"No, Mr. Ganew, it is not," said the Elder; "and you know it. Now you jest listen to me; I know the whole truth about the matter, an' all the time you spend fightin' off the truth'll be wasted, besides addin' lyin' to havin' been a thief. The owners of the land'll be here, I expect before long; but they've put it all in my hands, an' I can let you off if I choose."

"Let me off! What the devil do you mean?" said Ganew.

"Why, you don't suppose there's goin' to be nothin' said about all the thousands o' dollars' wuth of sugar you've carried off here, do"—

The next thing Elder Kinney knew he was struggling up to his feet in the middle of the road; he was nearly blinded by blood trickling from a cut on his forehead, and only saw dimly that Ganew was aiming another blow at him with his heavy-handled ox-goad.

But the Frenchman had reckoned without his host. Elder Kinney, even half stunned, was more than a match for him. In a very few minutes Ganew was lying in the bottom of his own ox-cart, with his hands securely tied behind him with a bit of his own rope and the Elder was sitting calmly down on a big boulder, wiping his forehead and recovering his breath; it had been an ugly tussle, and the Elder was out of practice.

Presently he rose, walked up to the cart, and leaning both his arms on the wheel, looked down on his enemy.

The Frenchman's murderous little black eyes rolled wildly, but he did not struggle. He had felt in the first instant that he was but an infant in the Elder's hands.

"Ye poor, miserable, cowardly French,—sinner ye," said the Elder, struggling for an epithet not unbecoming his cloth. "Did you think you was goin' to get me out o' yer way's easy's that, 's I dare say ye have better folks than me, before now!"

Ganew muttered something in a tongue the Elder did not understand, but the sound of it kindled his wrath anew.

"Well, call on your Master, if that's what you're doin', 's much's you like. He don't generally look out for anybody much who's so big a fool's you must be, to think you was goin' to leave the minister o' this parish dead in a ditch within stone's throw o' houses and nobody find you out," and the Elder sat down again on the boulder. He felt very dizzy and faint; and the blood still trickled steadily from his forehead. Ganew's face at this moment was horrible. Rage at his own folly, hate of the Elder, and terror which was uncontrollable, all contended on his livid features.

At last he spoke. He begged abjectly to be set free. He offered to leave the town at once and never return if the Elder would only let him go.

"What an' give up all your land ye've got such a fine clear title to?" said the Elder, sarcastically. "No; we'll give ye a title there won't be no disputin' about to a good berth in Mill Creek jail for a spell!"

At this the terror mastered every other emotion in the Frenchman's face. What secret reason he had for it all, no one could know but himself; what iniquitous schemes already waiting him in other places, what complications of dangers attendant on his identification and detention. He begged, he besought, in words so wildly imploring, so full of utter unconditional surrender, that there could be no question as to their sincerity. The Elder began, in spite of himself, to pity the wretch; he began also to ask whether after all it would not be the part of policy to let him go. After some minutes he said, "I can't say I put much confidence in ye yet, Mr. Ganew; but I'm inclined to think it's the Lord's way o' smoothin' things for some o' his children, to let you kind o' slink off," and somehow Elder Kinney fancied he heard little Draxy say, "Oh, sir, let the poor man go." There was something marvelous in his under-current of consciousness of "little Draxy."

He rose to his feet, picked up the heavy ox-goad, struck the near ox sharply on the side, and walking on a little ahead of the team, said: "I'll just take ye down a piece, Mr. Ganew, till we're in sight of Jim Blair's, before I undo ye. I reckon the presence o' a few folks'll strengthen your good resolutions." "An' I mistrust I ain't quite equal to another handlin,'" thought the Elder to himself, as he noted how the sunny road seemed to go up and down under his feet. He was really far more hurt than he knew.

When they were in sight of the house, he stopped the oxen, and leaning again on the wheel, and looking down on Ganew, had one more talk with him, at the end of which he began cautiously to untie the rope. He held the ox-goad, however, firmly grasped in his right hand, and it was not without a little tremor that he loosed the last knots. "Suppose the desperate critter sh'd have a knife," thought the Elder.

He need not have feared. A more crestfallen, subdued, wretched being than Paul Ganew, as he crawled out of that cart, was never seen. He had his own secret terror, and it had conquered him. "It's more'n me he's afraid of," said the Elder to himself. "This is the Lord's doin', I reckon. Now, Mr. Ganew, if you'll jest walk to the heads o' them oxen I'll thank ye," said he: "an' 's I feel some tired, I'll jump into the cart; an' I'll save ye carryin' the ox-goad," he added, as he climbed slowly in, still holding the murderous weapon in his hand. Nothing could extinguish Seth Kinney's sense of humor.

"If we meet any folks," he proceeded, "we've only to say that I've had a bad hurt, and that you're very kindly takin' me home."

Ganew walked on like a man in a dream. He was nearly paralyzed with terror. They met no human being, and very few words passed between them. When the cart stopped at the Elder's door, Ganew stood still without turning his head. The Elder went up to him and said, with real kindness of tone,

"Mr. Ganew, I expect you can't believe it, but I don't bear ye the least ill-will."

A faint flicker of something like grateful surprise passed over the hard face, but no words came.

"I hope the Lord'll bring ye to himself yet," persisted the good man, "and forgive me for havin' had anything but pity for ye from the first on't. Ye won't forget to send me a writing for Bill Sims that the rest of the buckets in the camp belong to me?"

Ganew nodded sullenly and went on, and the Elder walked slowly into the house.

After dark, a package was left at the Elder's door. It contained the order on Bill Sims, and a letter. Some of the information in the letter proved useful in clearing up the mystery of Ganew's having known of this tract of land. He had been in Potter's employ, it seemed, and had had access to his papers. What else the letter told no one ever knew; but the Elder's face always had a horror-stricken look when the Frenchman's name was mentioned, and when people sometimes wondered if he would ever be seen again in Clairvend, the emphasis of the Elder's "Never! ye may rely on that! Never!" had something solemn in it.

In less than forty-eight hours the whole village knew the story. "The sooner they know the whole on't the better, and the sooner they'll be through talkin'," said the Elder, and nobody could have accused him of being "close-mouthed" now. He even showed "the little gal's letter," as the townspeople called it, to anybody who asked to see it. It hurt him to do this, more than he could see reason for, but he felt a strong desire to have the village heart all ready to welcome "little Draxy" and her father when they should come. And the village heart was ready! Hardly a man, woman, or child but knew her name and rejoiced in her good fortune. "Don't yer remember my tellin' yer that night," said Josiah Bailey to Eben Hill, "that she'd come to the right place for help when she come to Elder Kinney?"

When Draxy took Elder Kinney's letter out of the post-office, her hands trembled. She walked rapidly away, and opened the letter as soon as she reached a quiet street. The Elder had not made it so clear as he thought he had, in his letter to the "child," which way matters had gone. Draxy feared. Presently she thought, "He says 'your father's land.' That must mean that we shall have it." But still she had sad misgivings. She almost decided to read the inclosed letter which was unsealed; she could not have her father disappointed again; but her keen sense of honor restrained her.

Reuben had grown really feeble. There were many days now when he could not work, but sat listlessly on a ledge of rocks near the house, and watched the restless waves with a sense of misery as restless as they. When Draxy reached home this night and found that her father was not in the house, she ran over to the "Black Ledge." There she found him. She sat down by his side, not knowing how to begin. Presently he said: "I wish I loved this water, daughter,—it is very beautiful to look at; but I'm thinkin' it's somethin' like human beings; they may be ever so handsome to look on, but if you don't love 'em you don't, and that's the end on't, an' it don't do ye no sort o' good to be where they are."

"The woods and fields used to do you good, father," said Draxy.

Reuben was astonished. Draxy was not wont to allude to the lost and irrecoverable joys. But he only sighed.

"Read this letter, father dear," said Draxy, hurriedly pushing it into his hand; "I wrote up to a good old minister to find out, and here's his answer."

Reuben looked bewildered. Draxy's words did not make themselves clear. But the first words of Elder Kinney's letter did. The paper fell from his hands.

"Oh, daughter! daughter! it can't be true! It can't!" and Reuben Miller covered his eyes and cried. Draxy did not cry. One of the finest traits in her nature was her instantaneous calmness of exterior under sudden and intense excitement.

"Yes; father, it is true. It must be. I have believed it from the first! Oh do, do read the letter," said Draxy, and she forced the letter into his hands again.

"No, no, daughter. Read it to me. I can't see the words," replied Reuben, still weeping. He was utterly unmanned. Then Draxy read the letter aloud slowly, distinctly, calmly. Her voice did not tremble. She accepted it all, absolutely, unconditionally, as she had accepted everything which had ever happened to her. In Draxy's soul the past never confused the present; her life went on from moment to moment, from step to step as naturally, as clearly, as irrevocably as plants grow and flower, without hinderance, without delay. This it was which had kept her serene, strong: this is true health of nature.

