[Illustration:  Drifting down the river.]

“What a difference things make in one’s outlook!” she exclaimed.

“What things?” he demanded.

“I was thinking of when I let the boat drift down this afternoon,” she said.  “The pine trees looked so gloomy then, and those great, black spruces yonder on the bank made me think of the decorations on funeral hearses years and years ago, the sort of thing one sees only in pictures; but now——­”

“What do they let you think of now?” he asked, holding her hand in a tighter clasp, as the boat swept slowly past the funereal spruces.

“Oh! they make me think of the ornamental grounds in Montreal, or of the Swiss mountains which I see in visions when I dream I am ‘doing Europe’, as the Yankees say,” and she laughed happily at her wild flights of fancy.

“Would you like to do Europe—­after we are married?” he asked, a gravity coming into his tone that she could not understand.

“Why worry about the impossible?” she said gently.  “Books are cheap, if travel is not, and we will do our European travel sitting by a winter fire.”

“It might be possible some day; one never knows quite how things may turn out,” he said gravely.  Then he asked:  “Did anyone tell you that I came up river to see you that afternoon before we sailed for the Twins?”

“Yes,” she answered, flushing as she remembered how much his visit and its purpose had been in her mind during those days of keen anxiety.

“I came then to ask you the question I asked just now,” he said slowly.  “It has been in my heart to ask it ever since that day you helped me across the ice, saving my life at the risk of your own.  But I had my mother to support then, in part, and the burden on me was too heavy for me to dare to put my personal happiness first.  There was a letter for me in Mr. Selincourt’s belated mail, however, that changed my outlook pretty considerably, and left me free to do as I liked; so I came to you directly.”

“Do you mean——?” began Katherine, then stopped in some confusion.

“Do I mean that I have only myself to keep now, were you going to ask?” he said, laughing as he shifted his seat and took up the oars to bring the boat in to the mooring post under the boathouse; “because that is just what I do mean.  I have only myself to keep until I have the privilege of keeping you; and there will be no more portage work for you then, I promise you.”

Katherine sprang ashore, whistled for the dogs, then turned to him with a saucy air.  “Don’t be too positive about the portage work; fishermen do not exactly come under the heading of the leisured classes, and I may be glad to earn an honest dollar where I can.”

CHAPTER XXIX

Winter Again