“Now,” said Miss Jelliffe, during a spell of resting, “I should be utterly lost if I were alone.  Nothing seems at all familiar and it is all a great jumble of little green islands of vegetation, of grey moss that is endless, of twisted junipers and lonely boulders.  I don’t know where I am, but I am perfectly happy, since some one knows the way.”

Of course I was only acquainted with the general lie of the land, but the direction was quite clear to me.  I wish everything was as straight-forward and clear as the way to the Cove.

“I am quite ashamed of myself,” she continued.  “I am the only one who is carrying nothing and is perfectly useless.  I wonder your backs are not broken with those tremendous loads.”

But the two men only grinned.

“It is nothing when you get used to it,” I said, “providing one ever really gets used to a hard grind.  But there are people to whom strong physical effort is a punishment while others simply accept it, grit their teeth, and carry the thing out.”

“I suppose one has to learn how to accept things cheerfully,” said Miss Jelliffe.  “My life has been such an easy one that I have never had to try to bear heavy burdens.”

“I am sure you will do it courageously, if ever the time comes,” I answered.

Then we took up our packs and went on, making rather slow progress, as we were not pressed for time and the loads were heavy.  In the middle of the day we took our lunch near a little brook, and, after starting again, we soon saw, from the summit of a little hill, the bright and glittering sea.  Before us descended the valley of Sweetapple River, looking like a silvery ribbon winding in and out among the trees.  To one side of us there was a rocky hill, once swept by a storm of flames and now tenanted only by the gaunt skeletons of charred firs and tamaracks.  In the mistiness ahead of us the coast line, with its grim outlines softened, lost itself and melted away as if nature, in a kindly spirit, had sought to throw a veil over brutal features and covered them with a mantle of tender hues.

“This is ideally beautiful,” said Miss Jelliffe.  “I can understand that you may hesitate to leave all this to return to the grime of great cities.”

Thus we returned to the Cove, and the girl hastened to her father, eager to tell him of our hunt and to show him the great head.  I went with her to the house, and took pleasure in seeing the interest shown by the old gentleman.  He certainly is a good sportsman.

“If Helen hasn’t thanked you enough,” he said, “I want to put in my oar.  I am really extremely obliged to you for giving her such a good time.”

I left in a short time and Miss Jelliffe put out her hand in her frank and friendly way.  I must say she is a girl in many thousands.

And now I wonder why I am writing all this.  My diary, begun in self-defence at a time when I expected to spend so dreary a time that an addled and rusted brain would result unless I sought hard to keep it employed, scarcely has an excuse for being, now.  The Jelliffes and the Barnetts, with the good people of the Cove, are surely enough to keep a man interested in the world about him.  It has simply become a silly habit, this jotting down of idle words.