"Why, Worthie," she exclaimed, "just see here! Here's the very place where we landed that other time."

"Oh yes, Aunt Kate--it's still here."

She smiled; he could not have done better had he been trying.

"Now I wonder if I could make that landing again. I was proud of the way I did that before. I don't suppose I could do it again."

That baited him. "Oh yes, I guess you could, Aunt Kate. You just try it."

She demonstrated her skill and then they once more enjoyed the delightful pastime of just sitting in the launch.

Katie's eyes were misty, her lips trembled to a tender smile as she finally turned to him. "Worth dear, will you do something for your Aunt Kate?"

"Sure I will, Aunt Kate." Suddenly he guessed it. "Want me to get the man that mends the boats?"

She nodded.

"I'll _try_ and get him for you, Aunt Kate."

"Try pretty hard, Worthie."

He started, but turned back. "What'll I tell him, Aunt Kate?"

The smile had lingered and the eyes were wonderfully soft just then.

"Tell him I'm here again and want to find out some more about the underlying principles of life."

"The--now what is it, Aunt Kate?"

"Well just say life," she laughed tremulously. "Life'll do."

She found it hard to keep from crying. There had been too much. It had been too long. It was not with clear vision she looked over at the big house where Harry Prescott's wedding feast would be served on the morrow.

It seemed that about half of her life had passed before Worth came back--alone.

Pretense fell away. "Didn't you get him?"

"Why, Aunt Kate, there's another man there. But don't you feel so bad, Aunt Kate," he hastened. "We will get him, 'cause that other man is going to tell him."

"Oh, he--then he is here?"

"Oh yes, he's here. He's just over at the shop."

"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."

It was after she had succeeded in keeping him long enough for considerable headway to have been made in raft-construction that he exclaimed: "Katie, will you do something for me?"

Her eyes were asking what there could be that she would not do for him.

"Then _laugh,_ Katie. Oh if you could know how I've longed to hear you _laugh_ again."

She did laugh, but a sob overtook the laugh. Then laughed again and ran away from the sob. But the laugh was sweeter for the sob.

"You _will_ laugh, Katie, won't you?" he asked with an anxiety that touched deep things.

"Why there'll be days and days when I shan't do anything else!" Then her laughing eyes grew serious. "Though just a little differently, I think.