nd sought Mrs. Grimm in
her kitchen, busy among her maids at preparing the mid-day meal, always
an early one since the farm-hands so preferred it; and it had been among
their arrangements that, although her "boarders" should have a separate
table in an inner room, the food for all the household should be the
same. Nobody could complain of this for the housemistress was a notable
cook and her supplies generous.

"Beg pardon, Mrs. Grimm, for interrupting you, but I want to ask if
there's a 'hand' not busy who could ride out to camp and carry some
letters to my brother. I am anxious he should have them for they may
require immediate replies." She did not add, as she might, that an
intense but kindly curiosity of her own was another reason for the
request.

"Why, I can hardly tell, Mrs. Hungerford. They're all busy in the
fields, and my husband with them. There are some who need a constant
supervision and my man believes that there's nothing so good for any job
as the 'eye of the master.' Else, he'd ride into the woods himself and
think naught of it. Let me consider who--"

At that moment Anton came into the kitchen and threw an armful of hewn
wood beside the great fireplace, where kettles hung upon cranes and
"Dutch ovens" were ranged before the coals, each filled with savory food
for hungry people. It was a spot Mrs. Hungerford found vastly
interesting, but where she rarely lingered; for her presence seemed to
disconcert the shy French maids who served their mistress there and
whose own homes were isolated cottages here and there. So she was even
now leaving the kitchen when she chanced to notice Anton and asked:

"Couldn't this lad go? I know that he heaped the boxes in the
living-room and our bedrooms with more wood than we can use to-night,
and surely one kitchen-fire can scarcely require more than that pile
yonder. I will pay him, or you, well, if he can be spared to do my
errand."

This guest was rarely so insistent and her hostess saw that to deny her
the favor would be a great disappointment; so she answered that:

"Anton can be spared if--Anton can be trusted. And please, understand,
dear madam, that no payment for such trivial service would be accepted."

"But it is a long ride there and back, longer than into Halifax isn't
it? Yet the man who goes there makes but the one trip a day."

"That is for other reasons. He goes out in the morning upon our errands.
It is part of our contract with him that he sha