After a time Reuben grew calmer; Draxy's presence always helped him. They sat on the rocks until twilight fell, and the great red lamp in the light-house was lighted.

"Father, dear," said Draxy, "I think there are light-houses all along our lives, and God knows when it is time to light the lamps."

Reuben clasped Draxy's hand tighter, and turned his eyes upon her with a look whose love was almost reverent.

Lights shone until morning from the windows of Captain Melville's house. The little family had sat together until long after midnight, discussing this new and wonderful turn in their affairs. Jane and Reuben were bewildered and hardly happy yet; Draxy was alert, enthusiastic, ready as usual; poor Captain Melville and his wife were in sore straits between their joy in the Millers' good fortune, and their pain at the prospect of the breaking up of the family. Their life together had been so beautiful, so harmonious.

"Oh, Draxy," said the Captain, "how shall we ever live without you?"

"Oh! but you will come up there, uncle." said Draxy; "and we shall keep you after we once get you."

Captain Melville shook his head. He could never leave the sea. But full well he knew that the very salt of it would have lost its best savor to him when this sweet, fair girl had gone out from his house.

The "good-nights" were sadly and solemnly said. "Oh!" thought Draxy, "does joy always bring pain in this world?" and she fell asleep with tears on her cheeks.

Reuben sat up until near dawn, writing to Elder Kinney. He felt strangely strong. He was half cured already by the upland air of the fields he had never seen. The next morning Draxy said, "Do you not think, father, I ought to write a note too, to thank the kind minister, or will you tell him how grateful I am?"

"Put a postscript to my letter, daughter. That will be better," said Reuben.

So Draxy wrote at the bottom of the last page:—

"DEAR MR. KINNEY:—I do not know any words to thank you in; and I think you will like it better if I do not try. My father seems almost well already. I am sure it was the Lord that helped you to find out about our land. I hope we can come very soon.

"Your grateful friend,

"DRAXY MILLER."

When the Elder read this second note of Draxy's, he said aloud, "God bless her! she's one o' His chosen ones, that child is," and he fell to wondering how she looked. He found himself picturing her as slight and fair, with blue eyes, and hair of a pale yellow. "I don't believe she's more than fourteen at most;" thought he, "she speaks so simple, jest like a child; an' yet, she goes right to the pint, 's straight's any woman; though I don't know, come to think on't, 's ever I knew a woman that could go straight to a pint," reflected the Elder, whose patience was often sorely tried by the wandering and garrulous female tongues in his parish. The picture of "Little Draxy" grew strangely distinct in his mind; and his heart yearned towards her with a yearning akin to that which years before he had felt over the little silent form of the daughter whose eyes had never looked into his.

There was no trouble with the town in regard to the land. If there had been any doubts, Elder Kinney's vigorous championship of the new claimant would have put them down. But the sympathy of the entire community was enlisted on Reuben's side. The whole story from first to last appealed to every man's heart; and there was not a father in town that did not rest his hand more lovingly on his little girl's head at night, when he sat in his door-way talking over "them Millers," and telling about Draxy's "writin' to th' Elder."

Before the first of May all was settled. Elder Kinney had urged Mr. Miller to come at once to his house, and make it a home until he could look about and decide where he would establish himself.

"I am a lonely man," he wrote; "I buried my wife and only child many years ago, and have lived here ever since, with only an old Indian woman to take care of me. I don't want to press you against your will; and there's a house in the village that you can hire; but it will go against me sorely not to have you in my house at the first. I want to see you, and to see your little daughter; I can't help feeling as if the Lord had laid out for us to be friends more than common."

Reuben hesitated. The shyness of his nature made him shrink from other men's houses. But Draxy inclined strongly to the Elder's proposition. "Oh, think father, how lonely he must be. Suppose you hadn't mother nor me, father dear!" and Draxy kissed her father's cheek; "and think how glad you have been that you came to live with uncle," she added.

Reuben looked lovingly at Captain Melville, but said nothing.

"I'll tell ye what I think, Reuben;" said the Captain. "It's my belief that you'n that parson'll take to each other. His letters sound like your talk. Somehow, I've got an uncommon respect for that man, considerin' he's a parson: it's my advice to ye, to take up with his offer."

"And it seems no more than polite, father," persisted Draxy: "after he has done so much for us. We need not say how long we will stay in his house, you know."

"Supposin' you go up first, Draxy," said Reuben, hesitatingly, "an' see how 'tis. I always did hate Injuns."

"Oh!" said Draxy; she had hardly observed the mention of that feature in the Elder's household, and she laughed outright. Her ideas of the ancestral savage were too vague to be very alarming. "If she has lived all these years with this good old minister, she must be civilized and kind," said Draxy. "I'm not afraid of her."

"But I think it would be a great deal better for me to go first," she continued, more and more impressed with the new idea. "Then I can be sure beforehand about everything, and get things all in order for you; and there'll be Mr. Kinney to take care of me; I feel as if he was a kind of father to everybody." And Draxy in her turn began to wonder about the Elder's appearance as he had wondered about hers. Her mental picture was quite as unlike the truth as was his. She fancied him not unlike her father, but much older, with a gentle face, and floating white hair. Dim purposes of how she might make his lonely old age more cheerful, floated before her mind. "It must be awful," thought she, "to live years and years all alone with an Indian."

When Elder Kinney read Reuben's letter, saying that they would send their daughter up first to decide what would be best for them to do, he brought his hand down hard on the table and said "Whew!" again.

"Well, I do declare," thought he to himself, "I'm afraid they're dreadful shiftless folks, to send that girl way up here, all alone by herself; and how's such a child's that goin' to decide anything, I should like to know?"

He read again the letter Reuben had written. "My daughter is very young, but we lean upon her as if she was older. She has helped us bear all our misfortunes, and we have more confidence in her opinions than in our own about everything." The Elder was displeased.

"Lean on her;' I should think you did! Poor little girl! Well, I can look out for her; that's one comfort." And the Elder wrote a short note to the effect that he would meet their "child" at the railway station, which was six miles from their town; that he would do all he could to help her; and that he hoped soon to see Mr. and Mrs. Miller under his roof.

The words of the note were most friendly, but there was an indefinable difference between it and all the others, which Draxy felt without knowing that she felt it, and her last words to her father as she bade him good-by from the car window were: "I don't feel so sure as I did about our staying with Mr. Kinney, father. You leave it all to me, do you, dear, even if I decide to buy a house?"

"Yes, daughter," said Reuben, heartily; "all! Nothing but good's ever come yet of your way o' doin' things."

"An' I don't in the least hanker after that Injun," he called out as the cars began to move. Draxy laughed merrily. Reuben was a new man already. They were very gay together, and felt wonderfully little fear for people to whom life had been thus far so hard.

There was not a misgiving in Draxy's heart as she set out again on a two days' journey to an unknown place. "Oh how different from the day when I started before," she thought as she looked out on the water sparkling under the bright May sun. She spent the first night, as before, at the house of Captain Melville's brother, and set out at eight the following morning, to ride for ten hours steadily northward. The day was like a day of June. The spring was opening early; already fruit-trees were white and pink; banks were green, and birds were noisy.

By noon mountains came in sight. Draxy was spellbound. "They are grander than the sea," thought she, "and I never dreamed it; and they are loving, too. I should like to rest my cheek on them."

As she drew nearer and nearer, and saw some tops still white with snow, her heart beat faster, and with a sudden pang almost of conscience-stricken remorse, she exclaimed, "Oh, I shall never, never once miss the sea!"

Elder Kinney had borrowed Eben Hill's horse and wagon to drive over for Draxy. He was at the station half an hour before the train was due. It had been years since the steady currents of his life had been so disturbed and hurried as they were by this little girl.

"Looks like rain, Elder; I 'spect she'll have to go over with me arter all," said George Thayer, the handsomest, best-natured stage-driver in the whole State of New Hampshire. The Elder glanced anxiously at the sky.

"No, I guess not, George," he replied. "'Twon't be anything more'n a shower, an' I've got an umbrella and a buffalo-robe. I can keep her dry."

Everybody at the station knew Draxy's story, and knew that the Elder had come to meet her. When the train stopped, all eyes eagerly scanned the passengers who stepped out on the platform. Two men, a boy, and three women, one after the other; it was but a moment, and the train was off again.

"She hain't come," exclaimed voice after voice. The Elder said nothing; he had stood a little apart from the crowd, watching for his ideal Draxy; as soon as he saw that she was not there, he had fallen into a perplexed reverie as to the possible causes of her detention. He was sorely anxious about the child. "Jest's like's not, she never changed cars down at the Junction," thought he, "an' 's half way to Montreal by this time," and the Elder felt hot with resentment against Reuben Miller.

Meantime, beautiful, dignified, and unconscious, Draxy stood on the platform, quietly looking at face after face, seeking for the white hair and gentle eyes of her trusted friend, the old minister.

George Thayer, with the quick instinct of a stage-driver, was the first to see that she was a stranger.

