alling instead to one of the men standing
outside the door to ask some question about goods which had been
ordered for the next day, and had to be sent down to Seal Cove.

Katherine went to bed in a very mixed frame of mind that night. At
one moment she was sorry that she had not been at home when Mr.
Ferrars came to see her; then, with a quick revulsion of feeling,
she was heartily glad that she had been away, and shrank with very
real reluctance from the thought of the next time she would have to
see him. But that would not be for another week; a good many
things might happen before then, though she did not even guess how
many were going to happen.

In the morning Mary came over to the store very early indeed, and
her face was in a pucker of dissatisfaction and discontent.

"It is so truly horrid of things to fall out like this," she began
vehemently, bursting into the store, where Katherine and Miles were
busy weighing and packing goods which had to be delivered that day.

"How have they fallen out?" asked Katherine with a smile. She was
used to Mary's excitable outbursts, which were usually about
trifles too small for notice; but this was a bigger matter.

"The men came up with the mail yesterday; the delay was owing to a
breakdown on one of the portages, and they had to camp for a whole
week whilst they were repairing their boat. It is very vexing,
coming as it does just now, because we should have known our fate
so much earlier. We have to go back to Montreal for the winter,
and it is so tiresome!" sighed Mary.

"I'm afraid you won't get much pity for your hard fate," laughed
Katherine, with a lightening of heart which made her secretly
ashamed of herself. "I found Montreal very pleasant for winter
quarters, and I only wish it were possible for us to spare Miles to
go for this next winter."

"I don't want to go!" interposed Miles hastily.

"Neither do I, Miles," said Mary; "so we are both in the same boat.
Only the worst of it is I have got to go, whether I like it or not,
because my father will not leave me here without him. Such
nonsense! As if I were not old enough to take care of myself!"

"Which you are not. Remember the tidehole," Katherine remarked, in
a tone of mock solemnity.

"Once bitten, twice shy! No more tideholes for me," Mary answered,
with a shake of her head. Then she went on: "I have brought over
some newspapers for Mr. Radford, but there was no public mail
matter in this