widowed sister, all camped down on them, all in one room. The sister sat by the fire nursing her three-months-old baby, his mother was smoking at her side, and the sick man’s six little children and their three cousins were raising Ned, in and out, with three or four hounds. Not one of the visitors was helping, or, as they say up there, ‘doing a lick,’ but the wife was cooking for the whole raft when her husband needed all her care. Marvellous ideas they have, some of them.”

“You ought to write out some of your experiences.”

“Oh, I can’t. It would seem like a sort of betrayal of friendship. They have adopted me, so to speak, and are so na�ve and kind, and have trusted me — I think they are my friends. I may be very odd — you know.”