Mrs. Huzzard had surely expected of Lavina a much more gracious reception. But Mrs. Huzzard was a bit of a philosopher, and if Lavina chose to be somewhat cold and unresponsive to the presence of a cultured gentleman, well, it gave Lorena Jane so much better chance, and she was not going to slight it. "Come right in; you must be dead tired," she said, cordially. "Mr. Max, you'll let Dan know he's here, won't you--that is, when he does show up again, but no one knows how long that will be." "Yes, I am tired," agreed the captain, meekly, and not quite at his ease with the speculative eyes of Miss Slocum on him. "I--I brought up a few letters that arrived at the Ferry. I can't make up my mind to trust mail with these Indian boatmen Dan employs." "They are a trial," agreed Mrs. Huzzard, "though they haven't the bad effect on our nerves that one or two of the camp Indians have--an awful squaw, who helps around, and an ugly old man, who only smokes and looks horrible. Now, Lavina--she ain't used to no such, and she just shivers at them." "Yes--ah--yes," murmured the captain. "Lavina says she knew folks of your name back in Ohio," continued Mrs. Huzzard, cheerfully, in order to get the two strangers better acquainted. "I thought at first maybe you'd turn out to know each other; but she says they was Democrats," and she turned a sharp glance toward him, as if to read his political tendencies. "No, I never knew any Captain Leek," said Miss Slocum, "and the ones I knew hadn't any one in the Union Army. Their principles, if they had any, were against it, and there wasn't a Republican in the family." "Then, of course, that would settle Captain Leek belonging to them," decided Mrs. Huzzard, promptly. "I don't know much about politics, but as all our men folks wore the blue clothes, and fought in them, I was always glad I come from a Republican State. And I guess all the Republicans that carried guns against the Union could be counted without much arithmetic." "I--I think I will go and look for Dan myself," observed the captain, rising and looking around a little uncertainly at Miss Slocum. "I brought some letters he may want." He made his bow and placed the picturesque corded hat on his head as he went out. But Mrs. Huzzard looked after him somewhat anxiously. "He's sick," she decided as he vanished from her view; "I never did see him walk so draggy like. And don't you judge his manners, either, Lavina, from this first sight of him, for he ain't himself to-day." "He didn't look to me as though he knew who he was," remarked Lavina; and after a little she looked up from the tidy she was knitting. "So, Lorena Jane, that is the man you've been trying to educate yourself up to more than for anybody else--now, tell the truth!" "Well, I don't mind saying that it was his good manners made me see how bad mine were," she confessed; "but as for training for him--" "I see," said Miss Lavina, grimly, "and it is all right; but I just thought I'd ask."