One Days Courtship | Page 3

at
the sun.
"Isn't that splendid?" cried Trenton, with a deep breath, as he watched
the great globe slowly ascend into the sky. The distant branches of the
trees were delicately etched against its glowing surface, and seemed to
cling to it like tendrils, slipping further and further down as the sun
leisurely disentangled itself, and at last stood in its incomparable
grandeur full above the forest.
The woods all around had on their marvellous autumn tints, and now
the sun added a living lustre to them that made the landscape more
brilliant than anything the artist had ever seen before.
"Ye gods!" he cried enthusiastically, "that scene is worth coming from
England to have one glimpse of."

"See here," said the driver, "if you want to catch Ed. Mason before he's
gone to the woods you'll have to hurry up. It's getting late."
"True, O driver. You have brought me from the sun to the earth. Have
you ever heard of the person who fell from the sun to the earth?"
No, he hadn't.
"Well, that was before your time. You will never take such a tumble.
I--I suppose they don't worship the sun in these parts?"
No, they didn't.
"When you come to think of it, that is very strange. Have you ever
reflected that it is always in warm countries they worship the sun? Now,
I should think ought to be just the other way about. Do you know that
when I got on with you this morning I was eighty years old, every day
of it. What do you think my age is now?"
"Eighty years, sir."
"Not a bit of it. I'm eighteen. The sun did it. And yet they claim there is
no fountain of youth. What fools people are, my boy!"
The young man looked at his fare slyly, and cordially agreed with him.
"You certainly have a concealed sense of humour," said the artist.
They wound down a deep cut in the hill, and got a view of the lumber
village--their destination. The roar of the waters tumbling over the
granite rocks--the rocks from which the village takes its name--came up
the ravine. The broad river swept in a great semicircle to their right, and
its dark waters were flecked with the foam of the small falls near the
village, and the great cataract miles up the river. It promised to be a
perfect autumn day. The sky, which had seemed to Trenton overcast
when they started, was now one deep dome of blue without even the
suggestion of a cloud.
The buckboard drew up at the gate of the house in which Mr. Mason

lived when he was in the lumber village, although his home was at
Three Rivers. The old Frenchwoman, Mason's housekeeper, opened the
door for Trenton, and he remembered as he went in how the exquisite
cleanliness of everything had impressed him during his former visit.
She smiled as she recognised the genial Englishman. She had not
forgotten his compliments in her own language on her housekeeping
some months before, and perhaps she also remembered his liberality.
Mr. Mason, she said, had gone to the river to see after the canoe,
leaving word that he would return in a few minutes. Trenton, who knew
the house, opened the door at his right, to enter the sitting-room and
leave there his morning wraps, which the increasing warmth rendered
no longer necessary. As he burst into the room in his impetuous way,
he was taken aback to see standing at the window, looking out towards
the river, a tall young woman. Without changing her position, she
looked slowly around at the intruder. Trenton's first thought was a hasty
wish that he were better dressed. His roughing-it costume, which up to
that time had seemed so comfortable, now appeared uncouth and out of
place. He felt as if he had suddenly found himself in a London
drawing-room with a shooting-jacket on. But this sensation was quickly
effaced by the look which the beauty gave him over her shoulder.
Trenton, in all his experience, had never encountered such a glance of
indignant scorn. It was a look of resentment and contempt, with just a
dash of feminine reproach in it.
"What have I done?" thought the unhappy man; then he stammered
aloud, "I--I--really--I beg your pardon. I thought the--ah--room was
empty."
The imperious young woman made no reply. She turned to the window
again, and Trenton backed out of the room as best he could.
"Well!" he said to himself, as he breathed with relief the outside air
again, "that was the rudest thing I ever knew a lady to do. She is a lady,
there is no doubt of that. There is nothing of the backwoods about her.
But she might at least