After dinner Norman mounted his horse, and, attended by David, who rode beautifully, he took his way toward the station. His mother and his cousin started about half an hour afterward, and pursued their winding way. The road on the prairies is continually changing; as the new farms are fenced, the owners divert the road from their fields to the exterior of their farms. One memorable place Mrs. Lester had passed on her drive to the village the evening before. It was a slough where, in the spring, a pair of horses were so completely buried that it was necessary to employ oxen to drag them out by the head. One field, on their way to the station, looked as if it were covered with pansies, the rather coarse flowers with which it was filled being softened by distance into this likeness. They drove across a grassy field that looked as if it must at some time have been the bed of a great river, so strikingly did the woodlands resemble the banks. Indeed, one is often struck, in looking out upon the prairies, with the resemblance to a sea view. At the margin there will frequently be a mist, such as bounds the view on the water; the groves of timber jut out into the prairie like headlands, and the eye often follows these indentations as if tracing the shore of a vast lake. Proofs are not wanting to establish the fact that Illinois was once the bed of a great lake, probably an expansion of the Mississippi, till it broke though on its headlong course to the Gulf of Mexico. The prairie breezes come every day to moderate the intense heat of summer, and sweep over these vast plains as on the bosom of a great inland sea. Those who build in the timber lose these refreshing winds. Mrs. Lester was somewhat troubled on arriving at the station to find that Norman was not there, though he had left so long before her, and she looked rather anxiously over the prairie for some signs of his coming. The boys were not visible, and she was contemplating the prospect of returning to the kind friends whom she had left when they came in sight. She waved her handkerchief to them to hasten, as the train was due in five minutes. Just in time; the train was in sight as Norman stepped on the platform; and as Justin accompanied them into the cars to find them seats, Mrs. Lester hurried him off, lest he should be taken on, so short was the pause at the station. CHAPTER XVIII. CHICAGO, AND THE RIDE THITHER. Chicago! thou shalt shine in verse, As my adopted pet; Thou newest slice of this New World, Save what is newer yet. Thy structures seem of yesterday, And shine like scenery in the play Just pushed upon the stage.—F. G. H.