It was then that Gertrude, for the first time, saw her sister Kate, and she, too, immediately fell upon her lovingly, and for some moments there was weeping, laughing, kissing, and hugging. The boys, in the back part of the house, and their father in the stable, hearing the voices, hurried to the veranda, and in another second all were kissing and hugging the ragged girl, each one trying to outvie the other in their joy at the return of the pet of the household. They fairly dragged Kate into the sitting-room, where, for a few minutes, they looked at her in a dazed sort of way. Her mother was the first to come to her senses. "The first thing to do," she said, "is to get some decent clothes on the child; then as soon as Mr. Tucker comes we will have dinner. Oh! my, what a Thanksgiving it will be!" Kate was soon made comfortable in clean linen, and a dress of her sister's, for she had outgrown all that were of her own wardrobe five months before. At this moment Mr. Tucker rode up to the door, and allowing Rob to take his horse to the stable, the old man walked into the house. He was the only invited guest on the Thanksgivings at Errolstrath. All his family were long since dead, and he was alone in the world; besides, being a New Englander, he had not forgotten how to appreciate the most important festival of Yankee Land. He was wonderfully taken aback when he saw that Kate had returned, and he congratulated her with his eyes full of tears; for he was a man with a warm heart, though his early life in the days of the old trappers had given him a rough looking exterior. Kate looked like the dear Kate of old, as all sat down to a real Thanksgiving dinner. She was much browner than when she left Errolstrath, because of her constant outdoor life in the Indian village. "Oh! Kate," said her mother, as the happy girl took her accustomed place at the table, between her father and Gertrude, "how earnestly I have prayed that you might be restored to us; I felt at times almost in despair, but the thought of the good God's promises to the patient, cheered me up, and I knew that in His own time my prayer would be answered. What a different Thanksgiving this is from what we all have expected, when we thought of Kate's vacant chair! Only think, we have never yet been separated on this blessed day during all the years we have lived at Errolstrath! But we little thought that we should be together to-day." "We have much to be thankful for," said Mr. Thompson; "excellent crops, good luck with our stock, and to cap the climax, our beloved Kate is restored to us." The Thanksgiving dinners at Errolstrath were composed of those conventional dishes which make up the celebration of the festival in New England, and the one at Errolstrath that day was perfect in its resemblance to those of the old homestead in Vermont.