"I know we're not," said Marjorie, "and I'm glad of it. How uncomfortable it would be if you and Mother were always saying you were sorry for each other, and if Father looked solemn every time a cow died. I should hate to be condoled with, and treated as if I needed pity, but still I can't help wishing sometimes that I could do some of the things other girls do. Why, just think, Aunt Jessie, I've never had a friend of my own age in my life. I've never been on a train, or seen a city since I can remember." Miss Graham continued to stroke the fluffy hair, and a troubled look came into her eyes. "I understand, dear," she said, "and I don't blame you in the least. I know the feelings of loneliness and longing too well for that." "Do you really, Aunt Jessie?" questioned Marjorie, looking up in surprise. "I didn't suppose you ever longed for anything; you're such an angel of patience. I suppose it's wrong, but I can't help being glad you do, though, because it makes it so much easier to explain things to you. I can't bear to have Father and Mother think I'm not perfectly happy and contented; it makes Father look so sad, and I know Mother worries about my education. I never thought of it before, but you were a girl, too, when you first came here, weren't you?" Miss Graham smiled. She was only twenty-eight, and girlhood did not seem so much a thing of the past, but Marjorie was fourteen, and to her twenty-eight seemed an age quite removed from all youthful aspirations. "I was just sixteen when we came out here," she said, "and it seemed very strange at first to be away from all my friends, but girl-like I enjoyed the change, and it was not for a year or two that I began to realize what life on an Arizona ranch really meant. Your father and mother were very good to me, but they were absorbed in each other, and in their work, and you were too little to be any real company to me. There was plenty of work to be done, and I tried to do my share, but there were many lonely times when I rebelled bitterly against fate. I used to think of those times later on, after the accident, and then it seemed strange that I should ever have fretted over such foolish trifles, but they were very real to me once."