The two on the balcony moved a little away from each other. Then Marjorie, coloring for no reason whatsoever, stepped down the toy stairs that wound like a doll’s-house staircase, and went to the door.

It was Peggy O’Mara, no more and no less, but what a Peggy! She looked like an avenging goddess. But it was not at Marjorie that her vengeance was directed, it was plainly to be seen, for she swept the smaller girl to her bosom with one strong and emotional arm, and said, “You poor abused little lamb! I’ve come to tell you that I know all about it!”

Marjorie jerked herself away in surprise. For one thing, she had been very much interested in the conversation she had been carrying on with Francis, and had entirely forgotten that she might ever have had any claim to feel abused. For another thing, Peggy knew more than she should, if Logan had kept his promise.

“Won’t won’t you come in?” she asked inadequately. “And please tell me what you mean.”

“Mean! I mean I know all about it!” said Peggy, who was sixteen only, in spite of her goddess-build, and romantic.

She came in, nevertheless, holding tight to Marjorie as if she might faint, unaided; guided her to the downstairs couch, and sat down with her, holding tight to her still.

“Yes,” said Marjorie, with a certain amount of coldness, considering that she was being regarded as an abused lamb, “you said that before. And now please tell me what it is that you know all about.”

“Well, if that’s the way you take being defended,” said Peggy with a certain amount of temper, “I’ll just go back the way I came!”

“But, Peggy, I don’t know anything about it!” she pleaded. “Please tell me everything.”

“There’s nothing much to tell,” said Peggy, quite chilly in her turn. But now she had more to face than Marjorie. Francis, militant and stern, strode down the steps and planted himself before the girls. He fixed his eye on Peggy in a way that she clearly was not used to stand up under, and said, “Out with it, Peggy!”

So Peggy, under his masculine eye, “made her soul.”

“It’s nothing that concerns you, Francis Ellison!” she began. “It’s simply that I’ve learned how a man can treat a woman. And you you that I’ve known since I was a child! And telling me fairy-tales of bold kidnapers and cruel husbands and all, and I never knowing that you were going to grow up and be one!”

Marjorie laughed she couldn’t help it, Peggy was so severe. Francis looked at her again in some surprise, and Peggy was plainly annoyed.

“I should say,” said Francis with perfect calm, “that our honorable friend Mr. Logan had been confiding in you. His attitude is a little biased; however, let that pass. Just what did he say?”

“Just nothing at all, except that you were a charming young man, and he wished that he were as able to face the world and its problems as you,” Peggy answered spiritedly. “None of your insinuations about his honor, please. And shame on you to malign a sick man!”

“Oh, is Mr. Logan sick?” asked Marjorie, forgetting other interests. She turned to Francis, forgetting their feud again, in a common and inexcusable curiosity. “Francis! Now we’ll know what it really was that ailed him the nervous spells, you know? I always told you it wasn’t fits!”

“How do you know it isn’t?” said Francis. “Peggy hasn’t said.”

“She wouldn’t be so interested if it was,” said Marjorie triumphantly. “It takes an old and dear wife to stand that in a man.”

They had no business to be deflected from Peggy and her temper by any such consideration; but it was a point which had occupied their letters for a year, off and on, and there had been bets upon it.

“Let me see, I suppose those wagers stand was it candy, or a Hun helmet?” said Francis.

“Candy,” said Marjorie. “But it was really the principle of the thing. Ask her.”

Francis turned back to Peggy, who was becoming angrier and angrier; for when you start forth to rescue any one, it is annoying, even as Logan found it, to have the rescue act as if it were nothing to her whether she was rescued or not.

“Now, what really does ail him, Pegeen?” he asked affectionately. “Did you see him, or don’t you know?”

“Of course I saw him am I not nursing him? And of course I know! Poor man, the journey up here nearly killed him.”

“How? It seemed like a nice journey to me,” said Marjorie thoughtlessly.

“There’s no use pretending you’re happy,” said Peggy relentlessly. “I know you’re not. It’s very brave, but useless.”

“But has he fits?” demanded Marjorie with unmistakable intensity.

“He has not,” said Peggy scornfully. “I don’t know where you’d get the idea. He fainted this morning when he tried to get up. He didn’t come down to breakfast, and we thought him tired out, and let him lie. But after awhile, perhaps at nine or so, we thought it unnatural that any one should be asleep so long. So I tiptoed up, because when you’re as fat as mother it does wear you to climb more stairs than are needful. And there was the poor man, all dressed beautifully, even to his glasses with the black ribbon, lying across the bed, in a faint.”

“Are you sure it was a faint?” the Ellisons demanded with one voice.

Peggy looked more scornful, if possible, than she had for some time.

