The good creature dashed away on her errand, and we were left to tell our tales.

“It was perfectly splendid, Daddy,” I told him.  “I hope they have taken good care of you and you were a dear to let me go.  I have had such a wonderful time!”

“I am delighted, my dear,” he said, “but now you had better run away and follow Susie’s advice.”

“Just a moment, Daddy,” I pleaded.  “I have had wet feet for two days and a minute more won’t hurt me.  Indeed I killed the big caribou, and Dr. Grant was ever so kind, as he always is.  He said he would try to come in for supper.  Oh!  You ought to have seen that big stag, and how proudly he stepped out into that brook, all alert, and how he started to run.  And then I shot, and the doctor found him for me.  It was wonderful!”

“That doctor is a fine fellow,” said Dad.

Of course I agreed with him.  It is quite amazing how Daddy has taken to Dr. Grant, but then I don’t see how one could help it.  The doctor is a very quiet man, excepting when he gets enthusiastic or mad about things, and one thinks at first that he is rather distant in his manner.  But when you know him much better he comes right out and shows just as much red blood as those boys at home.  I wonder why he keeps on living at Sweetapple Cove?

So I went off to change my shoes and stockings, which were quite soaked through, and then I sat again with Daddy and told him a lot more about our trip.  I wish I could have explained everything to him, but of course I couldn’t make him see the color of those far-away hills and the perfect beauty of those great marshes.  I told him all about the camp by the little lake, and the winding distant river, and the cries of the ptarmigans and the loons, and the finding of the stag.

“Helen dear,” said Daddy, who had been looking at me in that keen way of his, “I don’t think I ever saw you so enthusiastic before.  Your mind has been fully opened to the charm of the wilderness, and that is something that city people seldom understand.  You were never so earnest before.  What is it?  Are you developing new traits?”

Of course I laughed at this, and yet it seemed to me also as if something were changed.  I didn’t quite know what Daddy meant, because it is sometimes difficult to know whether he is jesting or in earnest.  He once told me that this was a rather good business asset.

“Well, Daddy,” I finally said.  “I am afraid you will have to take me away, or I shall be falling so much in love with Sweetapple Cove that I will never want to leave it again.”

“We will leave to-morrow, if you want to,” he said, in a rather abrupt way.

Do you know, Aunt Jennie, that when he said that I just gasped a little.  It suddenly seemed so strange that we would have to go away soon, and that I might never see Sweetapple Cove again, and those dear Barnetts, and all the people, for the whole lot of them appear to have a way of stealing into one’s heart.