ith a detaining grasp:

"She might eat you all up, father!"

"Boy, what are you saying?"

"She isn't like the picture in my story-book of the heathen that lived
in India, and all the people worshipped, that was named a god, One
told me when I asked him; but I guess heathens can change like
fairies; and, please don't go, father, don't!"

"Nonsense, Four. What trash are you talking? It is you who are the
heathen now."

"I, father? _I!_"

In horror of a possible change in his person, the child began to feel
of his plump face and pinch his fat body. He even imagined he was
stiffening all over. Suddenly, he drew his wide mouth into a grotesque
imitation of the engraving as he remembered it, planting his feet
firmly and setting up a tragic wail.

"I'm not like him. I won't be. I won't, I won't, I won't!"

Kitty understood nothing but the evident distress, which she attempted
to soothe and merely aggravated.

"Get away! Don't you touch me! You go away home and sit on a table
with your legs all crooked up--so; and stop playing you're a regular
girl. Leave go my father's hand, I say!"

Then One came to the rescue. As soon as he could stop laughing, he
explained the situation to the others, and though the incident seemed
a trivial one to the younger people to the good Doctor it was weighty
with reproach for the ignorance he had permitted in his own household.
It also had its far-reaching results; for it led him to observe the
Sun Maid critically, and, when he had heard her simple story, to ask
out of the fulness of his own big heart:

"Will you come and share our home with us, my daughter? Surely, you
have much good sense and many wonderful gifts. The Lord has thrown us
into one another's company, and I believe you can, in large measure,
take their mother's place to these sons of mine. Will you come and
live in our home, dear Sun Maid?"

"Indeed, I will! And love you for letting me!" cried the grateful
girl, catching the Doctor's hand and kissing it reverently.

But it did not occur to either of these innocents that there was, at
that time, no home existing for them.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE SHUT AND THE OPEN DOOR.

"They are all unfitted to take care of themselves, though the girl has
the best sense of the lot. The Fort is always overfull. They would be
happier by themselves, and it will be a blessing to have such a good
man among us. Let us build them a log cabin and instal them in it."

Such was the Fo