ife was cast.

"It is pretty bad anyhow," he growled, a frown coming over his
face. He was a fairly patient man, all things considered, but his
domestic tribulations were greater than anyone knew or even guessed
at.

Katherine turned an anxious eye towards the sky before going in at
the house door. If she could start back in anything under a
quarter of an hour she might hope to go as she had come, with not
much extra labour nor fatigue; but an hour or perhaps an hour and a
half hence it would be very different. The storm was coming
slowly, but when rough weather came like that it had a trick of
lasting sometimes for several days. However, if the worst came to
the worst, she could always skirt the shore, and, consoling herself
with this thought, she entered the house, leaving M'Crawney and
Phil to unload the pelts and bring them up from the boat.

The miserable, neglected look of the house struck Katherine first.
Peter was not great at housework, while the half-breed, Simon, who
lived with them, helped with the trapping in winter, and did a
little of all sorts of work, was rather less clean and tidy in his
ways than even Peter. The sight of the dusty, ill-kept room
irritated Katherine. Last night's supper dishes still littered the
table, and had probably served for breakfast dishes as well. What
was the use of wasting her time in trying to console a woman who so
neglected her home, and the privileges of home-making that came
with it? For a few minutes she felt disposed to turn back with
only a five minutes' civil talk. But there was one's duty to one's
neighbour--and that is a more important duty in isolated places
than in more crowded centres.

Then an idea flashed into her mind. If by any means she could
contrive to make Mrs. M'Crawney ashamed of herself, it might be
more useful than medicine, might even work a cure, in fact; and
that would be something worth doing, even though it entailed
skirting the shore all the way home. To think was to act.
Whisking off her coat and hat, she rolled up her sleeves, and for
want of an apron pinned a big towel round her; a very dirty towel
it was too, but something she must have to protect her frock, and
it had to be the towel or nothing.

First, with plenty of noise and clatter, she piled the dirty
crockery ready for washing, and, filling the stove with wood, set a
kettle of water on to get hot. This done, she flung door and
window wide, and proceeded to sweep t