ut the moose is possible, and more, if you would be kinder--Margaret."

"Your supper, see, is ready," she said. "I venture to hope your appetite
has not suffered because of long absence from your friends."

He could only dumbly answer by a protesting motion of the hand, and his
smile was not remarkably buoyant.

The next morning they started on their moose-hunt. Gregory Thorne was
cast down when he crossed the threshold into the winter morning without
hand-clasp or god-speed from Margaret Malbrouck; but Mrs. Malbrouck was
there, and Gregory, looking into her eyes, thought how good a thing it
would be for him, if some such face looked benignly out on him every
morning, before he ventured forth into the deceitful day. But what was
the use of wishing! Margaret evidently did not care. And though the air
was clear and the sun shone brightly, he felt there was a cheerless
wind blowing on him; a wind that chilled him; and he hummed to himself
bitterly a song of the voyageurs:

"O, O, the winter wind, the North wind,
My snow-bird, where art thou gone?
O, O, the wailing wind the night wind,
The cold nest; I am alone.
O, O, my snow-bird!

"O, O, the waving sky, the white sky,
My snow-bird thou fliest far;
O, O, the eagle's cry, the wild cry,
My lost love, my lonely star.
O, O, my snow-bird!"

He was about to start briskly forward to join Malbrouck and his Indians,
who were already on their way, when he heard his name called, and,
turning, he saw Margaret in the doorway, her fingers held to the tips
of her ears, as yet unused to the frost. He ran back to where she
stood, and held out his hand. "I was afraid," he bluntly said, "that you
wouldn't forsake your morning sleep to say good-bye to me."

"It isn't always the custom, is it," she replied, "for ladies to send
the very early hunter away with a tally-ho? But since you have the grace
to be afraid of anything, I can excuse myself to myself for fleeing the
pleasantest dreams to speed you on your warlike path."

At this he brightened very much, but she, as if repenting she had given
him so much pleasure, added: "I wanted to say good-bye to my father, you
know; and--" she paused.

"And"? he added.

"And to tell him that you have fond relatives in the old land who would
mourn your early taking off; and, therefore, to beg him, for their
sakes, to keep you safe from any outrageous moose that