"Where d'ye wish to go, ma'am?" said he, stepping towards her.

"Thank you," said Draxy, "I expected some one to meet me," and she looked uneasy; but reassured by the pleasant face, she went on: "the minister from Clairvend village was to meet me here."

George Thayer said, two hours afterward, in recounting his share of the adventure, "I tell ye, boys, when she said that ye might ha' knocked me down with a feather. I hain't never heard no other woman's voice that's got jest the sound to't hern has; an' what with that, an' thinkin' how beat the Elder'd be, an' wonderin' who in thunder she was anyhow, I don't believe I opened my dum lips for a full minute; but she kind o' smiled, and sez she, 'Do you know Mr. Kinney?' and that brought me to, and jest then the Elder he come along, and so I introduced 'em."

It was not exactly an introduction, however. The Elder, entirely absorbed in conjecture as to poor little Draxy's probable whereabouts, stumbled on the platform steps and nearly fell at her very feet, and was recalled to himself only to be plunged into still greater confusion by George Thayer's loud "Hallo! here he is. Here's Elder Kinney. Here's a lady askin' for you, Elder!"

Even yet it did not dawn upon Elder Kinney who this could be; his little golden-haired girl was too vividly stamped on his brain; he looked gravely into the face of this tall and fine-looking young woman and said kindly, "Did you wish to see me, ma'am?"

Draxy smiled. She began to understand. "I am afraid you did not expect to see me so tall, sir," she said. "I am Reuben Miller's daughter,—Draxy," she added, smiling again, but beginning in her turn to look confused. Could this erect, vigorous man, with a half-stern look on his dark-bearded face, be the right Mr. Kinney? her minister? It was a moment which neither Elder Kinney nor Draxy ever forgot. The unsentimental but kindly George gave the best description of it which could be given.

"I vow, boys, I jest wish ye could ha' seen our Elder; an' yet, I dunno's I do wish so, nuther. He stood a twistin' his hat, jest like any o' us, an' he kind o' stammered, an' I don't believe neither on 'em knew a word he said; an' her cheeks kep' gittin' redder'n redder, an' she looked's ef she was ready to cry, and yet she couldn't keep from larfin, no how. Ye see she thought he was an old man and he thought she was a little gal, an' somehow't first they didn't either of 'em feel like nobody; but when I passed 'em in the road, jest out to Four Corners, they was talkin' as easy and nateral as could be; an' the Elder he looked some like himself, and she—wall, boys, you jest wait till you see her; that's all I've got to say. Ef she ain't a picter!"

The drive to the village seemed long, however, to both Draxy and the Elder. Their previous conceptions of each other had been too firmly rooted to be thus overthrown without a great jar. The Elder felt Draxy's simplicity and child-like truthfulness more and more with each word she spoke; but her quiet dignity of manner was something to which he was unused; to his inexperience she seemed almost a fine lady, in spite of her sweet and guileless speech. Draxy, on the other hand, was a little repelled by the Elder's whole appearance. He was a rougher man than she had known; his pronunciation grated on her ear; and he looked so strong and dark she felt a sort of fear of him. But the next morning, when Draxy came down in her neat calico gown and white apron, the Elder's face brightened.

"Good morning, my child," he said. "You look as fresh as a pink." The tears came into Draxy's eyes at the word "child," said as her father said it.

"I don't look so old then, this morning, do I, sir?" she asked in a pleading tone which made the Elder laugh. He was more himself this morning. All was well. Draxy sat down to breakfast with a lighter heart.

When Draxy was sitting she looked very young. Her face was as childlike as it was beautiful: and her attitudes were all singularly unconscious and free. It was when she rose that her womanhood revealed itself to the perpetual surprise of every one. As breakfast went on the Elder gradually regained his old feeling about her; his nature was as simple, as spontaneous as hers; he called her "child" again several times in the course of the meal. But when at the end of it Draxy rose, tall, erect, almost majestic in her fullness of stature, he felt again singularly removed from her.

"'Ud puzzle any man to say whether she's a child or a woman," said the Elder to himself. But his face shone with pleasure as he walked by her side out into the little front yard. Draxy was speechless with delight. In the golden east stretched a long range of mountains, purple to the top; down in the valley, a mile below the Elder's house, lay the village; a little shining river ran side by side with its main street. To the north were high hills, some dark green and wooded, some of brown pasture land.

"Oh, sir," said Draxy, "is there any other spot in your mountain land so beautiful as this?"

"No, not one," said the Elder, "not one;" and he, too, looked out silently on the scene.

Presently Draxy exclaimed, with a sigh, "Oh, it makes me feel like crying to think of my father's seeing this!"

"Shall I tell you now about my father, sir?" she continued; "you ought to know all about us, you have been so good."

Then sitting on the low step of the door, while the Elder sat in an arm-chair in the porch, Draxy told the story of her father's life, and, unconsciously, of her own. More than once the Elder wiped his eyes; more than once he rose and walked up and down before the door, gazing with undefined but intense emotion at this woman telling her pathetic story with the simple-hearted humility of a child. Draxy looked younger than ever curled up in the doorway, with her hands lying idle on her white apron. The Elder was on the point of stroking her hair. Suddenly she rose, and said, "But I am taking too much of your time, sir; will you take me now to see the house you spoke of, which we could hire?" She was again the majestic young woman. The Elder was again thrown back, and puzzled.

He tried to persuade her to give up all idea of hiring the house: to make his house their home for the present. But she replied steadfastly, "I must look at the house, sir, before I decide." They walked down into the village together. Draxy was utterly unconscious of observation, but the Elder knew only too well that every eye of Clairvend was at some window-pane studying his companion's face and figure. All whom they met stared so undisguisedly that, fearing Draxy would be annoyed, he said,—

"You mustn't mind the folks staring so at you. You see they've been talkin' the matter all over about the land, an' your comin', for a month, an' it's no more than natural they should want to know how you look;" and he, too, looked admiringly at Draxy's face.

"Oh," said Draxy (it was a new idea to her mind), "I never thought of that."

"I hope they are all glad we are coming, sir," added she, a moment after.

"Oh yes, yes; they're glad enough. 'Taint often anything happens up here, you know, and they've all thought everything of you since your first letter came."

Draxy colored. She had not dreamed of taking a whole village into her confidence. But she was glad of the friendliness; and she met every inquisitive gaze after this with an open, responsive look of such beaming good-will that she made friends of all whom she saw. One or two stopped and spoke; most were afraid to do so, unconsciously repelled, as the Elder had been at first, by something in Draxy's dress and bearing which to their extreme inexperience suggested the fine lady. Nothing could have been plainer than Draxy's cheap gray gown; but her dress always had character: the tiniest knot of ribbon at her throat assumed the look of a decoration; and many a lady for whom she worked had envied her the expression of her simple clothes.

The house would not answer. Draxy shook her head as soon as she saw it, and when the Elder told her that in the spring freshets the river washed into the lower story, she turned instantly away, and said, "Let us go home, sir; I must think of something else."

At dinner Draxy was preoccupied, and anxious. The expression of perplexity made her look older, but no less beautiful. Elder Kinney gazed at her more steadily than he knew; and he did not call her "child" again.

After dinner he took her over the house, explaining to her, at every turn, how useless most of the rooms were to him. In truth, the house was admirably adapted for two families, with the exception that there was but one kitchen. "But that could be built on in a very few days, and would cost very little," said the Elder eagerly. Already all the energies of his strong nature were kindled by the resolve to keep Draxy under his roof.

"I suppose it might be so built that it could be easily moved off and added to our own house when we build for ourselves," said Draxy, reflectively.

"Oh, yes," said the Elder, "no sort o' trouble about that," and he glowed with delight. He felt sure that his cause was gained.

But he found Draxy very inflexible. There was but one arrangement of which she would think for a moment. It was, that the Elder should let to them one half of his house, and that the two families should be entirely distinct. Until the new kitchen and out-buildings were finished, if the Elder would consent to take them as boarders, they would live with him; "otherwise, sir, I must find some one in the village who will take us," said Draxy in a quiet tone, which Elder Kinney knew instinctively was not to be argued with. It was a novel experience for the Elder in more ways than one. He was used to having his parishioners, especially the women, yield implicitly to his advice. This gentle-voiced girl, who said to him, "Don't you think, sir?" in an appealing tone which made his blood quicken, but who afterward, when she disagreed with him, stood her ground immovably even against entreaties, was a phenomenon in his life. He began to stand in awe of her. When some one said to him on the third day after Draxy's arrival: "Well, Elder, I don't know what she'd ha' done without you," he replied emphatically, "Done without me! You'll find out that all Reuben Miller's daughter wants of anybody is jest to let her know exactly how things lay. She ain't beholden to anybody for opinions. She's as trustin' as a baby, while you're tellin' her facts, but I'd like to see anybody make her change her mind about what's best to be done; and I reckon she's generally right; what's more, she's one of the Lord's favorites, an' He ain't above guidin' in small things no mor'n in great."

