"You are worrying needlessly, my dearie," the good woman would often say, with a great show of cheerfulness, when Stephanie had been quieter or sadder than usual. "Dick will be back before very long. We are sure of it." "If I could know that," the girl would answer, "I should not mind so much. But sometimes I can't help thinking, suppose he should never come? Suppose I wait for years, and still he does not come? I know I 'm silly, but you don't know--you can't know what he was to me. I hate to think so, but--but perhaps he may be too much ashamed ever to return. How shall I bear to wait, knowing he may never return after all?" Then the rosy, motherly, little woman would soothe and comfort her. "Dick loves you too well to stay away for good, and you know it at the bottom of your heart, child. There 's no weariness like the weariness of waiting, I know. But many lives seem to be made up of waiting and prayings of which we don't see the end--more hopeless waiting and praying than yours. For, after all, such things are in higher hands than ours. And if we watch and pray patiently and trustfully, we are maybe doing more than we think, Stephanie." Whereat the farmer would nod in solemn admiration of his wife, and Stephanie would face the recurring days with hope renewed. At the bottom of her heart she had always dreaded and expected something of the sort to happen. Dick's character was easy to read, and no one was surprised that he should have thus yielded to his love of the wilds. That did not make the pain of disappointment and anxiety any the less. But as time went on, the sincere and simple faith of the Collinson homestead taught Stephanie an abiding lesson. She learned to leave her brother's welfare in the hands of God, and to be more content with her task of waiting and praying, sure that a greater love even than her own was watching over Dick. That fair spring passed, and its flowers gave place to the more gorgeous blossoms of early summer. Wild roses opened their red petals, and wild strawberries were nearly ripe. And still no word of Dick or Peter Many-Names. The day after the sugar-making was finished they had gone off together, with a gun and a blanket each, and very little besides, and the great wilderness had taken them to itself. After some time had passed, Stephanie grew in a measure accustomed to Dick's absence. She was so surrounded by affection, and so much occupied by work, that she had no opportunity for brooding and melancholy thoughts. She always watched for him, always waited for him. "I know he will come back to me," she said to Mrs. Collinson, "but how long, how long will it be? It seems to me that I have waited a long time already."