The weeds and grasses and wild flowers were beginning to peep out of the ground, with the haste that is peculiar to northern lands where life is strenuous during the few months of warm fair weather. The tender hues of the burgeoning birches and poplars, streaked with the gleaming silver of their trunks, were casting soft notes upon the strong greens of the conifers and the indigo of their shadows. In the spray of the falls, to her left, a tiny rainbow seemed to dance, and the loud song of the rushing waters was like the call of some great loving voice. She reflected that she would have to go again to a place in which many people lived. It would not be like a city. The same trees and the same waters and the same flowers would be there, very close at hand. Not a single house abutted against another. In the gardens there would be old-fashioned flowers such as she had been familiar with at home, before she had sought the town. Dr. Starr had described it all. Ten minutes' walk would take one beyond the habitations of men, into woodlands and fields and by a lake that extended into a far wilderness, upon which one could drive a canoe and feel as if one owned a great and beautiful world, for men were seldom on it and above the surface it was peopled chiefly by great diving birds and broods of ducklings. It all sounded, and doubtless was, perfectly ideal. But presently Hugo had finished his writing and was leaning back in his chair. "Do you think you would like some of those nice fresh eggs Mrs. Papineau's little girl brought this morning?" she asked him. "And would you like me to close the door now?" "Thanks, Miss Nelson," he said, "I'm sure I should enjoy them ever so much. They're a rather scarce commodity with us. Too many weasels and skunks and other chicken-eaters to make it a healthy country for hens. As to the door I'll be glad to have you close it if you feel cold. But it's delightful for me to be sitting here all wrapped up in blankets and taking in big lungfuls of our forest air. It--it makes a fellow feel like a two-year-old." She was about to break the eggs into a pan when she noticed the letter lying on the table. "Would you like me to get you an envelope, for it?" she asked. "If you'll be so kind," he assented, gravely. She would have offered to put the paper in the envelope for him also, but he managed it easily enough and closed the flap. "That's done," he said. "I wonder what will come of it?" To this she could not reply, so she prepared the eggs and brought them to him, with his tea and toast. "They're going to be ever so good," he said, taking up a fork, after which he stared out of the still-opened door. "If you don't eat them now, they'll be cold in a minute," she warned him. "Oh, I'd forgotten! I must beg your pardon since you took so much trouble about them." He ate them slowly, as if performing some hard and solemn task. When he had finished his meal, Madge cleared the table.