No wonder Elder Kinney was astonished. In forty-eight hours Draxy had rented one half of his house, made a contract with a carpenter for the building of a kitchen and out-buildings on the north side of it, engaged board at the Elder's table for her parents and herself for a month, and hired Bill Sims to be her father's head man for one year. All the while she seemed as modestly grateful to the Elder as if he had done it all for her. On the afternoon of the second day she said to him:—

"Now, sir, what is the nearest place for me to buy our furniture?"

"Why, ain't you goin' to use mine—at least's far's it goes?" said the poor Elder. "I thought that was in the bargain."

Draxy looked disturbed. "Oh, how careless of me," she said; "I am afraid nothing was said about it. But we cannot do that; my father would dislike it; and as we must have furniture for our new house, we might as well have it now. I have seven hundred dollars with me, sir; father thought I might decide to buy a house, and have to pay something down."

"Please don't be angry with me," she added pleadingly, for the Elder looked vexed. "You know if I am sure my father would prefer a thing, I must do it."

The Elder was disarmed.

"Well, if you are set on buyin' furniture," he said, "I shouldn't wonder if you'd have a chance to buy all you'd want cheap down at Squire Williams's sale in Mill Creek. His wife died the night your first letter came, an' I heard somebody say he was goin' to sell all out; an' they've always been well-to-do, the Williamses, an' I reckon you'd fancy some o' their things better'n anything you'd get at the stores."

Already the Elder began to divine Draxy's tastes; to feel that she had finer needs than the women he had known. In less than an hour he was at the door with Eben Hill's horse and wagon to take Draxy to Squire Williams's house.

"Jest more o' the same Providence that follows that girl," thought he when he saw Draxy's eyes fairly dilate with pleasure as he led her into the old-fashioned parlor, where the furniture was piled and crowded ready for the auction.

"Oh, will they not cost too much for me, dear Mr. Kinney?" whispered Draxy.

"No, I guess not," he said, "there ain't much biddin' at these sort of sales up here," and he mentally resolved that nothing Draxy wanted should cost too much for her.

The sale was to be the next day. Draxy made a careful list of the things she would like to buy. The Elder was to come over and bid them off for her.

"Now you just go over 'em again," said the Elder, "and mark off what you'd like to have if they didn't cost anything, because sometimes things go for's good 's nothing, if nobody happens to want 'em." So Draxy made a second list, and laughing a little girlish laugh as she handed the papers to the Elder, pointed to the words "must haves" at the head of the first list, and "would-like-to-haves" at the head of the second. The Elder put them both in his breast-pocket, and he and Draxy drove home.

The next night two great loads of Squire Williams's furniture were carried into Elder Kinney's house. As article after article was taken in, Draxy clapped her hands and almost screamed with delight; all her "would-like-to-haves" were there. "Oh, the clock, the clock! Have I really got that, too!" she exclaimed, and she turned to the Elder, half crying, and said, "How shall I ever thank you, sir?"

The Elder was uncomfortable. He was in a dilemma. He had not been able to resist buying the clock for Draxy. He dared not tell her what he had paid for it. "She'd never let me give her a cent's worth, I know that well enough. It would be just like her to make me take it back," thought he. Luckily Draxy was too absorbed in her new riches, all the next day, to ask for her accounts, and by the next night the Elder had deliberately resolved to make false returns on his papers as to the price of several articles. "I'll tell her all about it one o' these days when she knows me better," he comforted himself by thinking; "I never did think Ananias was an out an' out liar. It couldn't be denied that all he did say was true!" and the Elder resolutely and successfully tried to banish the subject from his mind by thinking about Draxy.

The furniture was, much of it, valuable old mahogany, dark in color and quaint in shape. Draxy could hardly contain herself with delight, as she saw the expression it gave to the rooms; it had cost so little that she ventured to spend a small sum for muslin curtains, new papers, bright chintz, and shelves here and there. When all was done, she herself was astonished at the result. The little home was truly lovely. "Oh, sir, my father has never had a pretty home like this in all his life," said she to the Elder, who stood in the doorway of the sitting-room looking with half-pained wonder at the transformation. He felt, rather than saw, how lovely the rooms looked; he could not help being glad to see Draxy so glad; but he felt farther removed from her by this power of hers to create what he could but dimly comprehend. Already he unconsciously weighed all things in new balances; already he began to have a strange sense of humility in the presence of this woman.

Ten days from the day that Draxy arrived in Clairvend she drove over with the Elder to meet her father and mother at the station. She had arranged that the Elder should carry her father back in the wagon; she and her mother would go in the stage. She counted much on the long, pleasant drive through the woods as an opening to the acquaintance between her father and the Elder. She had been too busy to write any but the briefest letters home, and had said very little about him. To her last note she had added a post-script,—

"I am sure you will like Mr. Kinney, father. He is very kind and very good. But he is not old as we thought."

To the Elder she said, as they drove over, "I think you will love my father, sir, and I know you will do him good. But he will not say much at first; you will have to talk," and Draxy smiled. The Elder and she understood each other very well.

"I don't think there's much danger o' my not lovin' him," replied the Elder; "by all you tell he must be uncommon lovable." Draxy turned on him such a beaming smile that he could not help adding, "an' I should think his bein' your father was enough."

Draxy looked seriously in his face, and said "Oh, Mr. Kinney, I'm not anything by the side of father."

The Elder's eyes twinkled.

It was a silent though joyful group which gathered around the Elder's tea-table that night.

Reuben and Jane were tired, bewildered, but their eyes rested on Draxy with perpetual smiles. Draxy also smiled more than she spoke. The Elder felt himself half out of place and wished to go away, but Draxy looked grieved at his proposal to do so, and he stayed. But nobody could eat, and old Nancy, who had spent her utmost resources on the supper, was cruelly disappointed. She bustled in and out on various pretenses, but at last could keep silence no longer. "Seems to me ye've dreadful slim appetites for folks that's been travellin' all day. Perhaps ye don't like yer victuals," she said, glancing sharply at Reuben.

"Oh yes, madame, yes," said poor Reuben, nervously, "everything is very nice; much nicer than I am used to."

Draxy laughed aloud. "My father never eats when he is tired, Nancy. You'll see how he'll eat to-morrow."

After Nancy had left the room, Reuben wiped his forehead, and Draxy laughed again in spite of herself. Old Nancy had been so kind and willing in helping her, she had grown fond of her, and had quite forgotten her father's dread. When Reuben bade Draxy good-night, he said under his breath, "I like your Elder very much, daughter; but I don't know how I'm ever goin' to stand livin' with that Injun."

"My Elder," said Draxy to herself as she went up-stairs, "he's everybody's Elder—and the Lord's most of all I think," and she went to sleep thinking of the solemn words which she had heard him speak on the last Sunday.

It was strange how soon the life of the new household adjusted itself; how full the days were, and how swift. The summer was close upon them; Reuben's old farmer instincts and habits revived in full force. Bill Sims proved a most efficient helper; he had been Draxy's sworn knight, from the moment of her first interview with him. There would be work on Reuben's farm for many hands, but Reuben was in no haste. The sugar camp assured him of an income which was wealth to their simple needs; and he wished to act advisedly and cautiously in undertaking new enterprises. All the land was wild land—much of it deep swamps. The maple orchard was the only part immediately profitable. The village people came at once to see them. Everybody was touched by Jane's worn face and gentle ways; her silence did not repel them; everybody liked Draxy too, and admired her, but many were a little afraid of her. The village men had said that she was "the smartest woman that had ever set foot in Clairvend village," and human nature is human nature. It would take a great deal of Draxy's kindly good-will to make her sister women forgive her for being cleverer than they. Draxy and Reuben were inseparable. They drove; they walked; even into the swamps courageous Draxy penetrated with her father and Bill Sims, as they went about surveying the land; and it was Draxy's keen instinct which in many cases suggested where improvements could be made.

In the mean time Elder Kinney's existence had become transformed. He dared not to admit himself how much it meant, this new delight in simply being alive, for back of his delight lurked a desperate fear; he dared not move. Day after day he spent more and more time in the company of Draxy and her father. Reuben and he were fast becoming close friends. Reuben's gentle, trustful nature found repose in the Elder's firm, sturdy downrightness, much as it had in Captain Melville's; and the Elder would have loved Reuben if he had not been Draxy's father. But to Draxy he seemed to draw no nearer. She was the same frank, affectionate, merry, puzzling woman-child that she had been at first; yet as he saw more and more how much she knew of books which he did not know, of people, and of affairs of which he had never heard—how fluently, graciously, and even wisely she could talk, he felt himself cut off from her. Her sweet, low tones and distinct articulation tortured him while they fascinated him; they seemed to set her so apart. In fact, each separate charm she had, produced in the poor Elder's humble heart a mixture of delight and pain which could not be analyzed and could not long be borne.

