"Then," said I, "Claudia has nothing to offer me. And so I give the apple to Penelope!" She refused it, shyly. "Industry is the winner," said I. "Thrift triumphs. I already have her gift. I have a dozen pair of woolen stockings for my men, knitted by this fair Penelope of today. And, as she awaits no wandering lord, though many suitors press her, then she should have at least this golden apple of Eris to reward her. And so she shall." And I offered it again. "Take it, my dear," said Claudia, laughing, "for this young man has given you a reason. Pallas offered military glory; you offer military stockings! What chance have Hera and poor Aphrodite in such a contest?" We all were laughing while the cloth was cleared, and Flora brought us a great dish of wild strawberries. These we sopped in our wine and tasted at our ease, there by the open windows, where a soft wind blew the curtains and the far-spreading azure waters sparkled in the sun. How far away seemed death! I looked out upon the mountains, now a pale cobalt tint, and their peaks all denting the sky like blue waves on Lake Erie against the horizon. Low over the Vlaie Water flapped a giant heron, which alighted not far away and stood like a sentry, motionless at his post. A fresh, wild breath of blossoms grew upon the breeze--the enchanting scent of pinxters. From the mainland, high on a sugar-maple's spire, came the sweet calling of a meadow-lark. Truly, war seemed far away; and death farther still in this dear Northland of ours. And I fell a-thinking there that if kings could only see this land on such a day, and smell the pinxters, and hear the sweetened whistle of our lark, there would be no war here, no slavery, no strife where liberty and freedom were the very essence of the land and sky. * * * * * My Lady Johnson wished to rest; and there was a romance out of France awaiting her in gilt binding in her chamber. She went, when the board was cleared, linking her arm in Claudia's. Penelope took up her knitting with a faint smile at me. "Will you tell me a story to amuse me, sir?" she said in her shy way. "You shall tell me one," said I. "I? What story?" "Some story you have lived." "I told you all." "No," said I, "not any story concerning this very pest of suitors which plague you--or, if not you, then me!--as the suitors of the first Penelope plagued Telemachus." Now she was laughing, and, at one moment, hid her face in her yarn, still laughing. "Does this plague you, John Drogue?" she asked, still all rosy in her mirth. "Well," said I, "they all seem popinjays to me in their blue and gold and buff. But it was once red-coats, too, at Caughnawaga, or so I hear." "Oh. Did you hear that?" "I did. They sat like flies around a sap-pan." "Deary me!" she exclaimed, all dimples, "who hath gossiped of me at Cayadutta Lodge?" "Penelope?" "I am attentive, sir." "I suppose all maids enjoy admiration." "I suppose so." "Hum! And do you?"