I am just like Cousin
Roxy."

"You have no mind beyond the milking and churning, the sewing and
weaving?"

"No, I have no mind beyond them."

"I kiss your hands--these little hands that were made to the finest uses
of life, and that I shall fill with honors."

"Don't touch me," warned Emeline. "They can scratch!"

The King of Beaver laughed aloud. With continued gentleness he explained
to her: "You will come to me. Gentile brutes may chase women like
savages, and maltreat them afterwards; but it is different with you and
me." He brought his hands forward and folded them upright on his breast.

[Illustration: Always prayed this prayer alone 124]

"I have always prayed this prayer alone and as a solitary soul at
twilight. For the first time I shall speak it aloud in the presence of
one who has often thought the same prayer: O God, since Thou hast shut
me up in this world, I will do the best I can, without fear or favor.
When my task is done, let me out!"

He turned and left her, as if this had been a benediction on their
meeting, and went from the garden as he usually went from the
Tabernacle. Emeline's heart and eyes seemed to overflow without any
volition of her own. It was a kind of spiritual effervescence which she
could not control. She sobbed two or three times aloud, and immediately
ground her teeth at his back as it passed out of sight. Billy and Roxy
were so free from the baleful power that selected her. They could chat
in peace under the growing darkness, they who had home and families,
while she, without a relative except those on Beaver Island, or a friend
whose duty it was to shelter her, must bear the shock of that ruinous
force.

The instinct that no one could help her but herself kept her silent
when she retired with Roxy to the loft-chamber. Primitive life on Beaver
Island settled to its rest soon after the birds, and there was not a
sound outside of nature's stirrings till morning, unless some drunken
fishermen trailed down the Galilee road to see what might be inflicted
on the property of sleeping Mormons.

The northern air blew fresh through gable windows of the attic, yet
Emeline turned restlessly on her straw bed, and counted the dim
rafters while Roxy slept. Finally she could not lie still, and slipped
cautiously out of bed, feeling dire need to be abroad, running or riding
with all her might. She leaned out of a gable window, courting the moist
chill of the starless night. While the hi