rsion
alone. I was just six. Old Peter McDuff who lives on the next farm
used to tell me fairy tales. And he told me there was a pot of gold at
the end of the rainbow, waiting for the man bold enough to go after it.
I felt that I was the man, and I paddled off one evening when there was
a rainbow in the sky. I got lost in the fog, and my father and a
search-party found me drifting away out on the lake. And I didn't
bring home the pot of gold."

"Nobody ever does," she said drearily. "And every one is hunting it."
They were silent for a moment, the girl thinking of how she too had
gone after a vanishing rainbow. Then the memory of that vision of the
first Sunday morning in Algonquin church came to her. There was a
rainbow somewhere, with the treasure at the foot; one that did not
vanish either if one persisted in its pursuit.

She tried to say something of this to Roderick, fearing her sombre
words had set him to recalling her secret.

"I suppose it is perfect happiness," he said. "If so, I never met any
one who had found it, except--yes, I believe I know one."

"Who?" she asked eagerly.

"My father," answered Roderick gently.

"I have heard of him," she said, smiling at the glow of pride in the
son's eyes. "And where did he discover it?"

Roderick laughed. "I suppose it's in the heart, after all; but my
father is never so happy as when he is in the midst of misery. His pot
of gold seems to lie down on Willow Lane."

"On Willow Lane? Why that's where all those dreadfully poor, dirty
people live, isn't it?"

"Yes. They are an unsavoury bunch down there. That's where Mr. and
Mrs. Cassidy throw the household furniture at each other, and Billy
Perkins starves his family for drink, and where the celebrated Peter
McDuff plays the fiddle every night at the tavern. He might have
serenaded you, if you had gone back home by the road."

She smiled gratefully and her smile was very beautiful. But her
thoughts were in Willow Lane. There were worse things there that
Roderick did not mention, but she had heard of them. It was a strange
and wonderful thing that the saintly-faced old man with the white hair,
whom she had seen with Roderick at church, should find his happiness
among such people.

Roderick had paddled as slowly as it was possible to move, but he could
not prolong the little voyage any further. They were at the landing.

"I have made you come away back here," she said, "and now you will be