and vegetables we obtained from time to time. To the south and east and west lay open water for several miles, dotted by similar islands with summer camps and bungalows on them. The three big lakes--Rosseau, Muskoka and Joseph--form the letter Y, our island being where the three strokes joined.
To me it was paradise, the nearest approach to a dream come true I had yet known. The climate was dry, sunny and bracing, the air clear as crystal, the nights cool. In moonlight the islands seemed to float upon the water, and when there was no moon the reflection of the stars had an effect of phosphorescence in some southern sea. Dawns and sunsets, too, were a constant delight, and before we left in late September we had watched through half the night the strange spectacle of the Northern Lights in all their rather awful splendour.
The day we arrived--May 24th--a Scotch mist veiled all distant views, the island had a lonely and deserted air, a touch of melancholy about its sombre pines; and when the small steamer had deposited us with our luggage on the slippery wharf and vanished into the mist, I remember Kay's disconsolate expression as he remarked gravely: "We shan't stay here long!" Our first supper deepened his conviction, for, though there were lamps, we had forgotten to bring oil, and we devoured bread and porridge quickly before night set in. It was certainly a contrast to the brilliantly lit corner of the Hub dining-room where we had eaten our last dinner.... But the following morning at six o'clock, after a bathe in the cool blue water, while a dazzling sun shone in a cloudless sky, he had already changed his mind. Our immediate past seemed hardly credible now. Jimmy Martin, the "Duke," the Methodist woodcuts, the life insurance offices, to say nothing of the sporting goods emporium, red-bearded bailiffs, Alfred Cooper, and a furious half-intoxicated Irish cook--all faded into the atmosphere of some half-forgotten, ugly dream.
We at once set our house in order. We had saved a
small sum in cash from the general wreck; a little went a
