d dropped it.

"It's the first time he's ever tried such a thing in his life," Bella
remarked. "There's nothing like personal experience. You don't realize
that it isn't easy when you give a porter sixpence to lift your biggest
trunk at a station."

"The difference is that the porter's used to it," Carew, who was
red-faced and breathless, pointed out.

"It looks as if that would apply to you before we've finished," Bella
retorted. "If you can't do anything else, why don't you help those men in
the river?"

Carew made a gesture of resignation and resolutely plunged in.

"That," laughed Bella, to Millicent and Miss Hume, "is excellent
discipline; after a little of it, I believe he'll do me credit. I can
think of a few overfed men that I'd like to put through a drastic course
of it, only in their case I'd go in the canoe and take my heaviest
luggage with me."

"It wouldn't be wise," asserted Millicent. "When they reached broken
water they'd probably let you go."

She collected an armful of odds and ends and set off up-stream over the
portage. The men spent several hours bringing the canoes and stores
across, and there followed some laborious poling before they reached the
second rapid, which was safely passed. The party was quieter than usual
after supper that night. They had had their first glimpse of the
strenuous life of the wilderness and it had impressed them. The effect
passed off, however, as they pushed on day after day without mishap.
Millicent, in particular, delighted in all she saw--the fresh green of
the birches among the somber cedars, the lonely heights that ever
surrounded them, the gleaming lakes, the broad green flood that here and
there filled the gorges with its thunder.

She suffered no discomfort she could not laugh at; there was something
that braced her in mind and body in the mountain air; and Clarence no
longer held a leading place in her memory. She realized now that the
thought of him had hitherto occasioned her a vague uneasiness. Indeed,
she was almost glad that he was far away; liberty was unexpectedly sweet,
and though she had a few misgivings, she meant to enjoy it while it
lasted.

Then one afternoon when they were stopped by a fall, she slipped away
from the others with her sketch-book, and wandering back through
straggling bush, climbed a rocky ridge. The ascent was steep, but by
clambering up a gully she reached the summit, and after strolling along
it she sat down to sketch