He exaggerated all his own defects of manner, and speech, and education; he felt uncomfortable in Draxy's presence, in spite of all the affectionate reverence with which she treated him; he said to himself fifty times a day, "It's only my bein' a minister that makes her think anythin' o' me." The Elder was fast growing wretched.

But Draxy was happy. She was still in some ways more child than woman. Her peculiar training had left her imagination singularly free from fancies concerning love and marriage. The Elder was a central interest in her life; she would have said instantly and cordially that she loved him dearly. She saw him many times every day; she knew all his outgoings and incomings; she knew the first step of his foot on the threshold; she felt that he belonged to them, and they to him. Yet as a woman thinks of the man whose wife she longs to be, Draxy had never once thought of Elder Kinney.

But when the new kitchen was finished, and the Millers entered on their separate housekeeping, a change came. As Reuben and Jane and Draxy sat down for the first time alone together at their tea-table, Reuben said cheerily:—

"Now this seems like old times. This is nice."

"Yes," replied Jane. Draxy did not speak. Reuben looked at her. She colored suddenly, deeply, and said with desperate honesty,—

"Yes, father; but I can't help thinking how lonely Mr. Kinney must be."

"Well, I declare," said Reuben, conscience-stricken; "I suppose he must be; I hate to think on't. But we'll have him in here's often's he'll come."

Just the other side of the narrow entry sat the Elder, leaning both his elbows on the table, and looking over at the vacant place where the night before, and for thirty nights before, Draxy had sat. It was more than he could bear. He sprang up, and leaving his supper untasted, walked out of the house.

Draxy heard him go. Draxy had passed in that moment into a new world. She divined all.

"He hasn't eaten any supper," thought she; and she listened intently to hear him come in again. The clock struck ten, he had not returned! Draxy went to bed, but she could not sleep. The little house was still; the warm white moonlight lay like summer snow all over it; Draxy looked out of her window; the Elder was slowly coming up the hill; Draxy knelt down like a little child and said, "God bless him," and crept back to bed. When she heard him shut his bedroom door she went to sleep.

The next day Draxy's eyes did not look as they had looked the day before. When Elder Kinney first saw her, she was coming down stairs. He was standing at the foot of the staircase and waited to say "Good morning." As he looked up at her, he started back and exclaimed: "Why, Draxy, what's the matter?"

"Nothing is the matter, sir," said Draxy, as she stepped from the last stair, and standing close in front of him, lifted the new, sweet, softened eyes up to his. Draxy was as simple and sincere in this as in all other emotions and acts of her life. She had no coquetry in her nature. She had no distinct thought either of a new relation between herself and the Elder. She simply felt a new oneness with him; and she could not have understood the suggestion of concealment. If Elder Kinney had been a man of the world, he would have folded Draxy to his heart that instant. If he had been even a shade less humble and self-disrustful, he would have done it, as it was. But he never dreamed that he might. He folded his empty arms very tight over his faithful, aching, foolish heart, and tried to say calmly and naturally, "Are you sure? Seems to me you don't look quite well."

But after that morning he never felt wholly without hope. He could not tell precisely why. Draxy did not seek him, did not avoid him. She was perhaps a little less merry; said fewer words; but she looked glad, and more than glad. "I think it's the eyes," he said to himself again and again, as he tried to analyze the new look on Draxy's face which gave him hope. These were sweet days. There are subtle joys for lovers who dwell side by side in one house, together and yet apart. The very air is loaded with significance to them—the door, the window, the stairway. Always there is hope of meeting; always there is consciousness of presence; everywhere a mysterious sense that the loved one has passed by. More than once Seth Kinney knelt and laid his cheek on the stairs which Draxy's feet had just ascended! Often sweet, guileless Draxy thought, as she went up and down, "Ah, the dear feet that go over these stairs." One day the Elder, as he passed by the wall of the room where he knew Draxy was sitting, brushed his great hand and arm against it so heavily that she started, thinking he had stumbled. But as the firm step went on, without pausing, she smiled, she hardly knew why. The next time he did it she laid down her work, locked and unlocked her hands, and looking toward the door, whispered under her breath, "Dear hands!" Finally this became almost a habit of his; he did not at first think Draxy would hear it; but he felt, as he afterwards told her, "like a great affectionate dog going by her door, and that was all he could do. He would have liked to lie down on the rug."

These were very sweet days; spite of his misgivings, Elder Kinney was happy; and Draxy, in spite of her unconsciousness, seemed to herself to be living in a blissful dream. But a sweeter day came.

One Saturday evening Reuben said to Draxy,—

"Daughter, I've done somethin' I'm afraid'll trouble you. I've told th' Elder about your verses, an' showed him the hymn you wrote when you was tryin' to give it all up about the land."

"Oh, father, how could you," gasped Draxy; and she looked as if she would cry.

Reuben could not tell just how it happened. It seemed to have come out before he knew it, and after it had, he could not help showing the hymn.

Draxy was very seriously disturbed; but she tried to conceal it from her father, and the subject was dropped.

The next morning Elder Kinney preached—it seemed to his people—as he never preached before. His subject was self-renunciation, and he spoke as one who saw the waving palms of the martyrs and heard their shouts of joy. There were few dry eyes in the little meeting-house. Tears rolled down Draxy's face. But she looked up suddenly, on hearing Elder Kinney say, in an unsteady voice,—

"My bretherin, I'm goin' to read to you now a hymn which comes nigher to expressin' my idea of the kind of resignation God likes than any hymn that's ever been written or printed in any hymn-book;" and then he began:—

"I cannot think but God must know," etc.

Draxy's first feeling was one of resentment; but it was a very short-lived one. The earnest tone, the solemn stillness of the wondering people, the peaceful summer air floating in at the open windows,—all lifted her out of herself, and made her glad to hear her own hymn read by the man she loved, for the worship of God. But her surprise was still greater when the choir began to sing the lines to a quaint old Methodist tune. They had been provided with written copies of the hymn, and had practiced it so faithfully that they sang it well. Draxy broke down and sobbed for a few moments, so that Elder Kinney was on the point of forgetting everything, and springing to her side. He had not supposed that anything in the world could so overthrow Draxy's composure. He did not know how much less strong her nerves were now than they had been two months before.

After church, Draxy walked home alone very rapidly. She did not wish to see any one. She was glad that her father and mother had not been there. She could not understand the tumult of her feelings.

At twilight, she stole out of the back door of the house, and walked down to a little brook which ran near by. As she stood leaning against a young maple tree she heard steps, and without looking up, knew that the Elder was coming. She did not move nor speak. He waited some minutes in silence. Then he said "Oh, Draxy! I never once thought o' painin' you! I thought you'd like it. Hymns are made to be sung, dear; and that one o' yours is so beautiful!" He spoke as gently as her father might, and in a voice she hardly knew. Draxy made no reply. The Elder had never seen her like this. Her lips quivered, and he saw tears in her eyes.

"Oh, Draxy, do look up at me—just once! You don't know how hard it is for a man to think he's hurt anybody—like you!" stammered the poor Elder, ending his sentence quite differently from what he had intended.

Draxy smiled through her tears, and looking up, said: "But I am not hurt, Mr. Kinney; I don't know what I am crying for, sir;" and her eyes fell again.

The Elder looked down upon her in silence. Moments passed. "Oh, if I could make her look up at me again!" he thought. His unspoken wish stirred her veins; slowly she lifted her eyes; they were calm now, and unutterably loving. They were more than the Elder could bear."

"Oh, Draxy, Draxy!" exclaimed he, stretching out both his arms towards her.

"My heart grows weaker and more weak With looking on the thing so dear Which lies so far, and yet so near!"

Slowly, very slowly, like a little child learning to walk, with her eyes full of tears, but her mouth smiling, Draxy moved towards the Elder. He did not stir, partly because he could not, but partly because he would not lose one instant of the deliciousness of seeing her, feeling her come.

When they went back to the house, Reuben was sitting in the porch. The Elder took his hand and said:

"Mr. Miller, I meant to have asked you first; but God didn't give me time."

Reuben smiled.

"You've's good's asked me a good while back, Elder; an' I take it you haint ever had much doubt what my answer'd be." Then, as Draxy knelt down by his chair and laid her head on his shoulder, he added more solemnly,—

"But I'd jest like once to say to ye, Elder, that if ever I get to heaven, I wouldn't ask anythin' more o' the Lord than to let me see Draxy 'n' you a comin' in together, an' lookin' as you looked jest now when ye come in't that gate!"



The Elder's Wife.

Sequel to "Draxy Miller's Dowry."



Part I.

Draxy and the Elder were married in the little village church, on the first Sunday in September.

"O Draxy! let it be on a communion Sunday," the Elder had said, with an expression on his face which Draxy could not quite fathom; "I can't tell you what it 'ud be to me to promise myself over again to the blessed Saviour, the same hour I promise to you, darling, I'm so afraid of loving Him less. I don't see how I can remember anything about heaven, after I've got you, Draxy," and tears stood in the Elder's eyes.

