eally came, but her heart quailed that night as
she lay sleepless, thinking of the days which stretched in front of
her. Until her father grew strong again she would have to let the
day teaching go, even though it might be possible to keep the night
school together. Her days would have to be spent in buying and
selling, in bartering barrels of flour and pork for skins of wolf,
of ermine, and of beaver. She would have to stand between home and
the difficulties that menaced from the outside, and if her heart
failed her who could wonder at it?

CHAPTER V

A Sacred Confidence

'Duke Radford was very ill. For a week he hovered between life and
death, and Mrs. Burton's skill was taxed to the uttermost. There
was no doctor within at least a hundred miles. One of the fishers
at Seal Cove had set the broken collar bone, the work being very
well done too, although the man was only an amateur in the art of
bone-setting. But it was not the broken bone, nor any of his
bruises and abrasions, which made 'Duke Radford's peril during that
black week of care and anxiety. He was ill in himself, so ill in
fact that Mrs. Burton lost heart, declaring that her father's
constitution had broken up, and that half a dozen doctors could not
pull him through if his time had come.

Katherine would not share this gloomy view, and was always hoping
against hope. If only the waters had been open, a doctor might
have been procured from somewhere; but in winter time, when the
small lakes and many of the lesser rivers were all frozen, nothing
in the way of outside help was available, and the dwellers in
remote places had to depend upon their own skill, making up in
nursing what was lacking in medicine.

By the time the second Sunday came, the sick man showed signs of
mending. Mrs. Burton grew hopeful again, while Katherine was
nearly beside herself with joy. It had been a fearfully hard week
for them all, though the neighbours had been as kind as possible.
Stee Jenkin's wife came up from Seal Cove one day, and, after doing
as much work as she could find to do, carried the twins off with
her to her little house at the Cove, which was a great relief to
Mrs. Burton and Katherine. Mrs. M'Kree was ill herself, so could
do no more than send a kindly message; but even that was better
than nothing, for sympathy is one of the sweetest things on earth
when one is in trouble.

Sunday was a blessed relief to them at the end of their trouble