rday."

And with two or three strong strokes of the paddle he sent the canoe
round a cape of lily-pads, into the mouth of a smaller creek which here
came, almost unobserved, into the larger one. It was a stream narrow but
deep, which took them into the forest. Here they floated over
reflections so perfect of the trees draped in silver moss on shore that
it was hard to tell where reality ended and the picture began. Great
turtles swam along down below, water-moccasins slipped noiselessly into
the amber depths from the roots of the trees as the canoe drew near;
alligators began to show themselves more freely; the boat floated
noiselessly over one huge fellow fifteen feet long.

Lanse was aroused. "I tell you, old lad, this isn't bad," he said.

"I don't care about it," Winthrop answered; "it's sensational."

Over this remark Lanse indulged in a retrospective grin. "Old!" he said.
"You've been getting that off ever since you were twenty. Who was it
that called Niagara 'violent?' The joke is that, at heart, you yourself
are the most violent creature I know."

"Oh--talk about hearts!" said Winthrop.

The trees now began to meet overhead; when their branches interlaced so
that the shade was complete, Lanse tied the boat-rope to a bough,
stretched himself out in his end of the boat, lit a cigarette, and
looked at his companion. "Now for the story," he said. "I tell you
because I want your help; I am sure that Margaret has the highest
opinion of you."

"She has none at all. She detests me."

"No!" said Lanse, using the word as an exclamation. "How comes that? You
must have been very savage to her?"

"I have always been against her about you."

"Has Aunt Katrina been savage too?"

"She has given her a home, at any rate."

"And a pretty one it must have been, if she has looked, while about it,
as you look now," Lanse commented.

"Never mind my looks. I don't know that your own are any better. What
have you to say?"

"One thing more, first. How much has Margaret told?"

"Nothing. That is, nothing to me."

"I meant Aunt K."

"How should I know?" said Winthrop, shortly. Then he made himself speak
with more truth. "Aunt Katrina complains that Margaret has never said a
word."

"Yet you've all been disapproving of her all this time! Now I call that
a specimen of the fixed injustice so common among nice people," said
Lanse, musingly. He was sorry for the nice people.

"Before you criticise, let us see how well _