fe or family--" Mr. Strongtharm
would have launched into further particulars about the dead trapper,
whose skill and strange habits had passed into a legend in the valley.
But Ruth wished to hear more of the cabin.

"It's standin', no doubt, to this day. Vanders was a Dutchman, an'
Dutchmen build strong by nature. The man who built _this_ yer house was
a Dutchman, an' look at the piles of it--_an_ the ribs you may ha'
noticed. Ay, the lodge will be there yet; but you'll never find it, not
unless I takes ye. That fourth fall is a teaser."

Ruth saddled her mare, and rode off in the direction of the gap,
thoughtfully. Mr. Strongtharm had given her a new notion. . . .

It was close upon nightfall when she returned. She was muddy, but
cheerful; and she hummed a song to herself in her chamber as she slid
off her mired garments and attired herself for supper.

That song was her nesting song. Away Boston-wards, her lover, too, was
building in his magnificent fashion; but Ruth had found a secret place,
such as birds love, and shyly, stealthily as a mating bird, she set
about planning and furnishing. It is woman's instinct. . . . Every day,
as soon as breakfast was done, she saddled and rode towards the Gap, and
always with a parcel or two dangling from the saddle-bow or strapped
upon Madcap's back.

For the first time in her life she had money to handle; money furnished
by Sir Oliver to be spent at her own disposal on the honeymoon.
It seemed to her a prodigious sum, but she was none the less economical
with it. I fear that sometimes she opened the bags and gloated over the
coins as over a hoard. She was neither miser nor spendthrift; but
unlike many girls brought up in poverty, she brought good husbandry to
good fortune.

Yet "shopping"--to enter a store and choose among the goods for sale,
having money to pay, but weighing quality and price--was undeniably
pleasant. Twice or thrice, bethinking her of some trifle overlooked at
Port Nassau, she enjoyed visiting the village store--it boasted but
one--and dallying with a purchase.

She was riding back from one of these visits--it had been (if the Muse
will smile and condescend) to buy a packet of hairpins--when, half-way
up the village street, she spied a horseman approaching. An instant
later she recognised Mr. Trask.

There was really nothing strange in her meeting him here. Mr. Trask
owned a herd of bullocks, and had ridden over from Port Nassau to
ba