“So you shall, boy; so you shall!” cried Angelique, who now came in, carrying a great dish of browned and smoking fish. This she placed at her master’s end of the table and flanked it with another platter of daintily crisped potatoes. There were heaps of delicate biscuits, with coffee and cakes galore; enough, the visitor thought, to satisfy even his own extravagant hunger, and again he wondered at such fare in such a wilderness. “Why, this might be a hotel table!” he exclaimed, in unfeigned pleasure. “Not much like lumberman’s fare: salt pork, bad bread, molasses-sweetened tea, and the everlasting beans. I hope I shall never have to look another bean in the face! But that coffee! I never smelled anything so delicious.” “Had some last night,” commented Angelique, shortly. She perceived that this stranger was in some way obnoxious to her beloved master, and she resented the surprise with which he had seen her take her own place behind the tray. Her temper seemed fairly cross-edged that morning, and Margot remarked:-- Don’t mind Mother Angelique. She’s dreadfully disappointed that nobody died and no bad luck followed her breaking a mirror, yesterday. “No bad luck?” demanded Angelique, looking at Adrian with so marked a manner that it spoke volumes. “And as for dying--you’ve but to go into the woods and you’ll see.” Here Tom created a diversion by entering and limping straight to the stranger’s side, who moved away, then blushed at his own timidity, seeing the amusement with which the others regarded him. “Oh! we’re all one family here, servants and everybody,” cried the woman, tossing the eagle a crumb of biscuit. But the big bird was not to be drawn from the scrutiny of this new face; and the gravity of his unwinking gaze was certainly disconcerting. “Get out, you uncanny creature! Beg pardon, Miss Margot, but I’m--he seems to have a special grudge against me.” “Oh! no. He doesn’t understand who you are yet. We had a man here last year, helping uncle, and Tom acted just as he does now. Though he never would make friends with the Canadian, as I hope he will with you.” Angelique flashed a glance toward the girl. Why should she, or anybody, speak as if this lad’s visit were to be a prolonged one? And they had, both she and the master. He had bidden the servant fill a fresh tick with the dried and shredded fern leaves and pine needles, such as supplied their own mattresses; and to put all needful furnishings into the one disused room of the cabin. “But, Master! When you’ve always acted as if that were bein’ kept for somebody who was comin’ some day. Somebody you love!” she protested. “I have settled the matter, Angelique. Don’t fear that I’ve not thought it all out. ‘Do unto others,’ you know. For each day its duty, its battle with self, and, please God, its victory.”