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:—­