“We had to bring him to with aromatic spirits of ammonia, and slapping his hands. And the doctor says it’s his heart. That is, it isn’t really his heart, but his nerves are so bad that they make some sort of a condition that it’s just as bad as if he had heart-trouble really. Simulated heart-trouble, the doctor called it. You understand, he doesn’t pretend, himself; his heart makes his nerves pretend, as well as I can make it out. Sure it must be dreadful to have nerves that act that way to you. I wonder what nerves feel like, anyway.”

Peggy herself was getting off the topic, through her interest in the subject.

“But how did you find out that I was beating Marjorie?” inquired Francis calmly, pulling her back.

She shot a furious glance at him.

“I wish you hadn’t reminded me. I’d forgotten all about hating you for your horrid ways. It was just before he came to. He thought he was talking to you, and he said, ’You had no right to force her to do that work, Ellison, it will kill her.’”

“And was that all?” asked Marjorie.

“Wasn’t that enough? And I ask you, Marjorie Ellison, isn’t it true? Hasn’t Francis forced you to come over here and do his cooking for him? Oh, Francis, I can’t understand it in you,” said poor Peggy, looking up at him appealingly. “You that were always so tender and kind with every one, to make a poor little thing like Marjorie work at cooking and cleaning for great rough men.”

Francis had colored up while she spoke. One hand, behind his back, was clenching and unclenching nervously. He was fronting the two girls, but turned a little away from Marjorie and toward Peggy, so Marjorie could see it. Aside, from that he was perfectly quiet, and so far as any one could see, entirely unmoved. Only Marjorie knew he was not unmoved. That dark, thin, clenching hand she had seen it before, restless and betraying, and she knew it meant that Francis was angry or unhappy. She felt curiously out of it all. She had made up her mind once and for all to go through with her penance, if one could call it that. Her mind was so unsettled and hard to make up that, once made up on this particular point, she felt it would be more trouble to stop than to go on. She leaned a little back against Peggy’s guarding arm, and let the discussion flow on by her.

“Marjorie is free to go at any time; she knows that,” he said.

Marjorie looked at him full. She said nothing whatever. But Peggy’s Irish wit jumped at the right solution.

“Yes, free to go, no doubt, but with what kind of a string to it?” she demanded triumphantly. “I’ll wager it’s like the way mother makes me free of things. ’Oh, sure ye can smoke them little cigarette things if ye like but if ye do it’s out of my door ye’ll go!’”

Marjorie thought it was time to take a hand here. Francis was standing there, still, not trying to answer Peggy. He seemed to Marjorie pitifully at their mercy; why, she did not know, for he had neither said nor looked anything but the utmost sternness. And Marjorie herself knew that he was not being kind or fair that he had not been, in his exaction. Still she looked at that hand, moving like a sentient thing, and spoke.

“Peggy, some day I’ll tell you all about it, or Francis will. You and Francis have been friends for a long, long time, and I don’t want you to be angry with him because of me just a stranger. And for the present, I can tell you only this, that Francis is right, I am doing this of my own free will. You are a darling to come and care about what happens to me.”

Peggy was softened at once. She pulled Marjorie to her and gave her a sounding kiss.

“And you’re a darling, too, and you’re not a stranger don’t we love you for Francis’s sake oh, there, and I was forgetting! I suppose I’m not to be down on you, Francis. But I couldn’t help thinking things were queer. It’s not the customary way to let your bride spend her honeymoon, from all I’ve heard. Oh, and it’s five o’clock, and it takes an hour and a half to get back, though I borrowed the priest’s housekeeper’s bicycle.”

She sprang up, dropping from her lap the bundle of aprons which Marjorie had waited for.

“Mind, Francis, I’ve not forgiven you yet,” she called back. “When poor Mr. Logan is better I’ll have the whole story out of him, or my name’s not Margaret O’Mara.”

She was on her bicycle and away before they could answer her.

“And it’s time I went over to the cook-shed,” said Marjorie evenly, rising, too, and beginning to unfasten the bundle of aprons. They were a little hard to unfasten, from the too secure knots Mrs. O’Mara had made, and she dropped down again, bending intently over them to get them free. Suddenly they were pushed aside, and Francis had flung himself down by her, with his head on her knees, holding her fast.

“Oh, Marjorie, Marjorie!” he said. “Don’t stay. I can’t bear to have you acting like this like an angel. I’ve been unfair and unkind it didn’t need Peggy to tell me that. Go on away from me. And forgive me, if you can, some time.”

She looked down at the black head on her knees. It was victory, then of a sort. And suddenly her perverse heart hardened.

“Please get up, Francis,” she said in the same cold and even voice she had used before. “I haven’t time for this sort of thing; it’s time I went over and got the men their supper. They’ll be ready for it at six, Pennington said.”

