She knew that he was there, or at least had been there the week before, for just as she was leaving her uncle’s she had received a note from him.  They had not been writing to each other since the brief letter she had sent him the day after receiving the announcement of her brother’s engagement.  This note had been written to tell her no special thing; simply because, he said, after trying his best for a number of weeks, he was not longer able to keep from writing.  He wrote because he couldn’t help it.  He had determined to love her too well to urge her to do what, knowing it all, she evidently felt could not hold happiness for her.  But the utter desolation of life without her had crumbled the foundation of that determination.

In the note he said that his boat-mending days were about over.  They would not have lasted that long only he had had no heart for other things.

But the letter gave Katie heart for other things!  Its unmistakable wretchedness made her superbly radiant.

“Why, Worthie,” she exclaimed, “just see here!  Here’s the very place where we landed that other time.”

“Oh yes, Aunt Kate—­it’s still here.”

She smiled; he could not have done better had he been trying.

“Now I wonder if I could make that landing again.  I was proud of the way I did that before.  I don’t suppose I could do it again.”

That baited him.  “Oh yes, I guess you could, Aunt Kate.  You just try it.”

She demonstrated her skill and then they once more enjoyed the delightful pastime of just sitting in the launch.

Katie’s eyes were misty, her lips trembled to a tender smile as she finally turned to him.  “Worth dear, will you do something for your Aunt Kate?”

“Sure I will, Aunt Kate.”  Suddenly he guessed it.  “Want me to get the man that mends the boats?”

She nodded.

“I’ll try and get him for you, Aunt Kate.”

“Try pretty hard, Worthie.”

He started, but turned back.  “What’ll I tell him, Aunt Kate?”

The smile had lingered and the eyes were wonderfully soft just then.  “Tell him I’m here again and want to find out some more about the underlying principles of life.”

“The—­now what is it, Aunt Kate?”

“Well just say life,” she laughed tremulously.  “Life’ll do.”

She found it hard to keep from crying.  There had been too much.  It had been too long.  It was not with clear vision she looked over at the big house where Harry Prescott’s wedding feast would be served on the morrow.

It seemed that about half of her life had passed before Worth came back—­alone.

Pretense fell away.  “Didn’t you get him?”

“Why, Aunt Kate, there’s another man there.  But don’t you feel so bad, Aunt Kate,” he hastened.  “We will get him, ’cause that other man is going to tell him.”

“Oh, he—­then he is here?”

“Oh yes, he’s here.  He’s just over at the shop.”