The Oddsons were certainly a happy family though not by any means a harmonious one. The excellent pastor, who was himself neutrally good, orthodox, and kind-hearted, had often, in the privacy of his own thought, wondered what hidden ancestral influences there might have been at work in giving a man so peaceable and inoffensive as himself two daughters of such strongly defined individuality. There was Augusta, the elder, who was what Arnfinn called "indiscriminately reformatory," and had a universal desire to improve everything, from the Government down to agricultural implements and preserve jars. As long as she was content to expend the surplus energy, which seemed to accumulate within her through the long eventless winters, upon the Zulu Mission, and other legitimate objects, the pastor thought it all harmless enough; although, to be sure, her enthusiasm for those naked and howling savages did at times strike him as being somewhat extravagant. But when occasionally, in her own innocent way, she put both his patience and his orthodoxy to the test by her exceedingly puzzling questions, then he could not, in the depth of his heart, restrain the wish that she might have been more like other young girls, and less ardently solicitous about the fate of her kind. Affectionate and indulgent, however, as the pastor was, he would often, in the next moment, do penance for his unregenerate thought, and thank God for having made her so fair to behold, so pure, and so noble-hearted.

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