"Good-bye, Phyllis," she said, lingering over the girl's name caressingly. "I shall keep you to your word. And I shall come to see you. Good-bye, my dear," she cried again. "A pleasant journey."
The girl pressed the neatly gloved hand her new friend hold out to her, and her old horse, after its welcome rest, started off with added briskness. She was loath enough to go, but she had yet many miles to travel before noon. She called out a warm good-bye, and waved her small brown hand.
"I surely will come," she cried, "I'll never—never forget."
Monica watched them go till the rattling old buckboard dropped behind one of the rising prairie rollers. Then, with a deep sigh, she set off toward her home.
CHAPTER XII
THE CLEAN SLATE
Monica's chance meeting with Phyllis Raysun was not without its effect on both their lives. An effect both marked and immediate in each case. The girl drove on home in a state of considerable elation, and told her story of the "great lady" to her sympathetic, if not very clever mother, Pleasant Raysun. She told it not as one might speak of a passing incident on her journey, but as an important factor in her uneventful life.
"Mamma," she said, after a thoughtful pause, the story having come to its commonplace ending, "it likely don't sound great to you; maybe you'll forget about it, or, if you don't, you'll say I'm just a sentimental girl whose feelings get clear away with her. And maybe I am, maybe you're right; but I don't think so. She's a lovely, lovely woman, and somehow I kind of feel I'm all mixed up with her already. I don't think folks make friends. Friends are just friends. They are, or they aren't. Even if you don't know them, they are your friends, waiting till the time comes when you meet. That's how I feel about Mrs. Hendrie. I—I'm sure we're friends, and always have been."
Pleasant Raysun was a plump body, whose dark eyes and soft mouth were strangely opposed in their efforts to display the character behind. She was just a gentle, soft creature, quite devoid of any attainments beyond a capacity for physical work, and an adoring affection for the daughter to whom she looked for guidance.