by those frail little cabins built by their own
hands on the edge of the snow-filled gulch, that a new life had
blossomed for them suddenly--a perfect spring in winter. The girl's
wonderful health and unfailing spirits were in themselves a delight, and
she was possessed of such a sweet and even temper, that it seemed to
smooth out and round off the hard edges of their rough, comfortless
existence. Nothing seemed to have the power to disturb her, the most
irritating and annoying incident never even brought a frown to her face;
it filled her with consternation for the men, and an immediate desire to
smooth it over for them, if possible to prevent their being ruffled by
it. For herself, she seemed above the reach of any circumstance to
disconcert. One morning the men had an instance of this. They were all
three living together in Stephen's cabin now. That is to say, Talbot
took all his meals there, and used it as his own home in every way,
except that he still went back to his cabin to sleep. It had seemed
cheerless to both Katrine and Stephen for Talbot to be eating alone a
few yards from them, and though it gave the girl more work, and for that
reason Talbot was slow to accept the arrangement, she herself coaxed him
into it. They came in late from the claims to lunch, and found her
bending over the fire, with flushed cheeks and happy eyes. She was
stirring a great saucepan of inviting looking and smelling stew, that
she had spent the whole morning in preparing. The large handle of the
pan projected from the stove some distance, and as Stephen threw off his
overcoat he managed in some way to tip up the saucepan with a sudden
jerk that sent the contents half into the fire, half over the girl's
bare arm, from which her sleeve was rolled to the elbow. She did not
utter a sound as the scalding liquid ran burning over her flesh, but
Talbot saw her face grow deadly pale with the sickening pain. After a
second of agony, when she found her voice, and Stephen was remorsefully
spreading fat over the blistered, cracking flesh, the first thing she
said, with her eyes full of disappointed tears, was, "Oh dear! how
unlucky! Now you won't get anything hot for lunch." And as soon as a
bandage was twisted round her scalded arm, she was over at the cupboard
collecting all the best of her cold supplies and laying them out on the
table.

There was not a word of anger or reproof to Stephen for his
carelessness, not a word of her own pain. Th