e, while the twins
played round him, building houses of fir cones, and laying out
gardens in patterns of pine needles.

"Why, Father, it is pleasant to see you out-of-doors again, and I
am sure the air will do you good!" Katherine exclaimed in pleased
surprise, as she came down the portage path, laden with a great
reed basket filled with ptarmigan eggs.

"Katherine, I have had such a nice morning!" he said with childish
eagerness. "Mr. Selincourt has been to see me, and I like him so
very much."

Katherine nearly dropped her basket of eggs, being so much
astonished; then, pulling herself together with an effort, she
managed to say in a natural tone, although her face was rather
white: "I am glad you liked him. Did he stay long?"

"Yes, ever so long, and he is coming again soon. He thinks of
settling here, and building a house. I am so glad, for I think I
never met a man whom I liked better," he replied.

"Then it is lucky that I pulled him out of the mud," put in Phil,
who was very much disposed to swagger about his share in rescuing
Mr. Selincourt. "But if he'd been a disagreeable animal, I might
have been sorry that I had not left him there."

Katherine stood in a dumb amazement at the miracle which had been
wrought. All these months she had been dreading the coming of Mr.
Selincourt, because of its effect upon her father, and behold, it
was the one thing which had brought him happiness!

"Did you pull him out of the mud? What mud?" asked 'Duke Radford
in an interested tone, whereupon Phil promptly dropped the bundle
he was carrying and launched into a detailed account of the rescue
of Mr. Selincourt from the muskeg.

But Katherine went on to the store with her head in a whirl; almost
she was disposed to believe that dark story from her father's past
to be only a dream, or some conjured-up vision of a diseased
fancy--almost, but not quite. Only too well she knew that it was
the dread of Mr. Selincourt's coming which had induced her father's
stroke, and now--well, it was just the irony of fate, that what had
been so terrible in perspective should bring such pleasure in
reality.

Jervis Ferrars came in quite early that evening, and suggested that
Katherine should go with him to Ochre Lake, as he had some business
at the Indian encampment, and wanted a companion.

"But I have been to Ochre Lake once to-day; Phil and I went this
morning. I brought home a hundred eggs in one basket, and had to
carry