had to do with it."

"It was a passing fancy; a foolish one, perhaps, or a touch of vanity,"
said Ian, with a smile, "but it is past now, and I have paid for it.--
Did you make fast the canoe?" he added, turning abruptly to the Indian,
who was seated on his buffalo robe by the stove.

Without waiting for an answer he rose and descended the staircase to the
passage, where poor Miss Trim had nearly met a watery grave.

Here the canoe was floating, and here he found one of the domestics.

"Has the wedding come off yet?" he asked in a low, but careless, tone,
as he stooped to examine the fastening of the canoe.

"What wedding?" said the domestic, with a look of surprise.

"Why, the wedding of Mr Ravenshaw's daughter."

"Oh no, Mr Ian. It would be a strange time for a wedding. But it's
all fixed to come off whenever the flood goes down. And she do seem
happy about it. You see, sir, they was throw'd a good deal together
here of late, so it was sort of natural they should make it up, and the
master he is quite willin'."

This was enough. Ian Macdonald returned to the room above with the
quiet air of a thoughtful schoolmaster and the callous solidity of a
human petrifaction. Duty and death were the prominent ideas stamped
upon his soul. He would not become reckless or rebellious. He would go
through life doing his duty, and, when the time came, he would die!

They were talking, of course, about the flood when he returned and sat
down.

Elsie was speaking. Ian was immediately fascinated as he listened to
her telling Victor, with graphic power, some details of the great
disaster--how dwellings and barns and stores had been swept away, and
property wrecked everywhere, though, through the mercy of God, no lives
had been lost. All this, and a great deal more, did Elsie and Cora and
Mrs Ravenshaw dilate upon, until Ian almost forgot his resolve.

Suddenly he remembered it. He also remembered that his father's house
still existed, though it was tenantless, his father and Miss Martha
having gone up to see friends at the Mountain.

"Come, Vic," he exclaimed, starting up, "I must go home. The old place
may be forsaken, but it is not the less congenial on that account.
Come."

Victor at once complied; they descended to the canoe, pushed out from
the passage, and soon crossed the flood to Angus Macdonald's dwelling.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

THE "IMPOSSIBLE" ACCOMPLISHED.

And _what_ a dwelling Angus Macdonal