I have wondered how she could be so persistently hopeful
in the face of such evidence as we had."

"And you yourself--how did you feel about it? Would it have made
any difference to you if I had gone under, dear?" he asked, with a
caressing note in his tone that she had never heard there before.

For answer she jerked her head round, staring at the tops of the
pine trees, with the blue sky behind them, but seeing nothing and
heeding nothing save the world of happiness which had suddenly
opened before her astonished eyes.

It seemed a long time before any sound broke the silence save the
regular splash of the oars, then Jervis said quietly: "Are you
quite sure that you are not afraid to marry a poor man, Katherine?"

She looked at him with only a glance, then asked, a trifle
unsteadily: "What do you mean?"

"Well, you might have looked higher, of course. I have told you
how miserably poor my people and I have been. Thanks to Mr.
Selincourt, things are easier with me now; but there is a streak of
modesty in me somewhere, and I have been afraid to ask for what I
wanted," he said, with a certain wistfulness of intonation which
brought Katherine's glance round again.

"You need not have been afraid," she said softly.

"Because why?" he asked, in the tone of one who meant to be
answered.

Katherine looked at the tops of the pine trees again, but, finding
no help there, let her gaze drop to the dancing water, and finally
faltered in a very low voice: "Because love is better than money,
or that sort of thing."

He bent forward until he could look into her downcast face, then
said earnestly: "You mean, then, it makes no difference to you what
my worldly position may chance to be?"

"Of course not; why should it?" she asked, her glance meeting his
now in surprise at his earnestness.

Their progress up river was rather slow after that, and it was
something over an hour later before they reached the second
portage. Astor M'Kree had started for the swan-shooting by that
time, and there was only his delighted wife to scream with joyful
relief at the news, that the Mary was riding safely at anchor in
the river.

"Poor Astor! He has been that down he could scarcely take his
food," said Mrs. M'Kree, wiping away the tears which sheer
happiness had brought into her eyes.

"Get an extra big supper ready for him, then, for I expect you will
find his appetite has come back with a bounce," said Jervis,
laughing. "You