saw endless trouble shadowing
the young lovers--opposition to the marriage from both sides of the
house. He could already see Lydia's family smarting under the
seeming disgrace of her marriage to an Indian; he could see George's
family indignant and hurt to the core at his marriage with a white
girl; he could see how impossible it would be for Lydia's people to
ever understand the fierce resentment of the Indian parents that
the family title could never continue under the family name. He
could see how little George's people would ever understand the
"white" prejudice against them. But the good man kept his own
counsel, determining only that when the war did break out, he would
stand shoulder to shoulder with these young lovers and be their
friend and helper when even their own blood and kin should cut them
off.

* * * * *

It was two years before this shy and taciturn man fully realized
what the young chief and the English girl really were to him, for
affliction had laid a heavy hand on his heart. First, his gentle
and angel-natured wife said her long, last good-night to him. Then
an unrelenting scourge of scarlet fever swept three of his children
into graves. Then the eldest, just on the threshold of sweet young
maidenhood, faded like a flower, until she, too, said good-night
and slept beside her mother. Wifeless, childless, the stricken
missionary hugged to his heart these two--George and Lydia--and
they, who had labored weeks and months, night and day, nursing and
tending these loved ones, who had helped fight and grapple with
death five times within two years, only to be driven back heartsore
and conquered by the enemy--these two put away the thought of
marriage for the time. Joy would have been ill-fitting in that
household. Youth was theirs, health was theirs, and duty also was
theirs--duty to this man of God, whose house was their home, whose
hand had brought them together. So the marriage did not take place
at once, but the young chief began making preparations on the estate
he had purchased to build a fitting home for this homeless girl who
was giving her life into his hands. After so many dark days, it was
a relief to get Mr. Evans interested in the plans of the house
George was to build, to select the proper situation, to arrange for
a barn, a carriage house, a stable, for young Mansion had saved
money and acquired property of sufficient value to give his wife a
home that wo