"I want to work among
the Indians, to help in Christianizing them, to--oh! just to help."
"But Mr. Evans is so _old_," reiterated Lydia.
"Only thirty," answered the sister; "and he is such a splendid
missionary, dear."
Love? No one talked of love in that household except the
contradictory father, who continually talked of the love of God,
but forgot to reflect that love towards his own children.
Human love was considered a non-essential in that family.
Beautiful-spirited Elizabeth had hardly heard the word. Even Mr.
Evans had not made use of it. He had selected her as his wife more
for her loveliness of character than from any personal attraction,
and she in her untaught womanhood married him, more for the reason
that she desired to be a laborer in Christ's vineyard than because
of any wish to be the wife of this one man.
But after the marriage ceremony, this gentle girl looked boldly
into her father's eyes and said:
"I am going to take Liddy with me into the wilds of Canada."
"Well, well, well!" said her father, English-fashion. "If she wants
to go, she may."
Go? The child fairly clung to the fingers of this saviour-sister--the
poor little, inexperienced, seventeen-year-old bride who was giving
up her youth and her girlhood to lay it all upon the shrine of
endeavour to bring the radiance of the Star that shone above
Bethlehem to reflect its glories upon a forest-bred people of the
North!
It was a long, strange journey that the bride and her little sister
took.
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