After a habit familiar to him the latter opened his lips to reprove but, fortunately, refrained, as he discovered a tall, stoop-shouldered man crossing the parade-ground. This gentleman seemed oddly out of place amid that company of immigrants and soldiers. Student and bookworm was written all over his fine, intellectual countenance, and his eyes had that absent expression that had made the commandant's wife call him a "dreamer." His bearing impressed the Sun Maid with reverent awe; a feeling apparently not shared by his sons. For Three ran to him and shook him violently, to secure attention, as he eagerly exclaimed: "Oh, father! We've found one of 'em already! A heathen. Or, any way, a heatheny sort of a girl, but not Indian. She doesn't know how to read, and she hasn't any Bible. Come and give her one and teach her quick!" "Eh? What? A heathen? My child, where?" "Right there with my brothers. That yellow-headed girl. She's nice. Are all the heathen as pretty as she is?" "My son, that young person? Surely, you are mistaken. She must be the daughter of some resident at the Fort, or of some traveller like ourselves." "I don't believe she is. She's been taking care of herself all day. I haven't heard anybody tell her 'Don't' once. If she belonged to folk they'd do it wouldn't they?" "Very likely. Parents have to discipline their young. Don't drag me so. I'm walking fast enough." "That's what I say, father. 'Don't' shows I belong to you. But I do wish you'd come. She might get away before you could catch her." "Catch her, Three? I don't understand." "I know it. My mother used to say you never did understand plain every-day things. That's why she had to take care of you the same as us. Oh! I wish we'd never come to this horrid place." The reference to his wife and the child's grief roused the clergyman more completely than even an appeal for the heathen. Laying his thin hand tenderly upon the small rumpled head, he stroked it as he answered: "In my flesh I echo that wish, laddie; but in my spirit I am resigned to whatever the Lord sends. If there is a heathen here, there is His work to do, and in that I can forget my own distress. I will walk faster if you wish." The other small Littlejohns, with Kitty, now joined their father and Three, the girl regarding him with some curiosity, for he was of a stamp quite different from any person she had ever seen. But he won her instant love as, holding out his hands in welcome, he exclaimed: "Why, my daughter! Surely the lads were jesting. You look neither ignorant nor heathen, and in personal gifts the Lord has been most kind to you." "Has He? But I am rather lonely now." "And so am I. Therefore, we will be the better friends. Why, sons, this is just what we need to make our group complete. Maybe, lassie, your parents will spare you to us, now and then."