Part 12 (1/2)

”Would you like to have one of our boats? Miles will help you to run it down,” Katherine said It was such a usual thing to lend a customer a boat that one or tere always handy, and the customer always understood that the loan was to be returned at his earliest convenience

”Thank you, I should be glad! The current will carry h to cook supper when I get there,” he answered Then, bidding her good night, he went out of the store,Miles in the doorent back to help him to run the boat down into the water

”Miles, I hope you didn't tell that old fraud that Mr Ferrars was staying here?” said Katherine, when the boy caht

”Of course I didn't I never said a word good, bad, nor indifferent to the old fellow I haven't got over this ,” Miles said, in a tone which sounded sullen, but which was only a cloak for feelings deeply stirred

”Very well then, for this one night at least he will have the satisfaction of believing that he was successful in drowning Mr Ferrars,” Katherine replied

”Don't worry yourself, Mrs Jenkin will tell him,” said Miles ”Or some of the irl”

”It wasn't a girl this tio doith a bang, for she did not want the listener in the other rooht have called out that there was souess the poor man would have had ti on the ice and going to fetch hi to his own opinion with the obstinacy he was rather fond of displaying

Katherine took refuge in silence, going out of the store as soon as she could, and hurrying away to bed, because of the needs of the next day Neither she nor Mrs Burton slept very well, however To both of therief beyond the power of words to describe to leave their father to the care of a stranger, and they were both thankful when ain

There was no change in the stricken man's condition, but Katherine, who stayed with hiht that he lookedWhen Miles came in to take her place, she went back to the kitchen, to hear Mrs Burton and Jervis Ferrars talking of the Selincourts

”I suppose Mr Selincourt is very rich,” said Mrs Burton with a little wistful sigh, as if she thought that riches ht detract from his niceness

”Yes, I expect he is very rich, but he is so thoroughly pleasant, and so free froet all about his riches,” Jervis said, then rose to set a chair for Katherine, and bring her bowl of porridge fro warm for her

”Is Miss Selincourt nice too, and is she pretty?” asked Mrs Burton, who to Katherine's secret disquiet was always asking questions concerning the expected arrivals

Jervis laughed ”I have never stopped to consider whether she is pretty, but she is certainly very char in her manners,” he said, with so much earnestness that Katherine instantly made up her mind that Miss Selincourt was the kind of person she did not care for and did not want to know

Phil came in from the store at this moment, with a pucker of aht our boat back,” he said ”Oily Dave paid hi his face up here just yet”

”Why not?” demanded Jervis Ferrars

”Stee said the ice at the river ht, when it burst with a roar like cannon When Oily Dave got to Seal Cove last night, the water reached to the shi+ngles of his house; so the old felloed across to Stee's hut and asked to be taken in for the night, because he was flooded out and the Englishman was drowned”

”But didn't Stee tell him that Mr Ferrars was safe here with us?” asked Mrs Burton

”Not a bit of it,” replied Phil ”That would have spoiled sport, don't you see? because Oily Dave hat Stee calledto find the body in the o He was up by daybreak and went over to look; but when he saw the door broken down he guessed there had been a rescue, and he was justabout it”

”It was rather too bad to leave hiently

CHAPTER XII

The First of the Fishi+ng