day before Christmas, a triumphal procession. The moose was driven, a
peaceful captive with a wreath of cedar leaves around its neck--the
humourous conception of Gregory Thorne. Malbrouck had announced their
coming by a blast from his horn, and Margaret was standing in the doorway
wrapped in furs, which may have come originally from Hudson's Bay,
but which had been deftly re-manufactured in Regent Street.

Astonishment, pleasure, beamed in her eyes. She clapped her hands gaily,
and cried: "Welcome, welcome, merry-men all!" She kissed her father; she
called to her mother to come and see; then she said to Gregory, with arch
raillery, as she held out her hand: "Oh, companion of hunters, comest
thou like Jacques in Arden from dropping the trustful tear upon the prey
of others, or bringest thou quarry of thine own? Art thou a warrior
sated with spoil, master of the sports, spectator of the fight, Prince,
or Pistol? Answer, what art thou?"

And he, with a touch of his old insolence, though with something of irony
too, for he had hoped for a different fashion of greeting, said:

"All, lady, all! The Olympian all! The player of many parts. I am
Touchstone, Jacques, and yet Orlando too."

"And yet Orlando too, my daughter," said Malbrouck, gravely. "He saved
your father from the hoofs of a moose bent on sacrifice. Had your father
his eye, his nerve, his power to shoot with one arm a bull moose at long
range, so!--he would not refuse to be called a great hunter, but wear the
title gladly."

Margaret Malbrouck's face became anxious instantly. "He saved you from
danger--from injury, father?" she slowly said, and looked earnestly at