doubt you are, and so is everybody, but
you shall have her for all that, my boy. But tell me, Harry, have you
spoken to Kate herself?"

"Yes, I have."

"And does she agree?"

"Well, I think I may say she does."

"Have you told my father that she does?"

"Why, as to that," said Harry, with a perplexed smile, "he didn't need
to be told; he made _himself_ pretty well aware of the facts of the
case."

"Ah! I'll soon settle _him_," cried Charley. "Keep your mind easy, old
fellow; I'll very soon bring him round." With this assurance, Charley
gave his friend's hand another shake that nearly wrenched the arm from
his shoulder, and hastened out of the room in search of his refractory
father.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE, CURIOUSLY ENOUGH, RUNS SMOOTH FOR ONCE, AND THE
CURTAIN FALLS.

Time rolled on, and with it the sunbeams of summer went--the snowflakes
of winter came. Needles of ice began to shoot across the surface of Red
River, and gradually narrowed its bed. Crystalline trees formed upon
the window-panes. Icicles depended from the eaves of the houses. Snow
fell in abundance on the plains; liquid nature began rapidly to
solidify, and not many weeks after the first frost made its appearance
everything was (as the settlers expressed it) "hard and fast."

Mr Kennedy, senior, was in his parlour, with his back to a blazing wood
fire that seemed large enough to roast an ox whole. He was standing,
moreover, in a semi-picturesque attitude, with his right hand in his
breeches pocket and his left arm round Kate's waist. Kate was dressed
in a gown that rivalled the snow itself in whiteness. One little gold
clasp shone in her bosom; it was the only ornament she wore. Mr
Kennedy, too, had somewhat altered his style of costume. He wore a
sky-blue swallow-tailed coat, whose maker had flourished in London half
a century before. It had a velvet collar about five inches deep, fitted
uncommonly tight to the figure, and had a pair of bright brass buttons,
very close together, situated half a foot above the wearer's natural
waist. Besides this, he had on a canary-coloured vest, and a pair of
white duck trousers, in the fob of which _evidently_ reposed an immense
gold watch of the olden time, with a bunch of seals that would have
served very well as an anchor for a small boat. Although the dress was,
on the whole, slightly comical, its owner, with his full, fat, broad
figaro, looked remarkably w