Half the town was there to bid her good-by.

In the excitement of finding herself a person of such importance she forgot how much she was leaving behind her, until looking up, she saw a tender, wistful smile on her mother's face, sadder than any tears.
[Illustration: WHERE JOYCE LIVED] Luckily the locomotive whistled just then, and the novelty of getting aboard a train for the first time, helped her to be brave at the parting.

She stood on the rear platform of the last car, waving her handkerchief to the group at the station as long as it was in sight, so that the last glimpse her mother should have of her, was with her bright little face all ashine.
All these pictures passed so rapidly through Joyce's mind, that she had retraced the experiences of the last three months in as many minutes.
Then, somehow, she felt better.

The tears had washed away the ache in her throat.

She wiped her eyes and climbed liked a squirrel to the highest limb that could bear her weight.
This was not the first time that the old pear-tree had been shaken by Joyce's grief, and it knew that her spells of homesickness always ended in this way.