The rays of the setting sun, peeping through the lower branches, made him blink lazily like a large, good-natured cat.
He turned his head slowly, with a hunter's consciousness of the approach of some one, and contemplated the canoe with a sense of placid satisfaction.
The small craft was passing in the shadow of a great tree--stealing over the dark, unruffled depth.

A girl dressed in white, with a large diaphanous white hat and a general air of brisk English daintiness, was paddling slowly and with no great skill.
"A picture," said Steinmetz to himself with Teutonic deliberation.

"Gott im Himmel! what a pretty picture to make an old man young!" Then his gray eyes opened suddenly and he rose to his feet.
"Coloss-a-al!" he muttered.

He dragged from his head a lamentable old straw hat and swept a courteous bow.
"Mademoiselle," he said, "ah, what happiness! After three years!" Maggie stopped and looked at him with troubled eyes; all the color slowly left her face.
"What are you doing here ?" she asked.

And there was something like fear in her voice.
"No harm, mademoiselle, but good.