"I suppose it would be risking too much." Jamie spoke with something that sounded like a sigh. "I don't want the Doctor to roar at me the first thing because I am indiscreet--not after what he and his advice and kindness have done for me already." Mr. Ewart laid a hand on his shoulder. "You 're another man, Macleod, since coming here. We won't make any back tracks into that wilderness, will we?" He spoke so gently, so affectionately, that Jamie turned suddenly to him, exclaiming impulsively: "Gordon, if you were a woman I 'd kiss you for saying that." I knew what courage it gave him to hear this from his friend; and I wondered what kind of a man this might be who, one moment, could look stern and unyielding at our half childish chaffing, and in the next be all affectionate solicitude for this younger man who, at times, was all boy. "Then, Miss Farrell," he turned to me, "won't you come? Cale will drive me over in the double pung." There was no hesitation in my giving an affirmative answer. "We 'll have supper within an hour, please, Mrs. Macleod," he said, as she entered the room. He looked at the pile of books on the floor beside me. "It's too late for you to work any more." He stooped and, gathering up an armful, began to place them. "Will you be so kind as to speak to Marie and tell her to have four soapstones thoroughly heated, and ask Cale to warm the robes? It will be twenty below before you get back." "Just what I 've wanted to do all winter," I exclaimed; "a drive on such a clear, full-moon night to Richelieu-en-Haut will be something to remember." "I hope to make it so; for it's a typical Canadian midwinter night--a thing of splendor if seen with seeing eyes." "Then you won't expect me to talk much, will you?" "No,"--he smiled genially, and Jamie audaciously winked at me behind his back,--"it's apt to make my teeth ache, and although yours are as sound as mine, I don't believe they can stand prolonged exposure to severe cold any better. But how about Cale? There is no ice embargo on his flow of speech." Jamie burst into a laugh. "You 're right, Gordon, he 'll do all the talking for both, and for the Doctor too. By the way, mother," he said, turning to Mrs. Macleod and at the same time holding out a hand to help me up from the floor--an attention I ignored to save his strength--"something Cale said the other day, but casually, led me to think he may be a benedict instead of a bachelor; you have n't found out yet?" "No, but sometime it will come right for me to ask him. He has consideration for women in just those little things that would lead me to believe that he has been married--" "Oh, I say, mother, that's rough on Ewart and me. Give us a point or two on the 'little things', will you?" "Stop teasing, Jamie; I still think, as I thought from the first, that he has been--"