"I do not know that I know myself," returned Mr. Barton. "I was taken sick at a boarding-house in Montreal, and was sent to a hospital. I was at that time master of the bark Twilight, a Liverpool craft. Mrs. Barton was then a beautiful girl--don't blush so, Mrs. Barton. Jennie there is a perfect reproduction of you as I first saw you, and I should not be ashamed of our Jennie anywhere on earth. Well, as I was saying, Mrs. Barton, named at that time Miss Constance Schmidt, the daughter of a Moravian missionary, visited the hospital frequently as an angel of mercy. So far as I was concerned it was a case of love at first sight. She nursed me back to health; and, with the usual ingratitude of man, I married her for her pains. I then gave up the sea after a trip or two, and settled in Montreal. But I could not get used to, nor like the conventionalities of city life. So I made a trip into these wilds. I saw an opportunity to do a good business in furs; and so, with wife's consent, we settled on this spot. I built this house, which I named in honor of my wife--Constance. I have done fairly well financially, and I am sure that we have been quite happy and contented. Until Mrs. Barton's illness, I was without a care or worry in the world." "But don't you find the winters very long and terribly cold?" asked Fred. "On the contrary, we enjoy our winters very much. To be sure, the thermometer runs from thirty to fifty degrees below zero; but if the wind does not blow, we suffer very little from it." "What do you do to pass the time?" asked Will. "The boys, when the weather is favorable, trap and hunt. I am getting a little too old and heavy for much of that; so I attend to the chores about the place, trade goods for furs to the hunters and Esquimaux. Our evenings are passed in reading, one often reading aloud to the rest of us. And we have a great deal of music. Joe plays the violin, Sam the flute, and Jennie the guitar or dulcimer." "By the way," cried Fred, "Let's have a musical soiree to-night. What do you all say?" This proposition was enthusiastically received. "Come, Will, let's run up and get the organ. Will you go up?" addressing Joe and Sam. "Go up, my sons, and see this Alladin's palace," said Mr. Barton. "You will never see its like again." In half an hour they returned. The young Bartons were wildly enthusiastic in their praises of the globe. "Jennie, you must not fail to see the wonderful air-ship," cried Joe. Mattie, Jennie, Will and Fred visited the globe, returning just in time for a splendid supper prepared by the skillful Celestial, Sing. All that the larders of both Constance House and the globe afforded had been drawn upon, and it is doubtful if in all inhospitable Labrador a more elaborate and bountiful table was ever spread.