“Well, you shall tell me all about it after you have given me something to eat.  We will have time enough; Barker cannot find his way back in this fog to-night.  Now don’t put yourselves to any trouble on my account.  Barker will assist?”

Barker came forward.  Glad to escape the scrutiny of his guest, the hermit gave a few rapid directions to the Princess in her native tongue, and disappeared in the shed.  Left a moment alone, Miss Portfire took a quick, half-audible, feminine inventory of the cabin.  “Books, guns, skins, one chair, one bed, no pictures, and no looking-glass!” She took a book from the swinging shelf and resumed her seat by the fire as the Princess re-entered with fresh fuel.  But while kneeling on the hearth the Princess chanced to look up and met Miss Portfire’s dark eyes over the edge of her book.

“Bob!”

The Princess showed her teeth.

“Listen.  Would you like to have fine clothes, rings, and beads like these, to have your hair nicely combed and put up so?  Would you?”

The Princess nodded violently.

“Would you like to live with me and have them?  Answer quickly.  Don’t look round for him.  Speak for yourself.  Would you?  Hush; never mind now.”

The hermit re-entered, and the Princess, blinking, retreated into the shadow of the whale-boat shed, from which she did not emerge even when the homely repast of cold venison, ship biscuit, and tea was served.  Miss Portfire noticed her absence:  “You really must not let me interfere with your usual simple ways.  Do you know this is exceedingly interesting to me, so pastoral and patriarchal and all that sort of thing.  I must insist upon the Princess coming back; really, I must.”

But the Princess was not to be found in the shed, and Miss Portfire, who the next minute seemed to have forgotten all about her, took her place in the single chair before an extemporized table.  Barker stood behind her, and the hermit leaned against the fireplace.  Miss Portfire’s appetite did not come up to her protestations.  For the first time in seven years it occurred to the hermit that his ordinary victual might be improved.  He stammered out something to that effect.

“I have eaten better, and worse,” said Miss Portfire, quietly.

“But I thought you—­that is, you said—­”

“I spent a year in the hospitals, when father was on the Potomac,” returned Miss Portfire, composedly.  After a pause she continued:  “You remember after the second Bull Run—­But, dear me!  I beg your pardon; of course, you know nothing about the war and all that sort of thing, and don’t care.” (She put up her eye-glass and quietly surveyed his broad muscular figure against the chimney.) “Or, perhaps, your prejudices—­But then, as a hermit you know you have no politics, of course.  Please don’t let me bore you.”