing put out one brown hand and touched the Youngest Teacher's knee gently in a shy, caressing fashion. "No, you wouldn't understand, because you don't know; but you could learn. The others couldn't. The prairie wouldn't talk to them and they'd be lonesome--the way I am here. Dick says you have to learn the language when you are little, or else have a gift for such languages, but that when you've once learned it you don't care to hear any other." "Who's Dick?" Belinda asked. "Dick? Oh, he's just Dick. He taught me to ride and to shoot, and he used to read poetry to me, and he told me stories about everything. He used to go to a big school called Harvard, but he was lonesome there--the way I am here." "The way I am here" dropped into the talk like a persistent refrain, and there was heartache in it. "I want to go home," the child went on. Now that the dam of silence was down the pent-up feeling rushed out tumultuously. "I want to see Daddy and the boys and the horses and the cattle, and I want to watch the sun go down over the edge of the world, not just tumble down among the dirty houses, and I want to gallop over the prairie where there aren't any roads, and smell the grass and watch the birds and the sky. You ought to see the sky down there at night, Miss Carewe. It's so big and black and soft and full of bright stars, and you can see clear to where it touches the ground all around you, and there's a night breeze that's as cool as cool, and the boys all play their banjos and guitars and sing, and Daddy and I sit over on our veranda and listen. There's only a little narrow strip of sky with two or three stars in it out of my window here, and it's so noisy and cluttered out in the back yards--and I hate walking in a procession on the ugly old streets, and doing things when bells ring. I hate it! I hate it!"