"Yes, yes; what? Mercy, Mercy Smith, hold your tongue! Don't you know folks can't bawl in a settlement as they do in the backwoods? What ails you? I'm coming as fast as a man in reason can. Hey? Kitty? Well, why didn't you say so? Where? Out front? My--land! Well, well, well! It ain't--it can't be--it is! Well, Kitty girl, you beat the Dutch!" The young horsewoman rode up to the front door of her house, and paused to let her old friends admire her to their satisfaction. But their admiration aroused neither surprise nor vanity in her simple, straightforward mind. Years before, the old clergyman had said to her, upon their first meeting, that the Lord had been very good to her in giving her a beauty so remarkable and impressive; and under his wise instruction she had accepted the fact as she did all the others of her life. Only she had striven to keep her soul always worthy of the glorious form in which it was housed and to use all her gifts and graces for good. So she stood a while, letting the honest couple inspect and comment, and finally answering Abel's curiosity, in honest modesty. "Why am I so dressed up? Because I have a mission to perform, and I need to make myself as beautiful as possible." "Kit--ty Bris--coe! I've read in my red Bible that 'favor is deceitful and beauty is vain.' I'm amazed at you. Livin' with a minister, too. Well, _he_ can't preach to _me_. I'd despise to set under him." Abel's eyes twinkled, but the gravity of the Sun Maid's face did not lessen. She explained gently, yet with unshaken decision, that her self-adornment was right, and gave her reasons. "You will remember, dears, that I am a 'Daughter of the Pottawatomies.' They believe that I have supernatural gifts, and that I am a spirit living in a human form." "And you let 'em, Kit, you let 'em?" "I couldn't prevent it if I tried. And I do not try. That idea of theirs is far too powerful a factor for good. Even Wahneenah, who knows better and is to me as a real mother, even she treats me a little more deferentially when I attire myself like this." "Put on your war paint, eh?"