The day after Mrs. Burton came back from Fort Garry another vessel arrived from Liverpool to anchor off Seal Cove.  Only one more boat would be likely to get in before winter came again, and when an occasion is so rare it is likely to be made much of.  The captain held a sort of reception on board, to which everyone in Seal Cove was invited.  The M’Krees came down from the second portage with all their babies; Mrs. Jenkin appeared in finery which no one even dreamed she possessed; and Oily Dave was magnificent in a frock-coat of shiny black cloth, worn over a football sweater of outrageous pattern.

Katherine and her father were the only stay-at-homes, but ’Duke Radford was not fit for excursions of that sort, and if Katherine had gone Miles must have stayed at home, which would have been rather hard on a boy as fond of ships as he was.  But although everyone went to the reception, some of them did not stay long, and one of the first to leave was Mr. Selincourt, who had himself rowed up river and landed at the store to ask Katherine if she would give him a cup of tea.

“With great pleasure.  Please go in and talk to Father; I shall be free in a few minutes, and then I will come and make tea for you both,” Katherine answered, holding open the door between house and store, while she smiled upon the visitor, who was more welcome than he knew.  She was serving an Indian squaw, who demanded bright calico, ’bacco, and as much of anything else as she could get, for fourteen beaver skins partly dressed, and as soft as velvet.

Beaver, even in that district, was becoming very scarce.  Indeed, Katherine was sure that these skins must have come a long distance, probably seventy or eighty miles, from some part of unknown Keewatin, where no foot of white man ever trod, and where even the red man only went at trapping time.  She bought the skins, of course, adding to the purchase price a box of chocolates with a picture on the lid, a treasure which set the red woman in a state of the most complacent satisfaction.

When the squaw had departed, Katherine carefully locked away the skins before going in to make tea, for the Indians were adepts at roguery, and if by any means the woman could have stolen them, she would probably have returned to the store to offer them in barter again within the next hour.  Katherine had been caught like that often enough to have become exceedingly careful.  She was talking about the exceeding beauty of the skins as she watched the kettle beginning to boil, and Mr. Selincourt immediately said that he should like to see them.

“Will you wait until to-morrow or the next day?  Then I will show you all that we have got.  But it is rather dirty work pulling them out and unrolling them, and I have just put on a clean frock,” Katherine said, laughing at the idea of putting a possible customer off in such a fashion.

“I will wait certainly, and if the day after tomorrow will suit you, I will come then and see if you have anything which Mary might like me to buy for her.  By the way, my men are behind with the mail this time, a week late, and I am still uncertain whether or no we shall have to go down to Montreal for the winter,” Mr. Selincourt said, as he helped Katherine to put cups and saucers on the table.