"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."