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.