Draxy looked at him wonderingly and with a little pain in her face. To her serene nature, heaven and earth, this life and all the others which may follow it, had so long seemed one—love and happiness and duty had become so blended in one sweet atmosphere of living in daily nearness to God, that she could not comprehend the Elder's words.

"Why, Mr. Kinney, it's all Christ," she said, slowly and hesitatingly, slipping her hand into his, and looking up at him so lovingly that his face flushed, and he threw his arms around her, and only felt a thousand times more that heaven had come to mean but one thing to him.

"Darling," he whispered, "would you feel so if I were to die and leave you alone?"

"Yes, I think so," said Draxy, still more slowly, and turning very pale. "You never can really leave me, and no human being can be really alone; it would still be all Christ, and it would be living His life and God's still;" but tears rolled down her cheeks, and she began to sob.

"Oh, forgive me, Draxy," exclaimed the Elder, wrung to the heart by the sight of her grief. "I'm nothing but a great brute to say that to you just now; but, Draxy, you don't know much about a man's heart yet; you're such a saint yourself, you can't understand how it makes a man feel as if this earth was enough, and he didn't want any heaven, when he loves a woman as I love you," and the Elder threw himself on the ground at Draxy's feet, and laid his face down reverently on the hem of her gown. There were fiery depths in this man's nature of which he had never dreamed, until this fair, sweet, strong womanhood crossed his path. His love of Draxy kindled and transformed his whole consciousness of himself and of life; it was no wonder that he felt terrors; that he asked himself many times a day what had become of the simple-minded, earnest, contented worker he used to be. He was full of vague and restless yearnings; he longed to do, to be, to become, he knew not what, but something that should be more of kin to this beautiful nature he worshipped—something that should give her great joy—something in which she could feel great pride.

"It ain't right, I know it ain't right, to feel so about any mortal," he would say to himself; "that's the way I used to feel about Jesus. I wanted to do all for Him, and now I want to do all for Draxy," and the great, tender, perplexed heart was sorely afraid of its new bliss.

They were sitting in the maple grove behind the house. In the tree under which they sat was a yellow-hammer's nest. The two birds had been fluttering back and forth in the branches for some time. Suddenly they both spread their wings and flew swiftly away in opposite directions. Draxy looked up, smiling through her tears, and, pointing to the fast fading specks in the distant air, said,—

"It would be like that. They are both sent on errands. They won't see each other again till the errands are done."

The Elder looked into her illumined face, and, sighing, said: "I can't help prayin' that the Lord'll have errands for us that we can do together as long's we live, Draxy."

"Yes, dear," said Draxy, "I pray for that too," and then they were silent for some minutes. Draxy spoke first. "But Mr. Kinney, I never heard of anybody's being married on Sunday—did you?"

"No," said the Elder, "I never did, but I've always thought it was the only day a man ought to be married on; I mean the most beautiful, the sweetest day."

"Yes," replied Draxy, a solemn and tender light spreading over her whole face, "it certainly is. I wonder why nobody has ever thought so before. But perhaps many people have," she added with a merrier smile; "we don't know everybody."

Presently she looked up anxiously and said:

"But do you think the people would like it? Wouldn't they think it very strange?"

The Elder hesitated. He, too, had thought of this.

"Well, I tell you, Draxy, it's just this way: I've tried more than once to get some of them to come and be married on a Sunday in church, and they wouldn't, just because they never heard of it before; and I'd like to have them see that I was in true earnest about it. And they like you so well, Draxy, and you know they do all love me a great deal more'n I deserve, and I can't help believing it will do them good all their lives by making them think more how solemn a thing a marriage ought to be, if they take it as I think they will; and I do think I know them well enough to be pretty sure."

So it was settled that the marriage should take place after the morning sermon, immediately before the communion service. When Reuben was told of this, his face expressed such absolute amazement that Draxy laughed outright, in spite of the deep solemnity of her feeling in regard to it.

"Why, father," she said, "you couldn't look more surprised if I had told you I was not to be married at all."

"But Draxy, Draxy," Reuben gasped, "who ever heard of such a thing? What will folks say?"

"I don't know that anybody ever heard of such a thing, father dear," answered Draxy, "but I am not afraid of what the people will say. They love Mr. Kinney, and he has always told them that Sunday was the day to be married on. I shouldn't wonder if every young man and young woman in the parish looked on it in a new and much holier light after this. I know I began to as soon as the Elder talked about it, and it wouldn't seem right to me now to be married on any other day," and Draxy stooped and kissed her father's forehead very tenderly. There was a tenderness in Draxy's manner now towards every one which can hardly be described in words. It had a mixture of humility and of gracious bestowal in it, of entreaty and of benediction, which were ineffably beautiful and winning. It is ever so when a woman, who is as strong as she is sweet, comes into the fullness of her womanhood's estate of love. Her joy overflows on all; currents of infinite compassion set towards those who must miss that by which she is thrilled; her incredulity of her own bliss is forever questioning humbly; she feels herself forever in presence of her lover, at once rich and free and a queen, and poor and chained and a vassal. So her largess is perpetual, involuntary, unconscious, and her appeal is tender, wistful, beseeching. In Draxy's large nature,—her pure, steadfast, loving soul, quickened and exalted by the swift currents of an exquisitely attuned and absolutely healthful body,—this new life of love and passion wrought a change which was vivid and palpable to the commonest eyes. Men and women upon whom she smiled, in passing, felt themselves lifted and drawn, they knew not how. A sentiment of love, which had almost reverence in it, grew up towards her in the hearts of the people. A certain touch of sadness, of misgiving, mingled with it.

"I'm afraid she ain't long for this world; she's got such a look o' heaven in her face," was said more than once, in grieving tones, when the Elder's approaching marriage was talked of. But old Ike was farther sighted, in his simplicity, than the rest. "'Tain't that," he said, "that woman's got in her face. It's the kind o' heaven that God sends down to stay'n this world, to help make us fit for the next. Shouldn't wonder ef she outlived th' Elder a long day," and Ike wiped his old eyes slyly with the back of his hand.

The day of the marriage was one of those shining September days which only mountain regions know. The sky was cloudless and of a transcendent blue. The air was soft as the air of June. Draxy's young friends had decorated the church with evergreens and clematis vines; and on each side of the communion-table were tall sheaves of purple asters and golden-rod. Two children were to be baptized at noon, and on a little table, at the right of the pulpit, stood the small silver baptismal font, wreathed with white asters and the pale feathery green of the clematis seed.

When Draxy walked up the aisle leaning on her father's arm, wearing the same white dress she had worn on Sundays all summer, it cannot be denied that there were sighs of disappointment in some of the pews. The people had hoped for something more. Draxy had kept her own counsel on this point closely, replying to all inquiries as to what she would wear, "White, of course," but replying in such a tone that no one had quite dared to ask more, and there had even been those in the parish who "reckoned" that she wouldn't "be satisfied with anythin' less than white satin." Her head was bare, her beautiful brown hair wound tightly round and round in the same massive knot as usual. Her only ornaments were the creamy white blossoms of the low cornel; one cluster in the braids of her hair, and one on her bosom. As she entered the pew and sat down by the side of her mother, slanting sunbeams from the southern windows fell upon her head, lighting up the bright hair till it looked like a saintly halo. Elder Kinney sat in the pulpit, with his best loved friend, Elder Williams, who was to preach that day and perform the marriage ceremony. When Draxy and her father entered the door, Elder Kinney rose and remained standing until they reached their pew. As Draxy sat down and the golden sunbeams flickered around her, the Elder sank back into his seat and covered his eyes with his hand. He did not change his posture until the prayers and the hymns and the sermon were over, and Elder Williams said in a low voice,—

"The ceremony of marriage will now be performed." Then he rose, his countenance glowing like that of one who had come from some Mount of Transfiguration. With a dignity and grace of bearing such as royal ambassadors might envy, he walked slowly down to Reuben Miller's pew, and, with his head reverently bent, received Draxy from her father's hands.

Passionate love and close contact with Draxy's exquisite nature were developing, in this comparatively untrained man, a peculiar courteousness and grace, which added a subtle charm to the simplicity of his manners. As he walked up the aisle with Draxy clinging to his arm, his tall figure looked majestic in its strength, but his face was still bent forward, turned toward her with a look of reverence, of love unspeakable.

The whole congregation rose, moved by one impulse, and the silence was almost too solemn. When the short and simple ceremony was over, the Elder led Draxy to his own pew and sat down by her side.

After the little children had been baptized, the usual announcement of the Lord's Supper was made, and the usual invitation given. Absolute silence followed it, broken only by the steps of the singers leaving their seats in the gallery to take places below. Not a person moved to leave the body of the house. Elder Williams glanced at Elder Kinney in perplexity, and waited for some moments longer. The silence still remained unbroken; there was not a man, woman, or child there but felt conscious of a tender and awed impulse to remain and look on at this ceremony, so newly significant and solemn to their beloved Elder. Tears came into many eyes as he took the cup of wine from Deacon Plummer's trembling hands and passed it to Draxy, and many hearts which had never before longed for the right to partake of the sacred emblems longed for it then.

