spruce. Salamander is there, before a circular looking-glass three
inches in diameter in the lid of a soap-box, making a complicated mess
of a neck-tie in futile attempts to produce the sailor's knot. Blondin
is there, before a similar glass, carefully scraping the bristles round
a frostbite on his chin with a blunt razor. Henri Coppet, having
already dressed, is smoking his pipe and quizzing Marcelle Dumont--who
is also shaving--one of his chief jokes being an offer to give Dumont's
razor a turn on the grindstone. Donald Bane is stooping over a tin
basin on a chair, with his hair and face soap-sudded and his eyes tight
shut, which fact being observed by his friend Dougall, induces that
worthy to cry,--"Tonal', man--look here. Did iver man or wuman see the
likes o' _that_!"

The invitation is so irresistible to Donald that he half involuntarily
exclaims, "Wow, man, Shames--what is't?" and opens his eyes to find that
Shames is laughing at him, and that soap does not improve sight. The
old chief, Muskrat, is also there, having been invited along with Masqua
and his son Mozwa, with their respective squaws, to the great event that
is pending, and, to judge from the intense gravity--not to say owlish
solemnity--of these redskins, they are much edified by the proceedings
of the men.

In the hall preparations are also being carried on for something of some
sort. Macnab is there, with his coat off, mounted on a chair, which he
had previously set upon a rickety table, hammering away at a festoon of
pine-branches with which one end of the room is being decorated.
Spooner is also there, weaving boughs into rude garlands of gigantic
size. The dark-haired pale-face, Jessie, is there too, helping
Spooner--who might almost be called Spooney, he looks so imbecile and
sweet. Jack Lumley is likewise there. He is calm, collected, suave, as
usual, and is aiding Macnab.

It was a doubly auspicious day, for it was not only Christmas, but, a
wedding-day.

"It seems like a dream," cried Macnab, stopping his noisy hammer in
order to look round and comment with his noisy voice, "to think, Jessie,
that you should refuse at least a dozen sturdy Highlanders north o' the
Grampians, and come out to the backwoods at last to marry an
Englishman."

"I wish you would attend to what you are doing, brother," said Jessie,
blushing very much.

"She might have done worse," remarked Spooner, who happened to be an
Englishman.

Lumley said no