“Perhaps Mr. M’Kree would rather read his letter first himself,” suggested Katherine, who would have preferred not to hear about anything that letter might contain.  She guessed it was from Mr. Selincourt, and for that reason shunned anything to do with it.

“Astor has gone across to Fort Garry to-day; he started at dawn, and a pretty stiff journey he’ll have before he gets back:  but I warned him not to go, for I smelled the rain coming when I put my head outside this morning; my nose is worth two of his, for he can’t smell weather, and never could,” Mrs. M’Kree answered, pulling a hairpin from her head and preparing to slit open the envelope in her hand.

“Still, he might rather that his letter waited for him unopened,” murmured Katherine; but Mrs. M’Kree was already deep in her husband’s correspondence, and paid no heed at all.

“Oh! oh! what do you think!” she cried a moment later, giving an excited jump, which so startled Katherine that she jumped too.

“How should I know what to think?” she said; then was angry to find that she was trembling violently.

“Mr. Selincourt hopes to arrive in June, and he is going to bring his daughter with him,” announced Mrs. M’Kree with a shout, waving the letter in a jubilant fashion.

“Impossible!” remarked Katherine scornfully, the colour dying out of her face.  “The first steamers can’t get through Hudson Strait until the first week in July.”

“They are not coming that way, but straight from Montreal by way of Lake Temiskaming.  My word! the young lady will have a chance of roughing it, for the portages on that route are a caution, so Astor says,” Mrs. M’Kree answered, then fairly danced round the room.  “Just fancy how gay we shall be this summer with a young lady fresh out from England among us!  And her father must be just the right sort of moneyed gentleman, for he wants Astor to get a little hut ready for him by the middle of June.”

“A what?” Katherine had risen to go, and was buttoning her coat, but faced round upon the little woman with blank surprise in her face, as if she failed to understand what the other was saying.

“A hut.  They will want some sort of a place to live in.  There is no hotel here, you see, and they are going to stay all summer.  What a pity it is you haven’t got room to board them at the store!”

“We don’t want them,” retorted Katherine quickly.  “We have quite enough to do without having to wait on a lot of idle boarders.”

“Oh!  I don’t fancy they will be very idle, for Mr. Selincourt says that he and his daughter intend being out a great deal among the fishers,” said Mrs. M’Kree, who still kept dipping into the letter, and besought her visitor to stay until she had read it all.