building castles in the air. Let Peggy and
Phil alone!"

"I should think there were!" said Willy. "That's just what I was saying,
Toots; it's nothing but spooning, all over the place. There's no fun
anywhere; this wretched love-making spoils everything. _I_ think it's
perfectly childish."

"Do you, Willy dear?" said his sister; and her smile was very sweet as
she laid her hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Yes, I do. Here are the white perch rising like a house afire, and I
can't get a soul to go with me. It was just the same yesterday, and it's
like that almost every day now."

"Oh, Willy! I'll go with you," cried Kitty, eagerly. "Why didn't you
tell me the perch were rising? Let's come right along this minute. Toots
will help us with the boat, won't you, Toots?"

"Yes, I'll help!" said the Snowy Owl.

Ten minutes later the white boat was speeding on her way to the
fishing-ground, the little rowers bending to their oars, chattering
merrily as they went.

"That's one comfort!" Willy was saying. "We've got Toots. Nobody will
get her away from us."

"I should hope not," said Kitty. "There's nobody good enough, in the
first place; and besides, of course somebody must stay with Papa and
Mamma."

"I suppose you will be grown up yourself some day!" said Willy, gruffly.

"I shall be likely to marry very young," said Kitty, seriously. "I heard
Aunt Anna say so."

Gertrude stood on the wharf, looking after the retreating boat. "Poor
Willy!" she said, with a smile; "it _is_ hard on him!"

She looked around her. It was afternoon, a still, golden day. The lake
was as she loved best to see it, a sheet of living crystal, here deep
blue, here glittering in gold and diamonds, here giving back shades of
crimson and russet from the autumn woods that crowded down to the
water's edge. Far out, her eye caught a white flash, the gleam of a
paddle; there was another, just at the bend of the shore; and was that
dark spot the prow of a third canoe, moored in the fairy cove of Birch
Island? Gertrude smiled again, and her smile said many things.

Presently she raised her arms above her head, and brought them down
slowly, with a powerful gesture. "How good it would be to fly!" she
said, dreamily. "To fly away up to the iceberg country, where the snowy
owls live!"

She stood for a long time silent, gazing out over the shining water. At
last she shook herself with a little laugh, and turned away. The white
canoe, her own especial pet,