After the services, were ended, just as Elder Williams was about to pronounce the benediction, Elder Kinney rose from his seat, and walking rapidly to the communion table said,—

"My dear friends, I know you don't look for any words from me to-day; but there are some of you I never before saw at this blessed feast of our Lord, and I must say one word to you from Him." Then pausing, he looked round upon them all, and, with an unutterable yearning in the gesture, stretched out both his arms and said: "O my people, my people! like as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wing, He would have gathered you long ago, but ye would not." Then, still holding out his arms towards them, he pronounced the benediction.

Silently and solemnly the little congregation dispersed. A few lingered, and looked longingly at Draxy, as if they would go back and speak to her. But she stood with her eyes fixed on the Elder's face, utterly unconscious of the presence of any other human being. Even her father dared not break the spell of holy beatitude which rested on her countenance.

"No, no, ma," he said to Jane, who proposed that they should go back to the pew and walk home with her. "This ain't like any other wedding that was ever seen on this earth, unless, maybe, that one in Cana. And I don't believe the Lord was any nearer to that bridegroom than He is to this one."

So Jane and Reuben walked home from church alone, for the first time since they came to Clairvend, and Draxy and her husband followed slowly behind. The village people who watched them were bewildered by their manner, and interpreted it variously according to their own temperaments.

"You'd ha' thought now they'd been married years an' years to look at 'em," said Eben Hill; "they didn't speak a word, nor look at each other any more 'n old Deacon Plummer 'n his wife, who was joggin' along jest afore 'em."

Old Ike—poor, ignorant, loving old Ike, whose tender instinct was like the wistful sagacity of a faithful dog—read their faces better. He had hurried out of church and hid himself in the edge of a little pine grove which the Elder and Draxy must pass.

"I'd jest like to see 'em a little longer," he said to himself half apologetically. As they walked silently by, old Ike's face saddened, and at last became convulsed with grief. Creeping out from beneath the pines, he slowly followed them up the hill, muttering to himself, in the fashion which had grown upon him in his solitary life:—

"O Lord! O Lord! No such looks as them is long for this earth. O Lord! which is it ye're goin' to take? I reckon it's the Elder. I reckon 'tis. That woman's goin' to have her heart broke. O Lord! O Lordy me! I can't bear the sight on't!" and he leaped a fence and struck off across the fields towards his house. He did not shut his eyes that night, but tossed and groaned aloud. Towards morning he formed a resolution which calmed him somewhat.

"Ef I kin only be right close to 'em till it comes, p'raps I can be of a little use. Leastways it 'ud be some comfort to try," he said.

As the Elder and Draxy were sitting at breakfast the next day, they caught sight of the old man's bent figure walking up and down outside the gate, and stopping now and then irresolutely, as if he would come in, but dared not.

"Why, there's old Ike," exclaimed the Elder, "What on earth can he want at this time of day!"

Draxy looked up with a very tender smile, and said: "I shouldn't wonder if he wanted just to see how happy you look, Mr. Kinney. Nobody in this world loves you so well as old Ike does."

"Oh, Draxy!" said the Elder, reproachfully.

"No, dear, not even I. Old Ike never dreams of receiving any love in return. I have seen his eyes follow you with just such a look as dogs' eyes have. I wish we could do something for him."

"We will, dear, we will go and see him often. I own it smites me to the soul sometimes to think how humble he is, and so glad to see me when I haven't been near him for six months, maybe."

At this moment Hannah put her head into the door and said, in no pleasant voice:—

"Here's that Ike Sanborn wantin' to speak to ye sir, but I telled him"—

"Let him come right in here, Hannah," said Draxy. "Mr. Kinney and I will be very glad to see him this morning." Hannah's face relaxed in spite of herself, in answer to Draxy's smile, but she could not forgive Ike for what seemed to her a most unwarrantable intrusion, and she was grimmer than ever when she returned to him, saying,—

"They'll see ye; but I must say, I sh'd ha' thought ye'd know better'n to be comin' round here this mornin' of all mornin's. Ain't they to have a minute's peace to theirselves?"

Ike looked up appealingly at the hard Indian face.

"I wa'n't goin' to keep 'em a minute," he said: "I won't go in now. I'll come agin, ef you say so, Hannah."

"No, no—go in, now ye're here; ye've interrupted 'em, and ye may's well take the good on't now," replied the vengeful Hannah, pushing Ike along towards the sitting-room door.

"Ef there's anythin' I do hate, it's shiftless white folks," grumbled Hannah as she went back to her work. If poor Ike had known the angry contempt for him which filled Hannah's heart, he would have felt still less courage for the proposition he had come to make. As it was, he stood in the doorway the very picture of irresolution and embarrassment.

"Come in, come in, Ike," said the Elder; "you're the first one of the parish to pay your respects to Mrs. Kinney." Draxy rose from her seat smiling, and went towards him and said: "And Mrs. Kinney is very glad to see you, Ike."

This was too much for the loving old heart. He dropped his hat on the floor, and began to speak so rapidly and incoherently that both Draxy and the Elder were almost frightened.

"O Elder! O Miss Kinney!—I've been a thinkin' that p'raps you'd let me come an' live with you, an' do all yer chores. I'd bring my two cows, an' my keepin' wouldn't be very much; an'—oh, sir, ef ye'll only let me, I'll bless ye all the days o' my life," and Ike began to cry.

So did Draxy, for that matter, and the Elder was not very far from it. Draxy spoke first.

"Why, Ike, do you really want so much to live with us?"

Ike's first answer was a look. Then he said, very simply,—

"I've laid awake all night, ma'am, tryin' to get bold enough to come and ask ye."

Draxy looked at her husband, and said in a low voice, "You know what I told you just now, Mr. Kinney?"

The Elder saw that Draxy was on Ike's side.

"Well, well, Ike," he said, "you shall certainly come and try it. Perhaps you won't like it as well as you think. But don't say anything about it to any one else till you hear from us. You shall come very soon."

Ike turned to go, but lingered, and finally stammered: "I hope, sir, ye don't take it that I'm askin' a charity; I make bold to believe I could be worth to ye's much's my keepin'; I'm considerable handy 'bout a good many things, an' I can do a day's mowin' yet with any man in the parish, I don't care who he is. It's only because—because"—Ike's voice broke, and it was very nearly with a sob that he added, "because I love ye, sir," and he hurried away. Draxy sprang after him.

"I know that very well, Ike, and so does Mr. Kinney, and you will be a great help to us. You are making us the most valuable wedding present we've had yet, Ike," and Draxy held out her hand.

Ike looked at the hand, but he did not touch it.

"Maybe God'll let me thank ye yet, ma'am," he said, and was gone.

As he went through the kitchen a sudden misgiving seized him of terror of Hannah.

"Supposin' she sh'd take into her head to be agin me," thought he. "They say the Elder himself's 'fraid on her. I don't s'pose she'd dare to try to pizen me outright, an' anyhow there's allers eggs an' potatoes. But I'll bring her round fust or last;" and, made wary by love, Ike began on the spot to conciliate her, by offering to bring a pail of water from the well.

This small attention went farther than he could have dreamed. When Draxy first told Hannah that Ike was to come and live with them, she said judiciously,—

"It will make your work much easier in many ways, Hannah."

Hannah answered:—

"Yes, missus. He'll bring all the water I spose, an that alone's wuth any man's keep—not that I've ever found any fault with the well's bein' so far off. It's 's good water's there is in the world, but it's powerful heavy."

The arrival of the two cows crowned Hannah's liking of the plan. If she had a passion in life it was for cream and for butter-making, and it had been a sore trial to her in her life as the Elder's housekeeper, that she must use stinted measures of milk, bought from neighbors. So when poor Ike came in, trembling and nervous, to his first night's lodging under the Elder's roof, he found in the kitchen, to his utter surprise, instead of a frowning and dangerous enemy, a warm ally, as friendly in manner and mien as Indian blood would permit.

Thus the little household settled down for the winter: Draxy and the Elder happy, serene, exalted more than they knew, by their perfect love for each other, and their childlike love of God, blending in one earnest purpose of work for souls; Hannah and Ike anything but serene, and yet happy after their own odd fashions, and held together much more closely than they knew by the common bond of their devotion to the Elder and his wife.

In the other side of the house were also two very thankful and contented hearts. Reuben and Jane were old people now: Reuben's hair was snowy white, and Jane was sadly bent; but the comfort and peace which had come so late into their lives had still come early enough to make the sunset a bright one. It was a sight to do all hearts good to see the two sitting together on the piazza of the house, in the warm afternoons, and gazing in delight at the eastern mountain ranges turning rose-pink, and then fading through shades of purple to dark gray.

