tself seemed barren and sandy, covered
for the most part with scrub firs and spruces, through which the
narrow road wound on to what was the astonishing; feature in the
landscape--a grey and weather-beaten house built almost at the
extremity of the point and shadowed from the western light by a thick
plantation of tall pines behind it.

It was the house which puzzled Alan. He had never known there was any
house near the lake shore--had never heard mention made of any; yet
here was one, and one which was evidently occupied, for a slender
spiral of smoke was curling upward from it on the chilly spring air.
It could not be a fisherman's dwelling, for it was large and built
after a quaint tasteful design. The longer Alan looked at it the more
his wonder grew. The people living here were in the bounds of his
congregation. How then was it that he had never seen or heard of them?

He sauntered slowly down the road until he saw that it led directly to
the house and ended in the yard. Then he turned off in a narrow path
to the shore. He was not far from the house now and he scanned it
observantly as he went past. The barrens swept almost up to its door
in front but at the side, sheltered from the lake winds by the pines,
was a garden where there was a fine show of gay tulips and golden
daffodils. No living creature was visible and, in spite of the
blossoming geraniums and muslin curtains at the windows and the homely
spiral of smoke, the place had a lonely, almost untenanted, look.

When Alan reached the shore he found that it was of a much more open
and less rocky nature than the part which he had been used to
frequent. The beach was of sand and the scrub barrens dwindled down to
it almost insensibly. To right and left fir-fringed points ran out
into the lake, shaping a little cove with the house in its curve.

Alan walked slowly towards the left headland, intending to follow the
shore around to the other road. As he passed the point he stopped
short in astonishment. The second surprise and mystery of the evening
confronted him.

A little distance away a girl was standing--a girl who turned a
startled face at his unexpected appearance. Alan Douglas had thought
he knew all the girls in Rexton, but this lithe, glorious creature was
a stranger to him. She stood with her hand on the head of a huge,
tawny collie dog; another dog was sitting on his haunches beside her.

She was tall, with a great braid of shining chestnut hair,