One Days Courtship | Page 7

the Mason family."
"Oh, you do, you do indeed! The company I referred to was the official
party which has just gone to the falls. This is some of the brilliancy left
over. But, really, you had better stay after coming all this distance."
"Yes, do, Eva. Let me go back with you to the Three Rivers, and then
you stay with me till next week, when you can visit the falls all alone.
It is very pleasant at Three Rivers just now. And besides, we can go for
a day's shopping at Montreal."

"I wish I could."
"Why, of course you can," said Mason. Imagine the delight of
smuggling your purchases back to Boston. Confess that this is a
pleasure you hadn't thought of."
"I admit the fascination of it all, but you see I am with a party that has
gone on to Quebec, and I just got away for a day. I am to meet them
there to-night or to-morrow morning. But I will return in the autumn,
Mrs. Mason, when it is too late for the picnics. Then, Mr. Mason, take
warning. I mean to have a canoe to myself, or--well, you know the way
we Bostonians treated you Britishers once upon a time."
"Distinctly. But we will return good for evil, and give you warm tea
instead of the cold mixture you so foolishly brewed in the harbour."
As the buckboard disappeared around the corner, and Mr. and Mrs.
Mason walked back to the house, the lady said--
"What a strange girl Eva is."
"Very. Don't she strike you as being a trifle selfish?"
"Selfish? Eva Sommerton? Why, what could make you think such a
thing? What an absurd idea! You cannot imagine how kind she was to
me when I visited Boston."
"Who could help it, my dear? I would have been so myself if I had
happened to meet you there."
"Now, Ed., don't be absurd."
"There is something absurd in being kind to a person's wife, isn't there?
Well, it struck me her objection to any one else being at the falls, when
her ladyship was there, might seem--not to me, of course, but to an
outsider--a trifle selfish."
"Oh, you don't understand her at all. She has an artistic temperament,
and she is quite right in wishing to be alone. Now, Ed., when she does

come again I want you to keep anyone else from going up there. Don't
forget it, as you do most of the things I tell you. Say to anybody who
wants to go up that the canoes are out of repair."
"Oh, I can't say that, you know. Anything this side of a crime I am
willing to commit; but to perjure myself, no, not for Venice. Can you
think of any other method that will combine duplicity with a clear
conscience? I'll tell you what I'll do. I will have the canoe drawn up,
and gently, but firmly, slit it with my knife. One of the men can mend it
in ten minutes. Then I can look even the official from Quebec in the
face, and tell him truly that the canoe will not hold water. I suppose as
long as my story will hold water you and Miss Sommerton will not
mind?"
"If the canoe is ready for her when she comes, I shall be satisfied.
Please to remember I am going to spend a week or two in Boston next
winter."
"Oh ho, that's it, is it? Then it was not pure philanthropy----"
"Pure nonsense, Ed. I want the canoe to be ready, that's all."
When Mrs. Mason received the letter from Miss Sommerton, stating
the time the young woman intended to pay her visit to the Shawenegan,
she gave the letter to her husband, and reminded him of the necessity of
keeping the canoe for that particular date. As the particular date was
some weeks off, and as Ed. Mason was a man who never crossed a
stream until he came to it, he said, "All right," put the letter in his
inside pocket, and the next time he thought of it was on the fine autumn
afternoon--Monday afternoon--when he saw Mrs. Mason drive up to
the door of his lumber-woods residence with Miss Eva Sommerton in
the buggy beside her. The young lady wondered, as Mr. Mason helped
her out, if that genial gentleman, whom she regarded as the most
fortunate of men, had in reality some secret, gnawing sorrow the world
knew not of.
"Why, Ed., you look ill," exclaimed Mrs. Mason; "is there anything the
matter?"

"Oh, it is nothing--at least, not of much consequence. A little business
worry, that's all."
"Has there been any trouble?"
"Oh no--at the least, not yet."
"Trouble about the men, is it?"
"No, not about the