calmly.

Just then Lilian heard a great stamping of feet and gay voices outside
on the kitchen threshold.

Her four brothers were coming in from doing their morning chores. As
they entered they let in a great rush of cold air. Jack spied Lilian
through the half-open sitting room door.

"Hello, Lil!" he called.

She did not answer.

"Lil in the dumps again?" he asked his mother.

"She is a little homesick this morning."

"Why doesn't she get out, as we do, and stir up her spirits?" said
Harry. "It's nothing but moping makes her homesick."

"This is a thousand times better than poky old Deerfield," asserted Ben.
"There was nothing to do there but slide down hill on a hand-sled, and
here we have the ponies, and the cattle, and--"

"But you are a boy, Ben," interposed Mrs. Wyman, "and can do a great
variety of things. Lilian isn't strong enough for hard riding, and,
besides, she misses her friends."

"Let her make new ones," piped up Jamie. "There's lots of nice people
all over these prairies."