The bright little lady who is taking her husband for a winter's
Canadian tour gets restive in this silent snowy world. But before
they part a letter is written to a white-haired old gentleman' in
England, who has only a month to wait.

"Whether I see them again or not does not matter," says Sir Humphrey,
"but for the assurance that they have not harmed each other, I thank
Almighty God this night!"





THE IDYL OF THE ISLAND.

* * * * *

Here lies mid-way between parallels 48 and 49 of latitude, and
degrees 89 and 90 of longitude, in the northern hemisphere of the
New World, serenely anchored on an ever-rippling and excited surface,
an exquisitely lovely island. No tropical wonder of palm-treed
stateliness, or hot tangle of gaudy bird and glowing creeper, can
compare with it; no other northern isle, cool and green and
refreshing to the eye like itself, can surpass it. It is not a large
island. It is about half-a-mile long and quarter of a mile broad It
is an irregular oval in shape, and has two distinct and different
sides. On the west side its grey limestone rises to the height of
twenty feet straight out of the water. On the east side there occurs