If the Pearl had advice to give he invariably addressed it to “Mr. Barker,” and so it came to us through the dog, as one might say, and was never lost upon us. Mr. McCarthy and I hurried away, while Mr. Pearl got a fire going. We were both ashamed that the idea of increasing our stores had not occurred to us. We returned soon with eggs and bacon, and new bread and coffee, and all needed appliances. “I move that the report be laid on the table,” said Mr. Pearl, as he began to warm the spider. I think always with a grateful heart of that supper, which we ate in the cool twilight, with a knoll for a table, and, for a cloth, a mat of grass interwoven with white clover blossoms. It was quite dusk when we launched the canoe and resumed our journey. Had I words fit for beauty and delight, I should try to tell of our night journey on the river--of the wondrous flattery of moon and shadow, of wet banks showered with “barbaric pearl,” of geese that sailed by, magnified to swanlike size, of a little village on the shore, whose painted boards shone like white marble and filled the eye with illusions of splendor and grand proportion. When we were over the last carry at Mill Pond the hand-made gentleman fell asleep, but we kept on with a steady stroke of the paddles. I would not be the first to speak of stopping, for every stroke brought me nearer home, and the thought of it!--worth all the misery and peril I had known. Near two o'clock we got out on the shore, a mile below the Mill House, and lay down with our blankets and went to sleep. The sunlight and the robins wakened us. It was one of my best days--that of my return. So much of it has come along up the road with me! Especially I remember its glad faces and the touch of its loving hands, and the sound of its gentle voices and its peace. Who can estimate the value of such a day save one who has been blessed with it? True, the moments go like falling water, but they return and are never quite ended, after all. The cascade seemed to sing a welcome with its big, hearty voice. The garden flowers expressed my happiness in color, and sent their perfume to bid me welcome at the gate. The Pearl and the hand-made gentleman turned away while I went up the old stair with my arms around my mother and sister, now dearer than ever to me. We sat down upon the old sofa, and I began to ravel out my follies. They rose to prepare breakfast, and I looked about me. There were the familiar three commandments of my mother hanging on the wall: BE TRUTHFUL. BE KIND. BE HAPPY. “If I had told the truth to Mr. Weatherby I would never have gone away,” was my remark. “The more truth the less trouble,” said my mother. “It keeps you in the right road. If you're going to tell the truth you've got to make it worth telling, or, at least, good enough so that you will not be ashamed of it.” While we had learned those three commandments, not until now had I begun to feel the power in them.