Rita always could manipulate Jake round her little finger. He was clay in her hands, and obeyed her even to the putting of a stocking full of hot salt round his neck one night he had a hoarseness in his throat. "If she ever insists on me puttin' my feet in hot-water and mustard," he confessed to me once, "God knows how I shall muster up the courage to refuse." I had sent to Vancouver for the grammar-book with which I intended starting Rita's tuition, but it had only arrived,--its coming having been delayed on account of the book-sellers not having it in stock and having to fill my requirement from the East,--but I had promised Rita, much to her pleasure, that we should start in in earnest the following evening. I had been reading in my hammock until the daylight had failed me. And now I was lying, resting and hoping that any moment Miss Grant would commence her nightly musicale. Jake, and his dog Mike, I presumed, were already in their accustomed places, Jake smoking his pipe and Mike biting at mosquitoes and other pestiferous insects which lodged and boarded about his warm, hairy person. The cottage door opened and our fair entertainer stepped out. She came across the rustic bridge and made straight for my place, humming softly to herself as she sauntered along. She was hatless as usual and her hair was done up in great, wavy coils on her well-poised head. Her hands were jammed deep into the pockets of her pale-green, silk sweater-coat. She impressed me then as being at peace with the world and perfectly at ease; much more at ease than I was, for I was puzzling myself as to what her wish with me could be, unless it were regarding some groceries that she might have overlooked during the day. She smiled as she came forward. I rose from the hammock. "Now, don't let me disturb you," she said. "Lie where you are. "I shall do splendidly right here." She sat down on the top step of the veranda and turned half round to me. "Do you ever feel lonely, Mr. Bremner?" "Yes!--sometimes," I answered. "What do you do with yourself on such occasions?" "Oh!--smoke and read chiefly." "But,--do you ever feel as if you had to speak to a member of the opposite sex near your own age,--or die?" She was quite solemn about this, and seemed to wait anxiously as if the whole world's welfare depended on my answer. "Sometimes!" I replied again, with a laugh. "What do you do then?" "I lie down and try to die." "--and find you can't," she put in. "Yes!" "Just the same as I do. Well!--" she sighed, "I have explored all the beauties of Golden Crescent; I have fished--and caught nothing. I have hunted,--and shot nothing. I have read,--and learned nothing, or next to it, until I have nothing left to read. So now,--I have come over to you. I want to be friends." "Are we not friends already?" I asked, sitting on the side of my hammock and filling my vision with the charming picture she presented. She sighed and raised her eyebrows.