"Then I wonder if you know how lovely it all is?"
"Perhaps not. But it is home to me, you know, and that gives an added charm."
"Yes," she said and checked a sigh. "And you've always paddled about here I suppose."
"I never remember when I learned. But I remember my first excursion alone. I was just six. Old Peter McDuff who lives on the next farm used to tell me fairy tales. And he told me there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, waiting for the man bold enough to go after it. I felt that I was the man, and I paddled off one evening when there was a rainbow in the sky. I got lost in the fog, and my father and a search-party found me drifting away out on the lake. And I didn't bring home the pot of gold."
"Nobody ever does," she said drearily. "And every one is hunting it." They were silent for a moment, the girl thinking of how she too had gone after a vanishing rainbow. Then the memory of that vision of the first Sunday morning in Algonquin church came to her. There was a rainbow somewhere, with the treasure at the foot; one that did not vanish either if one persisted in its pursuit.
She tried to say something of this to Roderick, fearing her sombre words had set him to recalling her secret.
"I suppose it is perfect happiness," he said. "If so, I never met any one who had found it, except—yes, I believe I know one."
"Who?" she asked eagerly.
"My father," answered Roderick gently.
"I have heard of him," she said, smiling at the glow of pride in the son's eyes. "And where did he discover it?"