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While we are patiently and faithfully keeping sheep in the wilderness, the messenger is journeying towards us with the vial of sacred oil, to make us kings. It was on a September morning. Draxy sat at the eastward bay-window of her sitting-room, reading to Reuby. The child seemed strangely restless, and slipped from her lap again and again, running to the window to look out.
"Dear, good little Draxy," thought the Elder, as he walked down the road. "How shall I ever tell the child of this good luck, and how shall I manage it all for the best for her?" Draxy's interests were in good hands. Before night Elder Kinney had ascertained that there had never been any sale of this land since it was sold to "the New York chap," and that Ganew's occupation of it was illegal.
"Oh!" thought Draxy, "does joy always bring pain in this world?" and she fell asleep with tears on her cheeks. Reuben sat up until near dawn, writing to Elder Kinney. He felt strangely strong. He was half cured already by the upland air of the fields he had never seen.
You don't know how hard it is for a man to think he's hurt anybody like you!" stammered the poor Elder, ending his sentence quite differently from what he had intended. Draxy smiled through her tears, and looking up, said: "But I am not hurt, Mr. Kinney; I don't know what I am crying for, sir;" and her eyes fell again. The Elder looked down upon her in silence. Moments passed.
After pronouncing these words, Draxy paused again, and looking towards her pew, made a slight sign to Reuby. The child understood instantly, and walked swiftly to her. "Sit in this chair here by mamma, Reuby darling," she whispered, and Reuby climbed up into the big chair on her right hand, and leaned his fair golden head against the high mahogany back.
"No, no, daughter. Read it to me. I can't see the words," replied Reuben, still weeping. He was utterly unmanned. Then Draxy read the letter aloud slowly, distinctly, calmly. Her voice did not tremble. She accepted it all, absolutely, unconditionally, as she had accepted everything which had ever happened to her.
"Oh, how dare I do this; how dare I?" she said to herself, as alone in her little room, she wrote line after line. "But if nobody ever knows, it can do no harm. It is strange I love it, though, when I am so ashamed." This morning Draxy had that mysterious feeling as if all things were new, which so often comes to poetic souls.
For the first few days after the funeral, Draxy seemed to sink; the void was too terrible; only little Reuby's voice roused her from the apathetic silence in which she would sit by the hour gazing out of the east bay-window on the road down which she had last seen her husband walk. She knew just the spot where he had paused and turned and thrown kisses back to Reuby watching him from the window.
Kinney?" whispered Draxy. "No, I guess not," he said, "there ain't much biddin' at these sort of sales up here," and he mentally resolved that nothing Draxy wanted should cost too much for her. The sale was to be the next day. Draxy made a careful list of the things she would like to buy. The Elder was to come over and bid them off for her.
She spent the first night, as before, at the house of Captain Melville's brother, and set out at eight the following morning, to ride for ten hours steadily northward. The day was like a day of June. The spring was opening early; already fruit-trees were white and pink; banks were green, and birds were noisy. By noon mountains came in sight. Draxy was spellbound.
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