Although she spoke jokingly there was such a note of belief in her voice that Mary caught her by the arm and shook it, saying playfully, "Peacock! If _that's_ what you hope for me, then you must certainly speed my parting. It's only in the goodly land of Lloydsboro that I can measure up to all you expect of me. I'll try and fill the bill, but promise me this much. When I've finally pitched my tent in Canaan and achieved that happy home, then you'll come and share it with me. At least," she added as Mrs. Ware nodded assent, "what time you are not strutting through foreign salons or the Governor's mansion, or sailing the high seas with the Admiral." The woman behind them heard no more, for Jack called them across the aisle to look at something from his window, and when they returned to their seats Mrs. Ware picked up a magazine and Mary began an absorbing study of the map. She retraced the line of her first railroad journey, the pilgrimage from the little village of Plainsville, Kansas, to Phoenix, Arizona. As she thought of it, she could almost feel the lump in her throat that had risen when she looked back for the last time on the little brown house they were leaving forever, and waved good-bye to the lonesome little Christmas tree they had put out on the porch for the birds. It was on that trip that her tireless tongue had made life-long friends of two strangers whom she talked to: Phil Tremont, and his sister Elsie. Her brothers had always teased her about her chatterbox ways, but suppose she _hadn't_ talked to them that day. The endless chain of happenings that that friendship started never would have begun, and life would have been far different for all of them. Then her finger traced the way to where Ware's Wigwam would have been on the map if it had been a spot large enough to mark. There Phil had come into their life again, almost like one of the family. Her real acquaintance with the Princess Winsome of her dreams began there too, when Lloyd Sherman made her memorable visit, and Mary, with the adoring admiration of a little girl for the older one whom she takes as her ideal in all things, began to copy her in every way possible.