It was just dinner time at Pinewood. All the house doors and windows were open, and the sound of the gong reached the ears of a man who was mincing down the avenue. “Ha,” he said stopping short, “the honorable lady will be partaking of some comestibles. It will be advisable that I dally away the time till she shall be lured without by the refreshing delightsomeness of the evening.” And skirting the edge of the lawn and perceiving Joe he made his way down to the sunny slope.

“A handsome day, Mr. Lo,” he said, saluting the Indian, who raised his head to stare at him.

Joe responded by an “Ugh!” and bent again over a small rent in his upturned canoe. After a short silence his curiosity got the better of his reserve, and he said, “Why you call me Lo? I Joe.”

“‘Lo, the poor Indian,’ don’t you know the poetry?” asked MacDaly. “With me it is the generic and epidemic name for the aborigines of this province.”

Joe gave him a sleepy look from his dark eyes in which there was no hint of displeasure. “What you want?” he asked bluntly.

“I am about to enter upon, or in some way engage in a private interview with a certain favorably disposed personage distinguished by many gifts and graces, but whose name I will not take upon my unworthy lips,” said MacDaly; “but what have we here? The honorable Lady Stargarde must be in the vicinity, judging by the appearance of her scout.”

Mascarene, delighted as only a city dog who is kept in a close street can be when removed to open fields, came frisking and jumping down the incline. His frolic over, he fawned on Joe, who was intensely fond of him but scarcely glanced at him, and sniffed in a friendly manner around MacDaly who, while lauding him to the skies as a captivating canine, cared for him not at all.

“What you gottum for Miss Debbiline?” asked Joe of MacDaly, who was pirouetting to and fro to keep out of the way of the dog.

MacDaly, rather taken aback, mumbled that in the event of not seeing the young demoiselle he had a small communication addressed to her that he would be obliged to have some one deliver, and he twirled between his thumb and finger a soiled three-cornered note.

He did not offer it to Joe, nor did Joe take it from him, yet in a somewhat bewildered fashion he saw that the sly Christmas had it, and was transferring it to his pocket.

“Ah, well-a-day, it is of small import,” he muttered, while watching the Micmac draw his canoe up on the grass.

“Me hot,” said Joe; “workum no more till morning. You want money?” he added inquiringly.

MacDaly’s eyes brightened. Money! was he not always wanting it?

“You come with me,” said the Indian mysteriously, and MacDaly fearing no treachery followed him.

If he had heard an order that the Indian had received from Mr. Armour a few days previously his heart would not have been so light as it was. “Joe,” Armour had said, “that man MacDaly is troubling Miss Delavigne. If you see him about here send him away.” And Joe, who in his heart despised MacDaly, had grunted acquiescence.

Trippingly MacDaly stepped after him to the shore immediately behind the cottage, where a long black rock ran out so far that if the cottage were dropped off the end of it the tops of the chimneys would not be seen above the water.

“You come here,” said Joe, going to the end of the rock and kneeling down.

“Buried treasure, eh?” said MacDaly gloatingly, “or perchance something sunken in the rock and the savage unaware of its value wishes to receive the opinion of an expert and—what are you doing, you rascal?” he spluttered as he felt the Micmac’s hand on his collar.

“You dirty, me washum,” said Joe playfully, and still gripping the astonished Irish-Canadian by the back of the neck he swung him off the end of the rock and soused him up and down in the water.

“I’m not dirty,” pleaded MacDaly piteously, “and for the love of mercy do not let go your hold of me or I shall sink like a stone.”

“You bad man,” said Joe; “you teaseum Miss Debbiline. You say, me don’t speakum her more.”

“I promise; ye gods and little fishes hear my vow!” cried MacDaly, when Joe allowed him to come far enough out of the water to clasp his hands. “Oh, let me out, let me out!”

“You been bery bad,” said Joe seriously. “Me priest now. You sayum sins quick.”

MacDaly with alarming rapidity rattled off a number of venial transgressions. He had recovered from his first alarm and was reflecting that the Indian did not wish to hurt him but only to frighten him, that the water was agreeably cool, and that he had on his second-best suit of clothes.

