“The most effectual way of helping people is to assist them in helping themselves,” broke in Jervis.  “If Mr. Selincourt develops this fishing as it is capable of being developed, he will do more real good than if he spent hundreds of pounds in charity.”

“If you were really a Canadian you would have said dollars, not pounds,” she interrupted, with mock gravity, just as if she were making fun of him to his face.

“I am an Englishman,” he said quietly, too much in earnest just then to resent her levity, “so it is most natural to me to speak of pounds.  But that makes no difference to the question at issue.  When your father gets his factory going he will employ twenty men where he now employs one.  They in turn will be able to support wives and families, which will mean employment for storekeepers, school teachers——­”

“Oh, spare me any more, I beg!” she implored penitently, “and I promise never, never to object to money-making schemes again.  I know you were going to add that the twenty men’s wives would want twenty new hats, and so there would be an opening for a first-class millinery establishment at Roaring Water Portage.”

“I had not thought of that, but of course it is quite true,” he said, adding with a laugh:  “and there would be an opening for a dressmaker also, don’t you see?”

“I don’t want to see.  I don’t want to hear anything more about it at all.  It is all too much in the future, too practical and commonplace altogether to fit such a twilight as this,” she said, with a touch of petulance.  “I want to know about the people here.  What sort of a man is Oily Dave?  He looks a veritable old rascal.”

“And for once appearances are not deceptive,” replied Jervis.  “Since I have been here he has tried to quietly do for me about once a week upon an average.  He so nearly succeeded the first time that it has encouraged him to persevere,”

“How truly horrid!” she cried with a shiver.  “But there are nicer people to compensate for him, I hope.  Who is that delightfully hospitable woman who lives in the house on the bluff, with a boatlike projection at one end?”

“That is Mrs. Jenkin, my landlady, and the boat-like projection is my abode.  It is very comfortable, too,” he answered.

“Then who is the very pretty girl who moves with as much grace as if she had been brought up in drawing-rooms all her life, yet has to carry heavy burdens over a portage like a man?” asked Mary eagerly, her other questions having been intended only to lead up to this.

Jervis Ferrars stood up with a quick movement, and a feeling that the questioning had become suddenly intolerable; but his voice was quiet and steady as he answered:  “That would be Miss Radford, whose father has the store over the river.  But he has been ill for a long time, poor man, and with little hope of recovery, so his daughter has a very hard life.  I am going over to see him now, if you will excuse me.  There is no doctor here, of course, so I have done what I could for him.”