id Mrs. Winter. "If you had taken me along, I wouldn't
be with you now. A roof that keeps out the rain, a warm room, and a
comfortable chair are good enough for me."

"You'd have said _for mine_, not long since. Looks as if we were all
getting English," Carrie replied. "Jim was very nice when he got you
the chair. It's up against all the other things. If I was Jim, I'd
hate to have it around."

Jim laughed. He had sent to London for the American spring
rocking-chair that clashed with the old oak in the hall, but it was a
pattern Mrs. Winter liked and he was satisfied. He ate his muffin
silently, for he was tired, and Carrie's remarks had wakened memories
of other fires that burned among the tall straight trunks in the
Canadian wilds; he thought he could hear the snow-fed river brawl, and
smell the smoke that drifted in blue wreaths about the lonely camp.
Carrie had laughed and bantered him then and he had been happy. He was
happy now and hoped to be happier yet, but Carrie was often quiet and
he had a puzzling feeling that he had lost something he could not
recapture.

Presently she picked up a local newspaper and lighted a candle with a
shade. The light only spread a yard or two, but it touched the page
she folded back and sparkled in her hair.

"They have got a master for the otter-hounds!" she exclaimed, and then
her color rose and her eyes went hard. "I don't know the committee,
but if the others are like Hodson, they're solemn old fools."

"I'd rather have liked the post, but it doesn't matter much," said Jim,
and added, with a smile: "Now you're like the Carrie who went North
with us."

"Bernard meant you to have the hounds; he's a dear, although some
stupid people are afraid of him," Carrie went on. "He'd certainly have
fixed it if he hadn't got lame again. But I remember--Dick went to
their old meeting and was mad about something afterwards. I think it
was something about Lance Mordaunt--now I begin to see!"

"I don't think it's worth while your bothering about the thing."

"Don't interrupt!" said Carrie. "I'm going to talk. Lance doesn't
like you, and I imagine Dick doesn't trust him. Dick is smart
sometimes and knows Lance is mean. He is mean; he has a yellow
streak----"

She stopped, for she saw Jim's frown. He was not vexed with her, but
her statement chimed with some vague doubts of his. She got up and
made him a formal curtsy.

"I'm sorry, Jim. That was the Carrie you knew