“You’re jest crazy about Mis’ Kinney, Angy Plummer,” said her mother.  “I b’lieve ye’d go through fire for her quicker ’n ye would for any yer own flesh an’ blood.”

Angy went to her mother and kissed the fretful old face very kindly.  “Mother, you can’t say I hain’t been a better daughter to you sence I’ve knowed Mis’ Kinney.”

“No, I can’t,” grumbled the old woman, “that’s a fact; but she’s got a heap o’ new fangled notions I don’t believe in.”

The school was a triumphant success.  From nine until twelve o’clock every forenoon, twelve happy little children had a sort of frolic of learning lessons in the Elder’s sacred study, which was now Draxy’s sitting-room.  Old Ike, who since the Elder’s death had never seemed quite clear of brain, had asked so piteously to come and sit in the room, that Draxy let him do so.  He sat in a big chair by the fire-place, and carved whistles and ships and fantastic toys for the children, listening all the time intently to every word which fell from Draxy’s lips.  He had transferred to her all the pathetic love he had felt for the Elder; he often followed her at a distance when she went out, and little Reuby he rarely lost sight of, from morning till night.  He was too feeble now to do much work, but his presence was a great comfort to Draxy.  He seemed a very close link between her and her husband.  Hannah, too, sometimes came into the school at recess, to the great amusement of the children.  She was particularly fond of looking at the blackboard, when there were chalk-marks on it.

“Make a mark on me with your white pencil,” she would say, offering her dark cheek to Reuby, who would scrawl hieroglyphics all over it from hair to chin.

Then she would invite the whole troop out into the kitchen to a feast of doughnuts or cookies; very long the recesses sometimes were when the school was watching Hannah fry the fantastic shapes of sweet dough, or taking each a turn at the jagged wheel with which she cut them out.

Reuben also came often to the school-room, and Jane sometimes sat there with her knitting.  A strange content had settled on their lives, in spite of the sorrow.  They saw Draxy calm; she smiled on them as constantly as ever; and they were very old people, and believed too easily that she was at peace.

But the Lord had more work still for this sweet woman’s hand.  This, too, was suddenly set before her.  Late one Saturday afternoon, as she was returning, surrounded by her escort of laughing children, from the woods, where they had been for May-flowers, old Deacon Plummer overtook her.

“Mis’ Kinney, Mis’ Kinney,” he began several times, but could get no further.  He was evidently in great perplexity how to say the thing he wished.

“Mis’ Kinney, would you hev—­

“Mis’ Kinney, me and Deacon Swift’s been a sayin’—­

“Mis’ Kinney, ain’t you got—­”

Draxy smiled outright.  She often smiled now, with cordial good cheer, when things pleased her.