The Panther slid in to the float.  Jack and Stella went ashore.  Lefty Howe came down to meet them.  Thirty-five or forty men were stringing away from the camp, back to their work in the woods.  Some waved greeting to Jack Fyfe, and he waved back in the hail-fellow fashion of the camps.

“How’s the frau, Lefty?” he inquired, after they had shaken hands.

“Fine.  Down to Vancouver.  Sister’s sick,” Howe answered laconically.  “House’s all shipshape.  Wanta eat here, or up there?”

“Here at the camp, until we get straightened around,” Fyfe responded.  “Tell Pollock to have something for us in about half an hour.  We’ll go up and take a look.”

Howe went in to convey this message, and the two set off up the path.  A sudden spirit of impishness made Jack Fyfe sprint.  Stella gathered up her skirt and raced after him, but a sudden shortness of breath overtook her, and she came panting to where Fyfe had stopped to wait.

“You’ll have to climb hills and row and swim so you’ll get some wind,” Fyfe chuckled.  “Too much easy living, lady.”

She smiled without making any reply to this sally, and they entered the house—­the House of Fyfe, that was to be her home.

If the exterior had pleased her, she went from room to room inside with growing amazement.  Fyfe had finished it from basement to attic without a word to her that he had any such undertaking in hand.  Yet there was scarcely a room in which she could not find the visible result of some expressed wish or desire.  Often during the winter they had talked over the matter of furnishings, and she recalled how unconsciously she had been led to make suggestions which he had stored up and acted upon.  For the rest she found her husband’s taste beyond criticism.  There were drapes and rugs and prints and odds and ends that any woman might be proud to have in her home.

“You’re an amazing sort of a man, Jack,” she said thoughtfully.  “Is there anything you’re not up to?  Even a Chinese servant in the kitchen.  It’s perfect.”

“I’m glad you like it,” he said.  “I hoped you would.”

“Who wouldn’t?” she cried impulsively.  “I love pretty things.  Wait till I get done rearranging.”

They introduced themselves to the immobile-featured Celestial when they had jointly and severally inspected the house from top to bottom.  Sam Foo gazed at them, listened to their account of themselves, and disappeared.  He re-entered the room presently, bearing a package.

“Mist’ Chol’ Bentlee him leave foh yo’.”

Stella looked at it.  On the outer wrapping was written: 

    From C.A.  Benton to Mrs. John Henderson Fyfe
    A Belated Wedding Gift

She cut the string, and delved into the cardboard box, and gasped.  Out of a swathing of tissue paper her hands bared sundry small articles.  A little cap and jacket of knitted silk—­its double in fine, fleecy yarn—­a long silk coat—­a bonnet to match,—­both daintily embroidered.  Other things—­a shoal of them—­baby things.  A grin struggled for lodgment on Fyfe’s freckled countenance.  His blue eyes twinkled.