Moment by moment, the changing colours in the sky were altering the colours on the smooth waters to harmonise: a lake of bright yellow gold, then the gold turned to red, a sea of blood; from red to purple, from purple to the palest shade of heliotrope; and, as the sun at last dipped in the far west, the distant mountains threw back that same attractive shade of colour. It was an evening for kind thoughts. We glided up the Bay, past Jake Meaghan's little home; still further up, then into the lagoon, where not a ripple disturbed that placid sheet of water: where the trees and rocks smiled down upon their own mirrored reflections. We grew silent as the nature around us, awed by the splendours of the hushing universe upon which we had been gazing. "It is beautiful! oh, so beautiful!" said my companion at last, awaking from her dreaming. "Let us stay here awhile. I cannot think to go home yet." She threw her sweater-coat round her shoulders, for, even in the height of summer, the air grows chilly on the west coast as the sun goes down. "You may smoke, Mr. Bremner. I know you are aching to do so." I thanked her, pulled in my oars and lighted my pipe. Mary Grant sat there, watching me in friendly interest, smiling in amusement in the charming way only she could smile. "Do you know, I sometimes wonder," she said reflectively, "why it is that a man of your education, your prospective attainments, your ability, your physical strength and mental powers should keep to the bypaths of life, such as we find up here, when your fellows, with less intellect than you have, are in the cities, in the mining fields and on the prairies, battling with the world for power and fortune and getting, some of them, what they are battling for. "I am not trying to probe into your privacy, but what I have put into words has often recurred to me regarding you. Somehow, you seem to have all the qualities that go to the making of a really successful business man." "Do you really wonder why?" I smiled. "--And yet you profess to know me--a little." It was an evening for closer friendships. "If you promise for the future to call me George and permit me the privilege, when we are alone, of calling you Mary, I shall answer your query." "All right,--George,--it's a bargain," she said. "Go ahead." "Well! in the first place, I know what money is; what it can bring and what it can cause. I never cared for money any more than what could provide the plain necessities of life. As for ambition to make and accumulate money;--God forbid that I should ever have it. I leave such ambitions to the grubs and leeches." Mary listened in undisguised interest. "Oh! I have had opportunities galore, but I always preferred the simpler way,--the open air, the sea and the quiet, the adventure of the day and the rest after a day well spent.