za of the house, in the warm afternoons, and gazing in
delight at the eastern mountain ranges turning rose-pink, and then fading
through shades of purple to dark gray.

"It's a good deal like our life, ma," Reuben said sometimes; "our sun's
pretty low--most down, I reckon; it's all rosy-light, just these days; but
we shall have to lie down in the shadow presently; but it's all beautiful,
beautiful."

Jane did not understand him. She never did. But she loved the sound of his
voice best when he said the things which were too subtle for her.

The two households lived separately as before. The Elder had proposed
their making one family, and Reuben had wistfully seconded it. But Draxy
had firmly said "No."

"I shall be able to do more for you, father dear, if we do not. It will
not seem so at first, but I know I am right," she said, and it was a rare
wisdom in her sweet soul which led to the decision. At first it was very
hard for Reuben to bear, but as the months went on he saw that it was
best.

Draxy's loving, thoughtful care of them never relaxed. The excellent woman
whom she had secured for their servant went for her orders quite as often
to Draxy as to Jane; very few meals were set out for them to which Draxy's
hand had not given the last final touch. She flitted back and forth
between the two homes, equally of both the guardian angel; but the line of
division and separation was just as distinctly drawn as if they had been
under different roofs a mile apart. Two or three times in the week they
dined and took tea together, but the habit never was formed of doing this
on a special day. When Reuben said, "Couldn't ye arrange it so's always to
eat your Sunday dinner with us, Draxy?" she replied:

"Sometimes Sunday dinner; sometimes Thursday; sometimes Saturday, father
dear. If we make it a fixed day, we shall not like it half so well; any of
us. We'll come often enough, you may be sure." And of this, too, Reuben
soon saw the wisdom.

"O Draxy, Draxy, my little girl!" he said one day, when, just after
breakfast, she ran in, exclaiming,--

"Father dear, we're coming to take dinner with you and ma to-day. It's a
surprise party, and the chickens have come first; they're in the kitchen
now!"

"O Draxy, Draxy," he exclaimed, "it's a great deal nicer not to know it
beforehand. How could you be so wise, child?"

Draxy put her arms round his neck and did not speak for a moment. Then she
said, "I don't think it is wisdom