Had it been August, or even July, doubtless a great number of vacationists would have been somewhat shocked at what Decatur did then. But it was early June, you remember, and on the far end of the Ocean Park fishing-pier were only these two, with just the dancing blue ocean in front. “But,” she said at length, after many other and more important things had been said between them, “what will Aunt Judith say?” “I suppose she'll think me a lucky dog--and slightly color-blind,” chuckled Decatur, joyously. “But come,” he went on, helping her to rise and retaining both her hands, swaying them back and forth clasped in his, as children do in the game of London Bridge,--“come,” he repeated, impulsively, “while my courage is high let us go and break the news to your aunt Judith.” There was, however, no need. Looming ponderously in the middle distance of the pier's vista, a lorgnette held to her eyes, and a frozen look of horror on her ample features, was Aunt Judith herself. A STIFF CONDITION BY HERMAN WHITAKER An Ontario sun shed a pleasant warmth into the clearing where Elder Hector McCakeron sat smoking. His gratified consciousness was pleasantly titillated by sights and sounds of worldly comfort. From the sty behind the house came fat gruntings; in the barn-yard hens were shrilly announcing that eggs would be served with the bacon; moreover, Janet was vigorously agitating a hoe among the potatoes to his left, while his wife performed similarly in the cabbage-garden. And what better could a man wish than to see his women profitably employed? It was a pause in Janet's labors that gave the elder first warning of an intruder on his peace. A man was coming across the clearing--a short fellow, thick-set and bow-legged in figure, slow and heavy of face. The elder observed him with stony eyes. “It's the Englisher,” he muttered. “What'll he be wanting wi' me?” His accent was hostile as his glance. Since, thirty years before, a wave of red-haired Scots inundated western Ontario, no man of Saxon birth had settled in Zorra, the elder's township. That in peculiar had been held sealed as a heritage to the Scot, and when Joshua Timmins bought out Sandy Cruikshanks the township boiled and burned throughout its length and breadth. Not that it had expected to suffer the contamination. It was simply astounded at the man's impudence. “We'll soon drum him oot!” Elder McCakeron snorted, when he heard of the invasion; to which, on learning that Timmins was also guilty of Methodism, he added, “Wait till the meenister lays claws on the beast.”