"We have been hunting up several of the Boston relatives," said Miss Thatcher, with a kind of winsome smile. "Cousin Giles has been a good directory. We've kept in with so few of them. Father hunted up some of them while he was in the Legislature, but they are so scattered about and many of them dead. Mother was your father's cousin, I believe."
Chilian gave a graceful inclination of the head.
"Elizabeth and Eunice visited us years ago, along after the war when I was first left a widow," explained Mrs. Brent. "Henry went all through it, but was worn out, and died in '88. But I've two nice sons, who are a great comfort. Father was very good to them and me. And they're both promising farmers."
"I tell her that's a good deal to be thankful for," remarked Cousin Giles.
"It is indeed," commented Chilian.
"And I have a lad who is all for study and wants to come in to Harvard. He has been teaching school this winter. His father's quite set against it, and I don't know how it will end. He will be only nineteen in August, and his father thinks he has a hold on him two years longer."
Mrs. Drayton looked up rather appealingly.
"If his mind is made up to that, he will work his way through," said Chilian, and he thought he should like to know the boy.
"You see the next two are girls and they can't help much about a farm. Father really needs him. And I seem to stand between two fires. His teaching term will end in May, but he has planned to take the school next winter. He has made quite a bit of money."
Chilian thought he would be a lad fully worth helping, and made a mental note of it. He liked the mother.