He rose quietly and stood aside, while she took off the apron of Mrs. O’Mara’s that she had been making shift with, and put one of the new ones on in its place, and went out of their cabin. She never looked back. She went swiftly and straight to the cook-shed and began work on the evening meal. There was a feeling of triumph in her heart. And nothing on earth would tempt her to go now. Francis was beginning to feel his punishment. And she wasn’t through with him yet.

She found an oven which sat on top of the burners, and had just managed to lift it into its place when Pennington walked leisurely in behind her.

“I had to come back to get your husband,” he explained, “and I thought I’d see if you were in any troubles. Let me set that straight for you.”

He adjusted it as it should be, and lingered to tell her anything else she might wish to know.

“I’m going to give them codfish cakes for breakfast,” she confided to him, “a great many! But what on earth can I have for their dinners?”

“There is canned corn beef hash,” he suggested. “That would do all right for to-night. Or you might have fish.”

“Where would I get it?”

“Indians. They come by with strings of fish to sell, often. I think I can go out and send one your way.”

“You speak as if there were Indians around every corner,” she said.

“No-o, not exactly,” he answered her slowly. “But the truth is that I saw one, with a string of fish, crossing up from the stream, not long ago. As I was riding and he walking, I think it likely that I shall intercept him on my way back. That is, if you want the fish.”

“Oh, indeed, I do,” she assured him eagerly. “That is do you think the Indian he won’t hurt me, will he? And do you think he would clean them for me?”

“I think I can arrange that with him,” Pennington, who was rapidly assuming the shape of a guardian angel to Marjorie, assured her.

“And now I must go and tell your husband that he’s wanted down where the men are.”

“Thank you,” she said, looking up at his plump, tanned, rather quaint face so like, as she always thought, a middle-aged rector’s in an English novel with something grotesque and yet pathetic about it. “I don’t know what I’d do without your help. In a day or so I may get to the point where I’ll be very clever, and very independent.”

She smiled up at him, and he looked down at her with what she characterized in her own mind as his motherly expression. “You’re such a little thing!” he said as if he couldn’t help it. Then, after a hasty last inquiry as to whether there was anything more he could do, he went off in search of Francis.

She looked after him with a feeling of real affection.

“He’s the nearest I have to a mother!” she said to herself whimsically, as she addressed herself to the preparation of the evening meal. She had conceived the brilliant plan of doing the men’s lunches, where it was possible, the night before. In this way, she thought, though it might take a little more time in the afternoon, it would make things easier in the mornings. Such an atmosphere of hurry as she had lived in that morning, while it had been rather fun for once, would be too tiring in the long run, she knew. And the run would be long three months.

The Indian came duly with the fish, all cleaned and ready to fry. She was baking beans in the oven for to-morrow’s luncheons. So she baked the potatoes, too, and hunted up some canned spinach, and then having miscalculated her time conceived the plan of winning the men’s hearts with a pudding. She was sure Pierre’s cookery had never run to such delicacies. And even then there was time to spare. The men were late, or something had happened. So she looked to be sure that there was nothing more she could do, and then strayed off to the edges of the woods, looking for flowers. She found clumps of bloodroot, great anemone-flowers that she picked by the handful. There were some little blue flowers, also, whose name she did not know; and sprays of wintergreen berries and long grasses. Greatly daring, she put one of the low, flat vases she had found in her cabin in the center of the men’s trestle-table, and filled it with her treasure-trove. Then, a little tired, she sat down by the table herself, resting for a moment before the drove should come home.

They were in on her before she knew it. She thought afterward that she must have fallen asleep. How dainty and how winning a picture of home she made for the rough men, she never thought. But the men did, and the foremost one, a big, rough Yankee, instinctively halted on tiptoe as he saw her, leaning back in her chair with her eyes shut. Marjorie was not in the least fragile physically, but she was so little and slender that, in spite of her wild-rose flush and her red lips, she always impressed men with a belief in her fragility.

“Look at there, boys!” he half said, half whispered; and the crew halted behind him, looking at Marjorie as if she were some very wonderful and lovely thing.

The steps, or perhaps the eyes fixed admiringly on her, woke Marjorie. She opened her eyes, and smiled a little. She had gone to sleep very pleased, on account of the flowers, and of having arranged her work so it fitted in properly.

“Oh, you’ve come!” she said, smiling at them as a friendly child might smile, flushed with sleep. “Did you have a hard day? Everything’s ready.”

She was up and out in the cook-shed, half-frightened of their friendly eyes, before they could say any more. That is, to her.

“Gosh, that’s some wife of yours!” said one of them to Francis, who was a little in the rear of the others. “But ain’t she a little thing?”

