Tea was served, and Mixie was comforted for a short time. After that came games again, until all were weary with play; and Otis Grey begged Mrs. Livingston for a story.
Mixie was tearful still, and she crept shyly to the lady’s side and sobbed forth: “I wish you was my grandma and would take me in your lap.”
Mrs. Livingston stooped and kissed Mixie’s cheek, then lifted her on her knees and began to tell the children a story. It must have been a very pretty picture that the old, blowing snowstorm 178 looked in upon that night, in this very room: twenty or more children seated around the fire-circle, with stately Mrs. Livingston and pretty Aunt Elise in their midst.
Whilst all this was going on within, outside a band of Indians, led by a white man, was approaching Fort Safety to burn it down.
Step by step, the savages crept nearer and nearer, until they were standing in the very light that streamed out from the Christmas windows.
The white man who led them was in the service of the English, and knew every step of the way, and just who lived in the great house.
He ordered them to stand back while he looked in. Creeping closer and closer, he climbed, as Otis Grey had done, and put his face to the window-pane. He saw Mrs. Livingston and Miss Elise, and the great circle of eager, interested faces, all looking at the story-teller, and he wiped his eyes in order to get one more good look, for he could not believe the story they told to him: that his own poor little Mixie was in there, sitting in proud Mrs. Livingston’s lap, looking happier than he had ever seen her. He stayed so long, peering in, that the savages grew impatient. One or two of their chief men crept up and put their swarthy faces beside his own.
It so happened that at that moment Aunt Elise glanced toward the window. She did not scream, she uttered no word; but she fell from her chair to the floor.
