ors, and
there were those who would not 'for the world' have done such a thing,
who sedulously shunned such paths, and had to be much sought after
before they were found. Now it chanced that Helen Johns was seen to row
alone in her uncle's boat right across the very front of the Syndicate
boat-house, at the very hour when the assembled members were eating
roast beef upon the verandah above and arriving at their decisions
concerning her, and she did not look as if she cared in the least
whether twenty-four pair of eyes were bent upon her or not. To be sure,
it was her nearest way home from the post-office across the bay, and the
post came in at this evening hour. No one could find any fault, not even
any of the bachelors, but none the less did the affront sink deep into
their hearts. It added a new zest to the old feud. 'We do not see that
she is beautiful,' they cried over their dinner. 'We should not care for
Helen of Troy if she looked like that.'

The Baby dissented; the Baby actually had the 'cheek' to say, right
there aloud at the banquet, that he might not be a man of taste, but,
for his part, he thought she looked 'the jolliest girl' he had ever
seen. In his heart he meant that he thought she looked like a goddess or
an angel (for the Baby was a reverent youth), but he veiled his real
feeling under this reticent phrase.

One and all they spoke to him, spoke loudly, spoke severely. 'Baby,'
they said, 'if you have any dealings with the niece of Farmer Johns
we'll kick you out of this.'

It was a romantic situation; love has proverbially thriven in the
atmosphere of a family feud. The Baby felt this, but he felt also that
he could not run the risk of being kicked out of the Syndicate. The Baby
did sums in a big hot bank all day; he had no dollars to spare, there
was no other place upon the lake where he could afford to live, and he
had a canoe of his own which his uncle had given him. Hiawatha did not
love the darling of his creation more than the Baby loved his cedar-wood
canoe. All this made him conceal carefully that mysterious sensation of
unrestful delight which he experienced every time he saw Miss Helen
Johns. This, at least, in the first stage of his love-sickness.

Fate was hard; she led the Baby, all cheerful and unsuspecting, to spend
an evening at a picnic tea in a wood a mile or more from the shore.
Mischievous Fate! She led him to flirt frivolously until long after dark
with a girl that he cared no