eeling for the folds of silken flesh in the throat of the moose; "but
wounded men must be humoured. And, mother dear, here are our Argonauts
returned; and--and now I think I will go."

With a quick kiss on her father's cheek--not so quick but he caught the
tear that ran through her happy smile--she vanished into the house.

That night there was gladness in this home. Mirth sprang to the lips of
the men like foam on a beaker of wine, so that the evening ran towards
midnight swiftly. All the tale of the hunt was given by Malbrouck to
joyful ears; for the mother lived again her youth in the sunrise of this
romance which was being sped before her eyes; and the father, knowing
that in this world there is nothing so good as courage, nothing so base
as the shifting eye, looked on the young man, and was satisfied, and
told his story well;--told it as a brave man would tell it, bluntly as
to deeds done, warmly as to the pleasures of good sport, directly as
to all. In the eye of the young man there had come the glance of larger
life, of a new-developed manhood. When he felt that dun body crashing
on him, and his life closing with its strength, and ran the good knife
home, there flashed through his mind how much life meant to the dying,
how much it ought to mean to the living; and then this girl, this
Margaret, swam before his eyes--and he had been graver since.

He knew, as truly as if she had told him, that she could never mate with
any man who was a loiterer on God's highway, who could live life without
some sincerity in his aims. It all came to him again in this room, so
austere in its appointments, yet so gracious, so full of the spirit of
humanity without a note of ennui, or the rust of careless deeds. As this
thought grew he looked at the face of the girl, then at the faces of the
father and mother, and the memory of his boast came back--that he would
win the stake he laid, to know the story of John and Audrey Malbrouck
before this coming Christmas morning. With a faint smile at his own past
insolent self, he glanced at the clock. It was eleven. "I have lost my
bet," he unconsciously said aloud.

He was roused by John Malbrouck remarking: "Yes, you have lost your bet?
Well, what was it? The youth, the childlike quality in him," flushed his
face deeply, and then, with a sudden burst of frankness, he said:

"I did not know that I had spoken. As for the bet, I deserve to be
thrashed for ever having made it; but, duffer as I