“My name you have heard, I dare say, but I do not suppose you have seen me before, because I am an Englishman, and I have only been in Canada for a year,” Mr. Selincourt answered gently.

Mrs. Burton had left the room momentarily, or she might have said that her father was an Englishman also.  ’Duke Radford had probably forgotten the fact himself, and after a moment of silence, in which he seemed to be gathering up his scattered faculties, he asked: 

“Do you think you are going to like Canada, sir?”

“I like it immensely.  I intend settling in the country permanently.  I have nothing to hold me in England, nor anything which interests me enough to make me want to stay there.  But here there is so much to be done; the country is crying out for development, and I—­well, I think I want to have a hand in the doing of it,” Mr. Selincourt answered.

’Duke Radford nodded his head in complete understanding; something of his old vigour seemed to have returned to him, and for the moment the clouds were swept from his brain.

“Canada is a fine country;” he said.  “Even her waste places possess untold sources of wealth.  Take this place, for instance:  there are fish enough in the rivers and the bay to feed a multitude; there is timber enough to build a dozen towns, and construct a navy as well; yet it continues almost as solitary as when I came here, I can’t remember how many years ago.”

“It is a great pity; but that may be altered with time.  We shall see,” replied Mr. Selincourt, then plunged into talk about the resources of the immediate neighbourhood, the possibilities of vast coalfields underlying the forest lands, of minerals lurking in barren hillsides, and many other things.

’Duke Radford came out of his absorption and talked as he had not done for many months, and when the visitor rose to go, after a couple of hours’ sitting in the pleasant, homely kitchen, with the appetizing smell of new-baked bread perfuming the air, the invalid begged him to come again very soon.

“Indeed I will, if Mrs. Burton will let me; but if I have tired you with such a long talk she may refuse to allow me in,” Mr. Selincourt replied.

“Nellie won’t do that.  My children are very good to me, although it is very hard on them that I should be left a log on their hands like this.  But I hope you will come soon, for you have given me a very happy morning,” the invalid said; and rising to his feet he walked slowly into the sunshine, supporting himself on a stout stick, to watch his visitor get into the waiting boat and be rowed away to the opposite bank of the river.

When Katherine and Phil came down from Ochre Lake three hours later, the invalid was still out-of-doors, only now he was seated on a bank in the shade of a spreading spruce, while the twins played round him, building houses of fir cones, and laying out gardens in patterns of pine needles.