e's condition,
you understand; and the boy--I must get back. He is too young to have
the responsibility. Most amazing boy in the world; I haven't the
slightest doubt that he is doing her more good than all the doctors in
the world--parcel of fools, mostly--but still he is too young; I must
get back."

"Let me go, Uncle!" said Jack.

"Or me, Colonel Ferrers!" cried Gertrude. "Any one of us would love to
go!"

The Colonel beamed on them with his kindliest smile, but shook his head
resolutely. "Thanks! thanks!" he said, heartily. "Good children! kind
and thoughtful children! but I must go. Couldn't be easy, you
understand."

"The fact is," said Jack, "Uncle Tom cannot be comfortable for more than
twenty-four hours away from Hugh. After that length of time he becomes
restive, and symptoms develop which--"

"Hold your tongue, sir!" cried the Colonel. "Nothing of the sort, sir!
Mrs. Merryweather, I hoped you were teaching this fellow better
manners. Symptoms, indeed! You have seen no symptoms in me, of anything
except pure pleasure--pleasure in everything except the gabbling of a
goose!"

"Surely not, dear friend!" said Mrs. Merryweather, laughing. "But all
the same, I think I should not try to detain you when once you had made
up your mind that Hugh needed you."

"All against me!" cried the Colonel. "'The little dogs and all'--I beg
ten thousand pardons, my dear madam; you know the quotation! Well," he
added, his face changing suddenly as he turned to Mrs. Merryweather and
spoke in a lower tone, "fortunate old fellow, eh? to have one young
face--two, perhaps, for my Giraffe loves me too--brighten when one
comes. Ah! you, with all your wealth--richest woman of my acquaintance,
give you my honor!--cannot tell what these boys mean to me. Hilda, too:
most astonishing how I miss that child! but all your young people are so
good to me--"

"Colonel!" cried Gertrude from the other end of the table. "Will you
come with me in my canoe after tea?"

"Will I?" cried the Colonel. "Won't I? Lead the way, my dear!"

* * * * *

The young moon shone bright; the lake lay a broad sheet of luminous
black, with a silver path stretching across it. Four canoes lay beside
the wharf, and the campers were taking their places. In the birch canoe,
the original _Cheemaun_, Mrs. Merryweather was going as passenger, with
her husband and Phil at bow and stern; in the _Nahma_ was Colonel
Ferrers, with Gertrude a