“I see,” said Aunt Kate, very much engaged with something she appeared to think was trying to get in her eye.

“But, Worth,” she asked, when she had blinked the gnat away, “what did you tell this other man?”

“Why, I just told him.  Told him you was here and wanted the other man that mended the boats.  The first man.  The big man, I said.  He knows who I mean.”

“I should hope so,” she murmured.

“But what did you tell him I wanted to see him for?” she asked, suddenly apprehensive.

Worth had sat down and begun upon a raft.  “Why, I just told him.  Told him you had come to find out some more about life.”

“Worth! Told that to a strange man!”

“But I guess he didn’t know what I meant, Aunt Kate.  He’s one of those awful dumb folks that talk mostly in foreign languages.  I think he’s some kind of a French Pole—­or something.”

She breathed deeper.  “Oh, well perhaps one’s confidences would be safe—­with a French Pole.”

“So he knows you want him, Aunt Kate, but he don’t know just what you want him for.”

“Yes; that’s quite as well, I think,” said Aunt Kate.

The other half of her life had almost passed when again there were footsteps—­very hurried footsteps, these were.

It was not the French Pole, though some one who did not seem at home with the English tongue, some one who stood there looking at her as if he, too, wanted to cry.

Worth was the self-possessed member of the party.  “Hello there,” he said; “it’s been a long time since we saw you, ain’t it?”

“It seems to me to have been a—­yes, a long time,” replied the man who mended the boats, never taking his eyes from Katie.

Saying nothing more, he pulled in her boat, secured it.  Held out his hand to help her out—­forgot to let go the hand when her feet were upon firm earth.  Acted, Worth thought, as though he thought somebody was going to hurt her.

A steamboat was coming down the river.  And Worth!—­a much interested Worth.  The man who mended the boats did not seem to find his surroundings all he could ask.

“I want to show you this island,” he began.  “It’s really quite a remarkable island.  You know, I’ve been wanting to show it to you.  There’s a stone over here—­quite—­quite an astonishing stone.  And a flower.  Queer.  Really an astounding flower.  I don’t believe you ever saw one like it.”

“Pooh!” said Worth, starting on ahead.  “I bet I’ve seen one like it.”

“Say—­I’ll tell you what I’ll bet you.  I’ll bet you two dollars and a quarter you can’t get that raft done before we get back!”

“Well I’ll just bet you two dollars and a half that I can!”

“It’s a go!”—­and Aunt Kate and the man who mended the boats were off to find the astonishing stone and the astounding flower, Worth calling after them:  “Now you try to keep him, Aunt Kate.  Keep him as long as you can.”