“I mean to build a capacious school house, in which I will receive, board, lodge, and teach as many Indian children as may be intrusted to me, until the house shall be full.”

“Moonstruck mania!  That is what your mad husband driven mad by you—­attempted on a smaller scale, and failed.”

“That is why I wish to do this.  I wish to follow in his footsteps It is the best thing I can do to honor his memory.”

“But he was murdered for his pains.”

Cora shuddered and covered her face with her hands for a space; then she answered, slowly: 

“There may be many failures; but there will never be any success unless the failures are made stepping stones to final victory.”

“Fudge!  See here, mistress!  No doubt you suffer a good many stings of conscience for having driven the best man that ever lived—­except, hem! well—­to his death!  But you need not on that account expatriate yourself from civilization, to go out to try to teach those red devils who murdered your husband and burned his hut, and who will probably murder you and burn your school house!  You have been a false woman and a miserable sinner, Cora Rothsay!  And you have deserved to suffer and you have suffered, there is no doubt about that!  But you have repented, and may be pardoned.  You need not immolate yourself at your age.  You are a mere girl.  You will get over your morbid grief.  You may marry again.”

Cora slowly, sadly, silently shook her head.

“Oh, yes; you will.”

“No, no; no, dear grandpa.  I will bear my dear, lost husband’s name to the end of my life, and it shall be inscribed on my tomb.  Ah! would to Heaven that at the last, I might lay my ashes beside his,” she moaned.

“Now don’t be a confounded fool, Cora Rothsay!  To be sure, all women are fools!  But, then, a girl with a drop of my blood in her veins should not be such a consummate idiot as you are showing yourself to be.  You shall not go out with Sylvan to that savage frontier.  It is no place for a woman, particularly for an unmarried woman.  You would come to a bad end.  I shall speak to Sylvan.  I shall forbid him to take you there,” said the old autocrat.

Cora smiled, but answered nothing.  She had firmly made up her mind to go with her brother, whether her grandfather should approve the action or not; but she thought it unnecessary to dispute the matter with him just now.

“So, mistress, you will stay here, under my guardianship, until you accept a husband, like a respectable woman,” continued old Aaron Rockharrt.

Still Cora remained silent, standing by his chair, with her hand resting on the table, and her eyes cast down.

The egotist seemed not to object to having all the talk to himself.

“Come!” he exclaimed, with sudden animation, sitting bolt upright in his chair, “When I found you in this room just now, you said you had something to tell me.  And you told it.  Naturally, it was not worth hearing.  Now, then, I have something to tell you, which is so well worth hearing that when you have heard it your missionary madness may be cured, and your Quixotic expedition given up:  in fact, all your plans in life changed—­a splendid prospect opened before you.”