aid; "and Virginia
is--is--riding with me a while."

"We are camping," said Virginia, smiling, "down by the river. Won't you
come to dinner with us?"

3

Grandma ran to some people who were waiting, I suppose, to take them to
the regular minister's Sunday dinner, and seemed to be making some sort
of plea to be excused. What it could have been I have no idea; but I
suspect it must have been because of the necessity of saving souls; some
plea of duty; anyhow she soon returned, and with her and the elder we
walked in silence down to the grove where our wagon stood among the
trees, with my cows farther up-stream picketed in the grass.

"Just make yourselves comfortable," said I; "while I get dinner."

"And," said the elder, "I'll help, if I may."

"You're company," I said.

"Please let me," he begged; "and while we work we'll talk."

In the meantime Grandma Thorndyke was turning Virginia inside out like a
stocking, and looking for the seamy side. She carefully avoided asking
her about our whereabouts for the last few days, but she scrutinized
Virginia's soul and must have found it as white as snow. She found out
how old she was, how friendless she was, how--but I rather think not
why--Virginia had run away from Buck Gowdy; and all that could be
learned about me which could be learned without entering into details of
our hiding from the world together all those days alone on the trackless
prairie. That subject she avoided, though of course she must have had
her own ideas about it. And after that, she came and helped me with the
dinner, talking all the time in such a way as to draw me out as to my
past. I told her of my life on the canal--and she looked distrustfully
at me. I told her of my farm, and of how I got it; and that brought out
the story of my long hunt for my mother, and of my finding of her
unmarked grave. Of my relations with Virginia she seemed to want no
information. By the time our dinner was over--one of my plentiful
wholesome meals, with some lettuce and radishes and young onions I had
bought the night before--we were chatting together like old friends.

"That was a better dinner," said the elder, "than we'd have had at Mr.
Smith's."

"But Jacob, here," said grandma, "is not a deacon of the church."

"That doesn't lessen my enjoyment of the dinner," said the elder.

"No," said Grandma Thorndyke dryly, "I suppose not. But now let us talk
seriously. This child"--taking Virginia's hand--"is the gi