difference between it and all the others, which Draxy felt without knowing
that she felt it, and her last words to her father as she bade him good-by
from the car window were: "I don't feel so sure as I did about our staying
with Mr. Kinney, father. You leave it all to me, do you, dear, even if I
decide to buy a house?"

"Yes, daughter," said Reuben, heartily; "all! Nothing but good's ever come
yet of your way o' doin' things."

"An' I don't in the least hanker after that Injun," he called out as the
cars began to move. Draxy laughed merrily. Reuben was a new man already.
They were very gay together, and felt wonderfully little fear for people
to whom life had been thus far so hard.

There was not a misgiving in Draxy's heart as she set out again on a two
days' journey to an unknown place. "Oh how different from the day when I
started before," she thought as she looked out on the water sparkling
under the bright May sun. 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. "They are grander
than the sea," thought she, "and I never dreamed it; and they are loving,
too. I should like to rest my cheek on them."

As she drew nearer and nearer, and saw some tops still white with snow,
her heart beat faster, and with a sudden pang almost of
conscience-stricken remorse, she exclaimed, "Oh, I shall never, never once
miss the sea!"

Elder Kinney had borrowed Eben Hill's horse and wagon to drive over for
Draxy. He was at the station half an hour before the train was due. It had
been years since the steady currents of his life had been so disturbed and
hurried as they were by this little girl.

"Looks like rain, Elder; I 'spect she'll have to go over with me arter
all," said George Thayer, the handsomest, best-natured stage-driver in the
whole State of New Hampshire. The Elder glanced anxiously at the sky.

"No, I guess not, George," he replied. "'Twon't be anything more'n a
shower, an' I've got an umbrella and a buffalo-robe. I can keep her dry."

Everybody at the station knew Draxy's story, and knew that the Elder had
come to meet her. When the train stopped, all eyes eagerly scanned the
passengers who stepped