rit.

Katherine was still sitting all alone on the rock some time later when a
very wide shadow fell across it, and Slim came puffing along and dropped
down beside her, his moon face red with exertion and suppressed emotion.

"It's a measly shame!" he said explosively and with so much vehemence
that Katherine almost smiled.

"Say," he said in a confidential tone after a moment of silence, "I have
seven hundred dollars that my grandmother left me to pay my tuition at
college. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll lend it to you and I'll work
my way through. Won't you take it from me, even if you won't from the
others?" His face was so earnest and his offer so sincere that Katherine
was touched.

"Bless you, Slim!" she said heartily. "You're a nice boy. And I'm very
sorry I can't accept your offer."

"Can't you?" said Slim pleadingly.

"No," said Katherine firmly. "I must go home."

"Well," Slim burst out, "you're a real sport, that's what you are!"

Katherine smiled at his compliment, but tingled within with a warm
feeling.

"And you're a 'real sport' for offering to give me your money and work
your way. Let's shake on it."

Slim gripped her lean, brown hand in his big paw and gave it such a
squeeze that she cried out. "Let go my hand, Slim, you're hurting me."
Slim dropped her hand abruptly.

"Why did you offer to lend me your money?" she asked curiously. "I never
did anything for you."

"Because I like you," said Slim emphatically, "better than any girl I
ever knew." And blushing like a peony, he departed hastily from the
scene.

Katherine smiled whimsically as she looked after him. "My first
'romance,'" she thought. "With a baby elephant! Slim is a dear boy and I
hate myself now because I used to make such fun of him." And where the
passionate laments of the girls had failed to move her, the thought of
Slim's offered sacrifice brought the tears to her eyes. "'Oh, was there
ever such a knight in friendship or in war?'" she quoted softly to
herself.

Katherine put her trouble resolutely in the background and refused to
discuss it, and activities went on just as before on Ellen's Isle.
"Captain, will you go for the mail this afternoon?" asked Uncle Teddy
one day not long after the event of the new camera. "Mr. Evans and I
want to spend the day over on the mainland trying to get some bird
pictures. One of you boys can run us over to the Point of Pines in the
launch and get us again when you come home with th