“You done worse than that,” said Joe. “Tellum worse thing you done,” and he let MacDaly down in the water till his ears and eyes were covered.

“Oh, mermaids and cuttle fish, I can‘t!” his victim gurgled and spluttered.

“Must,” said the Micmac, dipping him again till the crown of his head was immersed.

“I burnt a building,” gasped MacDaly in real fright. “Now let me out,” and for the first time making resistance he clung to the rock with his hands.

Joe allowed him to clamber up beside him. “What you burnum?” he asked.

“A building,” groaned MacDaly, patting his dripping sides. “Alack, alack, I’m very wet.”

“You ever hunt fox?”

“No.”

“Great sport; you be fox, me hunter. This be dog,” pointing to the bewildered Mascarene, who had been in the water swimming around MacDaly waiting for a chance to rescue him, and who was now sitting staring at him. “Run,” added Joe.

“But there would be no confidence existing,” said MacDaly protestingly.

“Run,” said Joe, who had not the slightest idea of his meaning, and MacDaly with a sigh skipped nimbly over the wall. Away up at the top of the hill he looked back and fancied that he was to be allowed to escape, for Joe stood motionless with the dog beside him. MacDaly could not resist making a derisive motion of his hand, but repented immediately and bitterly, and with a plaintive squeal of dismay fled in the direction of the town, for hunter and dog bounding like two stealthy panthers were after him.

A few minutes later Joe was shaking his small remaining amount of breath from him. “What you burnum?”

Still MacDaly would not tell him, again Joe let him off, but only to resume his chase, till at last the unfortunate fox, bedraggled, exhausted, and overcome, told him the secret of his life.

Joe with a noiseless step returned to the cottage, and lay in wait under a larch for Mr. Armour, who always came down to see his brother some time during the evening.

“Mr. Val sleepum,” he said an hour later when Mr. Armour was about to pass him, “and cunnel away. This for Miss Debbiline, from Daly,” and he held out the three-cornered note. “Daly say,” he went on, “that he burnum warehouse. Miss Debbiline’s father not do it. Daly happen go early to warehouse. He go in office, find cigar, he smokeum. He no business there, hearum noise, run out. He ‘fraid some one catchum. He drop cigar—must sparks fall, he not know. Not do on purpose. He ‘fraid tellum.”

“Where is MacDaly?” asked Mr. Armour sternly.

“Gone home. I tell him go see you in morning.”

“Do you think that he will do so?”

“He sartin come,” and Joe, laughing musically, withdrew and left his master standing as if spellbound under the trees.

Stargarde and Vivienne walking to and fro on the lawn waited a long time for Armour to return. Finally he came slowly toward them. “Here is a note for you, Vivienne, from MacDaly,” he said.

The girl took it from him. “It is too dark here to read it. Let us go into the house. His productions are so amusing. ‘Miss Delavigne!’” she read when they three stood beside a lamp in the drawing room; “‘if it had pleased an all-wise Providence to place me in a different walk of life and I saw a black man—a thoroughly black man—at any period of time I should really consider him worthy of the intrinsic offering of one solitary lucifer match for a slight midsummer present. Though simple as it may appear, it would be as truly acceptable by my honorable self as it would by the black man, and it would by all means show you a lady undoubted. With a profundity of respect, Derrick Edward Fitz-James O’Grady MacDaly. P. S. This wonderful match would be to illuminate a fellow’s pipe.’”

Vivienne turned the paper over with a bewildered face. “It is enigmatical. Does he wish matches, Stargarde?”

Stargarde clad in a long black gown that made her seem paler than usual and her hair brighter, softly drew her fingers across Vivienne’s cheek. “He wishes a dollar, my child.”

“You have given this man a good deal of money, have you not?” asked Armour.

Vivienne blushed. “Not very much. He talks to me of my father.”

“Will you not leave him to me? I promise not to hurt his feelings. I will give him some work.”

“Yes, I will,” said Vivienne; “but why do you look at me so peculiarly. He has something to tell me,” turning vivaciously to Stargarde, “and he won’t say it.”

“Not to-night,” he replied with a sigh and a smile and a look of inexpressible affection.