ction of a lordly ordering of the
repast. How much better it is than having to eat what is flung before
you at a summer boarding-house by a scornful waitress!"

"Another thing that pleases me," continued my lady, "is the
unbreakableness of the dishes. There are no nicks in the edges of the
best plates here; and, oh! it is a happy thing to have a home without
bric-a-brac. There is nothing here that needs to be dusted."

"And no engagements for to-morrow," I ejaculated. "Dishes that can't be
broken, and plans that can--that's the ideal of housekeeping."

"And then," added my philosopher in skirts, "it is certainly refreshing
to get away from all one's relations for a little while."

"But how do you make that out?" I asked, in mild surprise. "What are you
going to do with me?"

"Oh," said she, with a fine air of independence, "I don't count you. You
are not a relation, only a connection by marriage."

"Well, my dear," I answered, between the meditative puffs of my pipe,
"it is good to consider the advantages of our present situation. We
shall soon come into the frame of mind of the Sultan of Morocco when he
camped in the Vale of Rabat. The place pleased him so well that he staid
until the very pegs of his tent took root and grew up into a grove of
trees around his pavilion."

II.

KENOGAMI.

The guides were a little restless under the idle regime of our lazy
camp, and urged us to set out upon some adventure. Ferdinand was like
the uncouth swain in Lycidas. Sitting upon the bundles of camp equipage
on the shore, and crying,--

"To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new,"

he led us forth to seek the famous fishing grounds on Lake Kenogami.

We skirted the eastern end of Lake St. John in our two canoes, and
pushed up La Belle Riviere to Hebertville, where all the children turned
out to follow our procession through the village. It was like the
train that tagged after the Pied Piper of Hamelin. We embarked again,
surrounded by an admiring throng, at the bridge where the main street
crossed a little stream, and paddled up it, through a score of back
yards and a stretch of reedy meadows, where the wild and tame ducks fed
together, tempting the sportsman to sins of ignorance. We crossed the
placid Lac Vert, and after a carry of a mile along the high-road toward
Chicoutimi, turned down a steep hill and pitched our tents on a crescent
of silver sand, with the long, fair water of Kenogami before us.

It is