After that
came games again, until all were weary with play; and Otis Grey begged
Mrs. Livingston for a story.

Mixie was tearful still, and she crept shyly to the lady's side and
sobbed forth: "I wish you was my grandma and would take me in your
lap."

Mrs. Livingston stooped and kissed Mixie's cheek, then lifted her on
her knees and began to tell the children a story. It must have been a
very pretty picture that the old, blowing snowstorm looked in upon
that night, in this very room: twenty or more children seated around
the fire-circle, with stately Mrs. Livingston and pretty Aunt Elise in
their midst.

Whilst all this was going on within, outside a band of Indians, led by
a white man, was approaching Fort Safety to burn it down.

Step by step, the savages crept nearer and nearer, until they were
standing in the very light that streamed out from the Christmas
windows.

The white man who led them was in the service of the English, and knew
every step of the way, and just who lived in the great house.

He ordered them to stand back while he looked in. Creeping closer and
closer, he climbed, as Otis Grey had done, and put his face to the
window-pane. He saw Mrs. Livingston and Miss Elise, and the great
circle of eager, interested faces, all looking at the story-teller,
and he wiped his eyes in order to get one more good look, for he could
not believe the story they told to him: that his own poor little Mixie
was in there, sitting in proud Mrs. Livingston's lap, looking happier
than he had ever seen her. He stayed so long, peering in, that the
savages grew impatient. One or two of their chief men crept up and put
their swarthy faces beside his own.

It so happened that at that moment Aunt Elise glanced toward the
window. She did not scream, she uttered no word; but she fell from her
chair to the floor.

[Illustration: "His own poor little Mixie was there, sitting in proud
Mrs. Livingston's lap."]

Mixie's father, for it was he who led the savages, saw what was
happening within, and ordered the Indians to march away and leave the
big house unhurt. They grunted and grumbled, and refused to go until
they had been told that the little girl on the lady's knee was his
little girl.

"He not going to burn his own papoose," explained the Indian chief to
his red men; and then the evil band went groping away through the
storm.

The story to the children was not finished that night, for on the
floor lay pretty Aunt