"I got off the train. I've walked ever so far, and it was so hot. I thought there would be houses, but there weren't any. You won't be cross with me, will you? I'm afraid of cross people." "Why did you get off the train?" inquired Marjorie. If this were not a dream, then it was certainly the most extraordinary adventure she had ever had. The brown eyes filled with tears, and the stranger clasped her hands nervously. "Don't scold, ah, please don't," she pleaded; "I'm so tired of being scolded. I got off the train because Mrs. Hicks was so cross I couldn't stand it any longer. She said I was a lazy, good-for-nothing girl, and she wished she had never promised to take me to Kansas. I said I wished she hadn't either, and that I didn't want to go to Kansas or anywhere else with her, and then she said I was an impudent little wretch, and she wished she could get rid of me. She slapped me, too, and that made me furious, so when she sent me to the dining-car to get some milk for the baby, and the train was standing still, I just got off. I don't want to stay with people who don't like me, and I can't stand being slapped." "But think how frightened your friend must have been when the train started and you didn't come back," said Marjorie, reproachfully. She did not know quite what to make of this singular young person, who appeared to think nothing of deserting her friends, and wandering off by herself on the prairie. "Mrs. Hicks isn't my friend, and she won't care, anyway; she'll be glad to get rid of me. I heard her telling a woman on the train that I was an awful nuisance, and she couldn't think why she had ever promised her sister to take me to Kansas with her. She doesn't want me--nobody wants me, nobody in the whole world!" And suddenly this extraordinary visitor put both hands before her face, and burst into tears. Marjorie sprang to her feet, wide awake at last. She had not seen many people cry, and the sight always affected her deeply. "Oh, don't, please don't!" she cried, and almost without realizing what she was doing she had slipped an arm about the shaking shoulders. "We'll take care of you, of course we will, and you can tell us about everything. Oh, please do stop crying; you make me so very uncomfortable." But the brown-eyed girl did not stop crying. On the contrary, she cried all the harder, and buried her face on Marjorie's shoulder. "You're kind, oh, you're kind!" sobbed the poor child, clinging convulsively to her new friend. "Nobody was ever kind to me before except old Mr. Jackson, and now he's dead. I've been so miserable, and it's so dreadful not to remember anything, not even my name." "Your name?" repeated Marjorie stupidly; "do you mean you don't even know your own name?" The stranger shook her head mournfully as she searched for a missing pocket-handkerchief. Marjorie supplied the handkerchief from her own pocket, and sympathetically wiped her visitor's eyes.