hing in his sensitive face went to her tender heart--"think, David,
dear, we owe him everything we have,--our names, our home, our clothes,
our education, our very lives. We must never for a moment forget that it
was he who found us all alone--you in a cabin on the Wilderness Road and
me in a boat at Duff's Fort--and brought us in his own arms to Cedar
House. And you know as well as I do that he would have given us a home
in his own house if it had not been so rough and bare a place, a mere
camp. And then there was no woman in it to take care of us, and we were
only little mites of babies--poor, crying, helpless morsels of humanity.
Where do you think we came from, David? I wonder and wonder and wonder!"
wistfully, with her gaze on the darkening river.

It was an old question, and one that they had been asking themselves
and one another and every one, over and over, ever since they had been
old enough to think. The short story which Philip Alston had told was
all that he or any one knew or ever was to know. The boy silently shook
his head. The girl went on:--

"Sometimes I am sorry that we couldn't live in his house. You would have
understood him better and have loved him more--as he deserves. It is
only that you don't really know each other," she said gently. "And then
I should like to do something for him--something to cheer him--who does
everything for me. It must be very sad to be alone and old. It grieves
me to see him riding away to that desolate cabin, especially on stormy
nights. But he never will let me come to his house, though I beg and
beg. He says it is too rough, and that too many strange men are coming
and going on business."

"Yes; too many strange men on very strange business."

She did not hear or notice what he said, because the sound of horses'
feet echoing behind them just at that moment caused her to turn her
head. Two horsemen were riding along the river bank, but they were a
long way off and about turning into the forest path as her gaze fell
upon them. She stood still, silently looking after them till they
disappeared among the trees.

"Father Orin and Toby will get home before dark to-night. That is
something uncommon," she said with a smile.

Toby was the priest's horse, but no one ever spoke of the one without
thinking of the other; and then, Toby's was a distinct and widely
recognized personality.

"But who is the stranger with them, David? Oh, I remember! It must be
the new doctor,-