untry messes,
Which neat-handed Phyllis dresses'?"

"_Have_ you all the books in the world in your head?"--said Faith,
laughing her own little laugh roundly. "How plain it is Mr. Linden has
nothing to do to-day!--Would you like to help me to gather some sticks
for a fire, sir? I think you had better have something on your hands."

"Do you?" he said lifting her out of the boat in his curiously quick,
strong, light way,--"that was something on my hands--not much. What
next?--do you say we are to play Ferdinand and Miranda?"

Faith's eye for an instant looked its old look, of grave, intelligent,
doubtful questioning: but then she came back to Kildeer river.

"I haven't played that play yet," she said gaily; "but if you'll help
me find some dry sticks--your reward shall be that you shall not have
what you don't like! I can make a fire nicely here, Endecott; on this
rock."

"Then it was not about them you were reading in that focus of sunbeams?"

"What?--" she said, looking.

"Once upon a time--" Mr. Linden said smiling,--"when you and Shakspeare
got lost in the sunlight, and wandered about without in the least
knowing where you were."

"When, Endecott?"

"Leave that point," he said,--"I want to tell you about the story.
Ferdinand, whom I represent, was a prince cast away upon a desert
shore--which shore was inhabited by the princess Miranda, whom you
represent. Naturally enough, in the course of time, they came to think
of each other much as we do--perhaps 'a little more so' on the part of
Miranda. But then Miranda's father set Ferdinand to carrying wood,--as
you--acting conscientiously for Mrs. Derrick--do me."

"I wonder if I ever shall understand you!" exclaimed Faith desperately,
as her laugh again broke upon the sweet air that floated in from the
Mong. "What has my conscience, or Mrs. Derrick, to do with our lunch
fire? Why was the other prince set to carrying wood?"

"For the same reason that I am!" said Mr. Linden raising his eyebrows.
"To prove his affection for Miranda."

How Faith laughed.

"You are mistaken--O how mistaken you are!" she exclaimed. "It shews
that though you know books, you don't know everything."

And running away with her own armful of sticks and leaves, back to the
rock spoken of near where the vessel lay, Faith was stopped and
relieved of her load, with such an earnest--

"'No, precious creature,
I'd rather crack my sinews, break my back,
Than you should such d