uidance on the following Saturday.

Yan hated to reveal to his sneering, earthy-minded brother all the
joys and sorrows he had found in the Glen, but now that it seemed
compulsory he found keen pleasure in playing the part of the crafty
guide. With unnecessary caution he first led in a wrong direction,
then trying, but failing, to extort another promise of secrecy, he
turned at an angle, pointed to a distant tree, saying with all the
meaning he could put into it: "Ten paces beyond that tree is a trail
that shall lead us into the secret valley." After sundry other
ceremonies of the sort, they were near the inway, when a man came
walking through the bushes. On his shoulders he carried something.
When he came close, Yan saw to his deep disgust that that something
was the Lynx--yes, it surely was _his_ Lynx.

They eagerly plied the man with questions. He told them that he had
killed it the day before, really. It had been prowling for the last
week or more about Kernore's bush; probably it was a straggler from up
north.

This was all intensely fascinating to Yan, but in it was a jarring
note. Evidently this man considered the Glen--his Glen--as an
ordinary, well-known bit of bush, possibly part of his farm--not by
any means the profound mystery that Yan would have had it.

The Lynx was a fine large one. The stripes on its face and the wide
open yellow eyes gave a peculiarly wild, tiger-like expression that
was deeply gratifying to Yan's romantic soul.

It was not so much of an adventure as a might-have-been adventure;
but it left a deep impress on the boy, and it also illustrated the
accuracy of his instincts in identifying creatures that he had never
before seen, but knew only through the slight descriptions of very
unsatisfactory books.

XIV

Froth

From now on to the spring Yan was daily gaining in strength, and he
and his mother came closer together. She tried to take an interest in
the pursuits that were his whole nature. But she also strove hard to
make him take an interest in her world. She was a morbidly religious
woman. Her conversation was bristling with Scripture texts. She had
a vast store of them--indeed, she had them all; and she used them on
every occasion possible and impossible, with bewildering efficiency.

If ever she saw a group of young people dancing, romping, playing any
game, or even laughing heartily, she would interrupt them to say,
"Children, are you sure you can ask God's bless