at her as if he,
too, wanted to cry.

Worth was the self-possessed member of the party. "Hello there," he said;
"it's been a long time since we saw you, ain't it?"

"It seems to me to have been a--yes, a long time," replied the man who
mended the boats, never taking his eyes from Katie.

Saying nothing more, he pulled in her boat, secured it. Held out his hand
to help her out--forgot to let go the hand when her feet were upon firm
earth. Acted, Worth thought, as though he thought somebody was going to
_hurt_ her.

A steamboat was coming down the river. And Worth!--a much interested
Worth. The man who mended the boats did not seem to find his
surroundings all he could ask.

"I want to show you this island," he began. "It's really quite a
remarkable island. You know, I've been _wanting_ to show it to you.
There's a stone over here--quite--quite an astonishing stone. And a
flower. Queer. Really an astounding flower. I don't believe you ever saw
one like it."

"Pooh!" said Worth, starting on ahead. "I bet _I've_ seen one like it."

"Say--I'll tell you what I'll bet _you_. I'll bet you two dollars and a
quarter you can't get that raft done before we get back!"

"Well I'll just bet _you_ two dollars and a _half_ that I _can_!"

"It's a go!"--and Aunt Kate and the man who mended the boats were off to
find the astonishing stone and the astounding flower, Worth calling after
them: "Now you try to keep him, Aunt Kate. Keep him as long as you can."

It was after she had succeeded in keeping him long enough for
considerable headway to have been made in raft-construction that he
exclaimed: "Katie, will you do something for me?"

Her eyes were asking what there could be that she would not do for him.

"Then _laugh,_ Katie. Oh if you could know how I've longed to hear you
_laugh_ again."

She did laugh, but a sob overtook the laugh. Then laughed again and ran
away from the sob. But the laugh was sweeter for the sob.

"You _will_ laugh, Katie, won't you?" he asked with an anxiety that
touched deep things.

"Why there'll be days and days when I shan't do anything else!" Then her
laughing eyes grew serious. "Though just a little differently, I think.
I've heard the world sobbing, you know."

"But a world that is sobbing needs Katie's laughing." He drew her to him
with something not unlike a sob. "I need it, I know."

There was a wonderful sense of saving herself in knowing again that the
world was sobbing. What she c