Francis simply said “Yes” constrainedly. He had heard all that before. Pennington, who did not as a rule like girls, had been telling him what a lucky devil he was, as they went over to the working place together. He also had said that Marjorie was a little thing. And the note in his voice as he said it had insinuated to Francis, who was all too sensitive for such insinuations, that she was scarcely the type of woman to cook for a men’s camp. Francis felt quite remorseful enough already. He sat down with the rest, while Marjorie brought in first the big platter of fish, then the vegetables, and a big pitcher of cocoa which she had made.

“Some eats!” said another of the crew, and Marjorie dimpled appreciatively. While she went out again, after something she had forgotten, one of the Frenchmen whispered bashfully to Pennington, who was Francis’s assistant. He smiled his slow, half-mocking, half-kindly smile, and passed it on to Francis.

“Ba’tiste says that he wonders if the lady would sit down and eat with us. Do you think she would, Ellison? It’s a long time since any of us had a lady keep house for us.”

“I’ll ask her,” said Francis, the taciturn. He would rather have done a good many things than go to Marjorie with a request, as things stood between them, but there was nothing else for it. He came on her, standing on tiptoe at the cupboard, like a child, trying to reach down a cup. She had counted one too few.

He stood behind her and took it down, reaching over her head.

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Pennington!” she said, taking it for granted that it was her accustomed helper.

“It isn’t Pennington; it’s me,” said Francis. “I I wouldn’t have bothered you, but you see the men sent me out here on an errand.”

“The men sent you on an errand?” she said wonderingly. “That sounds topsy-turvy. I thought you sent them on errands.”

“Not this kind. They want to know if you won’t sit down and eat with them to-night. The flowers and the food made a hit, and they agree with everybody else in the world, as far as I can see,” said Francis, with bitterness in his voice, “that this is no work for you to be doing.”

“Did they dare to say so?” said Marjorie angrily.

“No oh, no. Don’t mind me, Marjorie. I’m a little tired and nervous, I expect like Logan,” he ended, trying to smile. “Will you come?”

“Why, of course!” said Marjorie instantly. “And I think it’s sweet of them to want me! Tell them just to wait till I take my apron off, and I’ll be with them.”

He went back and she followed him and sat down. At first she felt embarrassed, a little she felt as if she were entertaining a large dinner-party, and most of them strangers. But Pennington, her unfailing comfort, was at one side of her, and the friendly, if inarticulate, Ba’tiste at the other; and presently she was chattering on, and liking it very much.

None of the men had seen much of women for a long time. A couple of the better-class ones went into town, or what passed for it, occasionally, to such dances as the few women near by could get up. But that was practically all they saw of girls. And this “little thing” it was a phrase they always used in speaking of her, till the very last with her pretty face and pretty, shy ways, and excellent cooking and more than all, her pluck won them completely.

And when she finally, with obvious delight in their delight, produced the pudding, everything was over but the shouting, as they told her husband afterward. She had been a bit apprehensive about it, but it proved to be a good pudding, and large enough. Just large enough, though. They finished it to the very last crumb, sauce and all, and thanked her almost with tears. Pierre, it appeared, had not cooked with any art, he had merely seen to it that there was enough stoking material three times a day. From the moment of that meal on, anything that Marjorie wanted of those men, to the half of their weekly wages, was hers for the asking.

She liked it very much. Everybody likes to be admired and appreciated. She could not help casting a glance of triumph over at Francis, where he sat maritally at the other end of the table, the most silent person present.

Pennington helped her clear away after supper. Indeed, competition to help Marjorie clear away was so strong that Pennington had to use his authority before the men settled down to their usual routine of card-playing or lounging about on the grass outside. She accepted his help gratefully, for she was beginning to feel as if she had always known him. She did not think of him in the least as a man. He seemed more like an earthly providence.

“You know, I really am very strong,” she explained to him as he said something that betrayed his feeling that this work would be too much for her. “I think I shall be able to do all this. Really, it isn’t anything more than lots of women have to do who keep boarders. And it isn’t for ”

She stopped herself. She had been on the point of saying, “And it isn’t for long, anyway.” She did not know what Francis had told the men about their plans, or his plans for her cooking, and she was resolved to be absolutely loyal to him. When she went he should have nothing to say about her but that she had behaved as well as any woman could.

“If you’re ready, we’ll go back to the cabin, Marjorie,” said Francis, appearing on the edge of the threshold, looking even more like a thundercloud than normal lately.

She hung up the dishcloth, gave Pennington a last grateful smile, and followed Francis back.

“Pennington’s a good fellow,” he said abruptly as they gained their own porch, “but I don’t want you to have too much to do with him. He’s kindly and all that, but he’s a remittance man.”

Marjorie’s eyes opened wide with excitement at this. She had heard of remittance men, but never seen one before.

“How perfectly thrilling!” she said.