ing
fountain. Artlessly she lost herself in the sound of their music, until
she also lost her sense of proportion, of light and shade, of simple,
Christian charity. Her name was Lorena Sears, and she had come in with
one of the late trains of converts, without friends, relatives, or
means, with nothing but her natural gifts and an abiding faith in the
saving powers of the new dispensation. And though she was so alive in
her faith, rarely informed in the Scriptures, bubbling with enthusiasm
for the new covenant, the new Zion, and the second coming of the
Messiah, there had seemed to be no place for her. She had not been asked
in marriage, nor had she found it easy to secure work to support
herself.

"She's strong," said Brigham, to his inquiring Elder, "and a good
worker, but even Brother Heber Kimball wouldn't marry her; and between
you and me, Brother Joel, I never knew Heber to shy before at anything
that would work. You can see that, yourself, by looking over his
household."

But, after the needful preliminaries, and a very little coy hesitation
on the part of the lady, Lorena Sears, spinster, native of Elyria,
Ohio, was duly sealed to, for time and eternity, and became a star
forever in the crown of, Joel Rae, Elder after the Order of Melchisedek
in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and President of the
Amalon Stake of Zion.

In the bustle of the start south there were, of necessity, moments in
which the crown's new star could not talk; but these blessed respites
were at an end when at last they came to the open road.

At first, as her speech flowed on, he looked sidelong at her, in a
trouble of fear and wonder; then, at length, absently, trying to put his
mind elsewhere and to leave her voice as the muted murmur of a distant
torrent. He succeeded fairly well in this, for Lorena combined admirably
in herself the parts of speaker and listener, and was not, he thankfully
noted, watchful of his attention.

But in spite of all he could do, sentences would come to seize upon his
ears: "... No chance at all back there for a good girl with any heart
in her unless she's one of the doll-baby kind, and, thank fortune, I
never was _that_! Now there was Wilbur Watkins--his father was president
of the board of chosen freeholders--Wilbur had a way of saying,
'Lorena's all right--she weighs a hundred and seventy-eight pounds on
the big scales down to the city meatmarket, and it's most of it heart--a
hundred an