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On the next morning but one after the adventure of the studio in the storm, Roger was industriously sketching in a view of this cataract, his canvas on an easel before which he was standing—he always stood at his work. Across his range of vision shot a canoe, a girl kneeling in it and wielding the paddle with expert grace. He instantly recognized her. “Hello!” he called out friendlily—after a curiously agitated moment of confusion and recovery.

She turned her head, smiled. With a single skillful dip she rounded the canoe so that it shot to the shore within a few feet of where he stood. “Good morning, Chang,” said she. “Did you miss me at tea—or, rather, chocolate—yesterday?”

“I didn’t expect you,” replied he.

“You didn’t invite me.”

“That was ill-mannered, wasn’t, it? But, no—I forgot. We said good-by forever, didn’t we? Well, it was safer to prepare for the worst in a world as uncertain as this. Aren’t you rather early?”

She looked a little confused. “I’m very energetic for the first few days after I get to the country,” she explained. “Besides, I’m dreadfully restless of late.... Are you working?”