The Reverend had returned to Southern Illinois, and when I entered the house the rest of the family appeared to have been holding a consultation in the kitchen, which they had, as Orlean informed me later, with Orlean standing poutingly to one side. She commenced telling me what she was not going to do, but I went directly to her, and gathered her in my arms, with her making a slight resistance but soon succumbing. I looked down at her still pouting face and remonstrated teasingly. Ethel broke in, her voice resembling a scream, protesting against such boldness on my part, saying: "Orlean doesn't want you and she isn't going to go onto your old farm". Here Orlean silenced her saying that she would attend to that herself, and took me to the front part of the house, with her mother tagging after us in a sort of half-stupor and apparently not knowing what to do. We sat down on the davenport where she began giving me a lecture and declaring what she was not going to do. Her mother interposed something that angered me, though I do not now recall what it was, and a look of dissatisfaction came into my face which Orlean observed. "Don't you scold mama," she finished. "Now, do you hear?" "Yes, dear," I answered, meekly, with my arm around her waist and my face hidden behind her shoulder. "Anything more?" "Well, well." She appeared at a loss to know what further to say or how to proceed. Ethel remarked afterward to her mother that Orlean had not been near me a half hour until she was listening to everything I said. She finally succeeded in getting off to work after commanding me to free her as she wanted to get away to think. Her mother bristled up with an, "I'll talk to you." This was entirely to my liking. I loved her mother as well as my own and had no fear that we would not soon agree, and we did. She couldn't be serious with me very long. She persisted in saying, however: "I want my husband to know you are here and to know all about this. You must not expect to run in and get his daughter just like something wild, nor you just must not!" "All right, mother," I assented. "But I must hurry back to Dakota, you know, for I can't lose so much time this time of year." "You're the worst man I ever saw for always being in a hurry. I--I'll--well, I do declare!" And she bustled off to the kitchen with me following and talking. "Oh, can't I get away from you? This is just awful, Mr. Devereaux." "Don't you like the name?" I put in winningly and cutting off her discourse, and in spite of her attempt at seriousness she smiled. "It is a beautiful name," she admitted, looking at me slyly out of her small black eyes. She was part Indian, just a trifle, but sufficient to give her black eyes instead of brown, as most colored people have, and she had long black hair.