For a moment Rug was speechless--partly from disappointment and partly from displeasure. As he stood before them he looked a model of muscular strength and manliness, though little more than a boy. He looked fondly at Hannah, and as she met his gaze her cheeks grew crimson and her eyes dropped shyly under their long lashes. The devotion of her lover filled her with an indescribable ecstasy which thrilled her innermost soul, making it responsive to his. In her opinion Rug was all that was good and true and noble. He was her ideal, and she was determined to love, honor and obey him, humbly, tenderly, completely, submissively. "Is an outward ceremony necessary?" he said, "to complete a union of heart and soul which was made in heaven months ago?" "I have a plan," said the Chief, "which you will be perfectly justified in adopting under the circumstances. Let us drive down on the ice to-morrow, and halt on the other side of the border line between the two provinces, and have our Scottish friend perform the ceremony in Upper Canada, which he is entitled to do by law." The suggestion was received with applause by all present, and preparations for the wedding proceeded with. On the day following, an exceedingly brief ceremony was performed on the frozen river, the only part of which the bewildered bridegroom could remember being the last words of the Scotchman: "I pronoonce ye mon and wife." The solemn words seemed to echo and re-echo in unison with the merry jingle of the sleigh-bells as he drove with his young bride through snowy fields and drifts of spotless purity to his father's house, followed by a long line of sleighs. The limbs of the dignified elms which guarded the approach to the house hung heavily glittering in the setting sun, the ice laden spruces waved wearily and crackled as the numerous guests filed into the large front room. There was an awkward silence, as though it might have been a funeral, for the tendency of life in the woods seemed to impart to many of the early settlers something of the characteristics of their surroundings--calmness, silence, stability--and they seemed to shrink from the sound of their own voices. Some of the young men looked as though they would like to have given up their seats to the young ladies who were standing, but were too bashful to propose it. Fortunately the embarrassing silence was soon broken by the happy announcement that supper was ready in the kitchen.