"It's a good deal like our life, ma," Reuben said sometimes; "our sun's pretty low—most down, I reckon; it's all rosy-light, just these days; but we shall have to lie down in the shadow presently; but it's all beautiful, beautiful."

Jane did not understand him. She never did. But she loved the sound of his voice best when he said the things which were too subtle for her.

The two households lived separately as before. The Elder had proposed their making one family, and Reuben had wistfully seconded it. But Draxy had firmly said "No."

"I shall be able to do more for you, father dear, if we do not. It will not seem so at first, but I know I am right," she said, and it was a rare wisdom in her sweet soul which led to the decision. At first it was very hard for Reuben to bear, but as the months went on he saw that it was best.

Draxy's loving, thoughtful care of them never relaxed. The excellent woman whom she had secured for their servant went for her orders quite as often to Draxy as to Jane; very few meals were set out for them to which Draxy's hand had not given the last final touch. She flitted back and forth between the two homes, equally of both the guardian angel; but the line of division and separation was just as distinctly drawn as if they had been under different roofs a mile apart. Two or three times in the week they dined and took tea together, but the habit never was formed of doing this on a special day. When Reuben said, "Couldn't ye arrange it so's always to eat your Sunday dinner with us, Draxy?" she replied:

"Sometimes Sunday dinner; sometimes Thursday; sometimes Saturday, father dear. If we make it a fixed day, we shall not like it half so well; any of us. We'll come often enough, you may be sure." And of this, too, Reuben soon saw the wisdom.

"O Draxy, Draxy, my little girl!" he said one day, when, just after breakfast, she ran in, exclaiming,—

"Father dear, we're coming to take dinner with you and ma to-day. It's a surprise party, and the chickens have come first; they're in the kitchen now!"

"O Draxy, Draxy," he exclaimed, "it's a great deal nicer not to know it beforehand. How could you be so wise, child?"

Draxy put her arms round his neck and did not speak for a moment. Then she said, "I don't think it is wisdom, dear. Real true love knows by instinct, just as the bee does, which shaped cell will hold most honey. I'm only a honey-maker for my darlings."

Jane looked mystified, but Reuben's face quivered with pleasure.

"That you are, you blessed child," he said, and as, hearing the Elder's step in the hall, she flew out of the room, Reuben covered his eyes with his hand.

Happy years leave slender records; but for suffering and sin there would not be history. The winter came, and the spring came, and the summer and the autumn, and no face in the quiet little parsonage looked a shade older for the year that had gone; no incident had taken place which could make a salient point in a story, and not one of the peaceful hearts could believe that a twelvemonth had flown. Elder Kinney's pathetic fears lest he might love his Saviour less by reason of his new happiness, had melted like frost in early sunlight, in the sweet presence of Draxy's child-like religion.

"O Draxy!" he said again and again, "seems to me I never half loved all these souls we are working for, before I had you. I don't see how I could have been so afraid about it before we were married."

"Do I really help you, Mr. Kinney?" Draxy would reply, with a lingering emphasis on the "really," which made her husband draw her closer to him and forget to speak: "It seems very strange to me that I can. I feel so ignorant about souls. It frightens me to answer the smallest question the people ask me. I never do, in any way except to tell them if I have ever felt so myself, and how God seemed to help me out."

Blessed Draxy! that was the secret of her influence from first to last: the magnetic sympathy of a pure and upright soul, to whose rare strength had been added still rarer simplicity and lovingness. Old and young, men as well as women, came to her with unhesitating confidence. Before her marriage, they had all felt a little reserve with her, partly because she was of finer grain than they, partly because she had, deep down in her soul, a genuine shyness which showed itself only in quiet reticence. But now that she was the Elder's wife, they felt that she was in a measure theirs. There is a very sweet side, as well as an inconvenient and irritating one, to the old-fashioned rural notion that the parish has almost as much right to the minister's wife as to the minister. Draxy saw only the sweet side. With all the loyalty and directness which had made her, as a little girl, champion and counselor and comfort to her father, she now set her hand to the work of helping her husband do good to the people whom he called his children.

"If they are yours, they must be mine, too, Mr. Kinney," she would say, with a smile half arch, half solemn. "I hope I shan't undo on week-days what you do on Sundays."

"What I do on Sundays is more'n half your work too, Draxy," the Elder would make reply; and it was very true. Draxy's quicker brain and finer sense, and in some ways superior culture, were fast moulding the Elder's habits of thought and speech to an extent of which she never dreamed. Reuben's income was now far in advance of their simple wants, and newspapers, magazines, and new books continually found their way to the parsonage. Draxy had only to mention anything she desired to see, and Reuben forthwith ordered it. So that it insensibly came to pass that the daily life of the little household was really an intellectual one, and Elder Kinney's original and vigorous mind expanded fast in the congenial atmosphere. Yet he lost none of his old quaintness and simplicity of phrase, none of his fervor. The people listened to his sermons with wondering interest, and were not slow to ascribe some of the credit of the new unction to Draxy.

"Th' Elder's getting more'n more like Mis' Kinney every day o' his life," they said: "there's some o' her sayin's in every sermon he writes.

"And no wonder," would be added by some more enthusiastic worshipper of Draxy's. "I guess he's got sense enough to know that she's got more real book-learnin' in her head than he has, twice over. I shouldn't wonder if she got to writin' some of his sermons for him out'n out, before long."

Dear Draxy's reverent wifehood would have been grieved and dismayed if she had known that her efforts to second her husband's appeals to his people were sometimes so eloquent as to make the Elder's words forgotten. But she never dreamed of such a thing; she was too simple hearted and humble.

In the early days of the second winter came the Angel of the Annunciation, bearing a white lily to Draxy. Her joy and gratitude were unspeakable, and the exquisite purity and elevation of her nature shone out transcendent in the new experience.

"Now I begin to feel surer that God really trusts me," she said, "since he is going to let me have a child of my own."

"O my dear friends!" she exclaimed more than once to mothers, "I never dreamed how happy you were. I thought I knew, but I did not."

Draxy's spontaneous and unreserved joy of motherhood, while yet her babe was unborn, was a novel and startling thing to the women among whom she lived. The false notions on this point, grown out of ignorant and base thoughts, are too wide-spread, too firm-rooted, to be overthrown in an hour or a day, even by the presence of angelic truth incarnate. Some of Draxy's best friends were annoyed and disquieted by her frankness and unreserve of delight. But as the weeks went on, the true instinct of complete motherhood thrilled for the first time in many a mother's heart, under Draxy's glowing words, and women talked tearfully one with another, in secret, with lowered voices, about the new revelation which had come to them through her.

"I've come to see it all quite different, since I've talked with Mis' Kinney," said one young married woman, holding her baby close to her breast, and looking down with remorseful tenderness on its placid little face. "I shan't never feel that I've quite made it up to Benjy, never, for the thoughts I had about him before he was born. I don't see why nobody ever told us before, that we was just as much mothers to 'em from the very first as we ever could be," and tears dropped on Benjy's face; "an' I jest hope the Lord'll send me's many more's we can manage to feed'n clothe, 'n I'll see if lovin' 'em right along from the beginnin', with all my heart, 'll make 'em beautiful an' happy an' strong an' well, 's Mis' Kinney sez. I b'lieve it's much's ef 'twas in the Bible, after all she told me, and read me out of a Physiology, an' it stands to natur', which's more'n the old way o' talkin did."

This new, strong current of the divinest of truths, stirred the very veins of the village. Mothers were more loving and fathers more tender, and maidens were sweeter and graver—all for the coming of this one little babe into the bosom of full and inspired motherhood.

On the morning when Draxy's son was born, a stranger passing through the village would have supposed that some great news of war or of politics had arrived. Little knots of people stood at gates, on corners, all talking earnestly; others were walking rapidly to and fro in the street. Excitement filled the air.

Never was heir to royal house more welcomed than was the first-born son of this simple-minded, great-hearted woman, by the lowly people among whom she dwelt.

Old Ike's joy was more than he could manage. He had sat on the floor all night long, with his head buried in his hands.

The instinct of grief to come, which not even all these long peaceful months had been able to wholly allay in his faithful heart, had sprung into full life at the first symptom of danger to Draxy.

"P'raps it's this way, arter all, the Lord's goin' to do it. O Lord! O Lord! It'll kill Mr. Kinney, it'll kill him," he kept repeating over and over, as he rocked to and fro. Hannah eyed him savagely. Her Indian blood hated groans and tears, and her affection for her master was angered at the very thought of his being afflicted.

"I wish it had pleased yer Lord to give ye the sense of a man, Mr. Sanborn," she said, "while He was a makin' on ye. If ye'd go to bed, now, instead o' snivelin' round here, you might be good for somethin' in the mornin', when there'll be plenty to do. Anyhow, I'm not goin' to be pestered by the sight on ye any longer," and Hannah banged the kitchen-door violently after her.