at meadows of vivid green; only, to
use an Irishism, they were not meadows at all, but stretches of
swamp, in Canadian parlance a muskeg: and the unwary creature,
human or animal, that set foot thereon was speedily engulfed. Very
beautiful these stretches of rich green looked on a bright summer's
day, and Katherine exclaimed in delight as she forced the boat
through the weedy channel, which became every week more difficult
to pass.

"Oh, Phil, isn't it lovely!" she cried.

"Can't say I admire it," the boy answered grumpily. "The air down
here always seems to choke me, and it is twice as much trouble to
drive the boat through this narrow, weedy channel as it is to go
the longer way round."

"I know we shall have to cease coming this way soon, but it is
pretty, and I like it," Katherine answered, and would not admit
even to herself that her chief reason in choosing those weedy
byways, was the desire to avoid all danger of an encounter with the
Selincourts.

The voyage to Fort Garry was without incident, and the interview
with the M'Crawneys was of the usual type. Mrs. M'Crawney was
low-spirited and homesick, yearning for Ireland, for the smell of
the peat reek and the society of her neighbours.

"I shall die if I stay here much longer. It is stagnation, not
life at all; indeed, I'd sooner be dead," moaned the poor
discontented woman.

"But you have books," said Katherine, pointing to a well-filled
shelf in one corner of the room. "And if you are so lonely, why
not take some girl from an orphanage for a companion? It would be
good for the child and good for you too."

"Books are not satisfying, and I think it a great waste of time to
be always reading," Mrs. M'Crawney replied with a touch of
asperity. Her husband's love of books and willingness to spend
money upon them was always a sore point with her, only Katherine
did not know that, "And I wouldn't have a strange girl about the
house, not whatever. I never could abide having to do with other
people's children."

"Then I am afraid you will have to go lonely," Katherine answered,
feeling that it was quite beyond her powers to make any more useful
suggestion to the poor unhappy woman, whose ailment consisted more
in a discontented mind than a diseased body.

The M'Crawneys were such an ill-matched pair that it always gave
her a feeling of irritation to go there, while Peter M'Crawney
himself was too much addicted to fulsome compliments to make her
w