od-bye, Waboose--farewell all."

With a wave of his hand Macnab tramped on ahead, the sleigh-bells rang
out merrily and the rest of the party followed.

After they had gone a few yards Waboose turned and waved her hand again.
As I looked on her fair face, glowing with health and exercise, her
upright, graceful figure in its picturesque costume and her modest mien,
I felt that two beams of light had shot from her bright blue eyes and
pierced my heart right through and through. It was a double shot--both
barrels, if I may say so--well aimed at the centre of the bull's-eye!

Next moment she was gone--the whole party having dipped over the brow of
a snow-drift.

"An Indian! a half-caste!" I exclaimed in a burst of contempt, going
off over the plain at five miles an hour, "nothing of the sort. A
lady--one of Nature's ladies--born and br---no, not bred; no need for
breeding where genuine purity, gentleness, tenderness, simplicity,
modesty--"

I stuck at this point partly for want of words and partly because my
snow-shoes, catching on a twig, sent my feet into the air and stuck my
head and shoulders deep into a drift of snow. Though my words were
stopped, however, the gush of my enthusiasm flowed steadily on.

"And what can be more worthy of man's admiration and respectful
affection?" I argued, as I recovered my perpendicular, coughed the snow
out of my mouth and nose, and rubbed it out of my eyes; "what more
worthy of true-hearted devotion than this--this--creature of--of light;
this noble child of nature--this _Queen of the Wilderness_?"

I repeated "This Queen of the Wilderness" for a considerable time
afterwards. It seemed to me a happy expression, and I dwelt upon it
with much satisfaction as I sped along, sending the fine snow in clouds
of white dust from my snow-shoes, and striding over the ground at such a
pace that I reached Fort Wichikagan considerably before midnight in
spite of Macnab's prophecy.

I am not naturally prone thus to lay bare the secret workings of my
spirit. You will, therefore, I trust, good reader, regard the
revelation of these things as a special mark of confidence.

On reaching the fort I observed that a bright light streamed from the
hall windows, casting a ruddy glow on the snow-heaps which had been
shovelled up on each side of the footpath in front, and giving, if
possible, a paler and more ghostly aspect to the surrounding scenery.

I went to one of the windows and, imitatin