When the applause, which was very generous, had been given, Jim Russell wanted to know how young Willie got his neck washed in all his long meanderings, or if he did not wash, how did he dodge the health officers.

George Slater gravely suggested that perhaps young Willie used a dry-cleaning process—­French chalk or brown paper and a hot iron.

Peter Slater said he did not believe it was the same handkerchief at all.  No handkerchief could stand the pace young Willie went.  It was another one very like the one he had started off with.  He noticed them in the window as he passed, that day, going cheap for cash.

The young Englishman looked more and more puzzled.  It was strange how Canadians took things.  He turned to Camilla.

“It is only a song, don’t you know,” he said with a distressed look.  “It is really impossible to say how he had the kerchief still tied around his neck.”

The evening would not have been complete without a song from Billy McLean.  Little Billy was a consumptive, playing a losing game against a relentless foe; but playing like a man with unfailing cheerfulness, and eyes that smiled ever.

   There is a bright ship on the ocean,
      Bedecked in silver and gold;
   They say that my Willie is sailing,
      Yes, sailing afar I am told,

was little Billy’s song, known and loved in many a thresher’s caboose, but heard no more for many a long day, for little Billy gave up the struggle the next spring when the snow was leaving the fields and the trickle of water was heard in the air.  But he and his songs are still lovingly remembered by the boys who “follow the mill,” when their thoughts run upon old times.

Peter and Fred Slater came in with the coffee.  Jim Russell with a white apron around his neck followed with a basket of sandwiches, and Tom Motherwell with a heaping plate of cake.

“Did you make this cake, Nell?” Tom whispered to Nellie in the pantry as she filled the plate for him.

“Me!” she laughed.  “Bless you no!  I can’t make anything but pancakes.”

Martha Perkins still sat by the window.  She looked older and more careworn—­she was thinking of how late it was getting.  Martha could make cakes, Tom knew that.  Martha could do everything.

“Go along Tom,” Nellie was saying, “give a piece to big John.  Don’t you see how hungry he looks.”  Their eyes met.  Hers were bright and smiling.  He smiled back.

Oh pshaw! pancakes are not so bad.

Jim Russell whispered to Camilla, as he passed near where she and Arthur sat, “Will you please come and help Nellie in the pantry?  We need you badly.”

Camilla called Maud Murray to take her seat.  She knew Maud would be kind to the young Englishman.

When Camilla reached the pantry she found Nellie and Tom Motherwell happily engaged in eating lemon tarts, and evidently not needing her at all.  Jim was ready with an explanation.  “I was thinking of poor Thursa, far across the sea,” he said, “what a shock it would be to her if Arthur was compelled to write home that he had changed his mind,” and Camilla did not look nearly so angry as she should have, either.