“A perfect paradise!” said Harry, with a long-drawn sigh of satisfaction.—“Why, Jacques, my friend, it’s a matter of wonder to me that you, a free man, without relations or friends to curb you, or attract you to other parts of the world, should go boating and canoeing all over the country at the beck of the fur-traders, when you might come and pitch your tent here for ever!”
“For ever!” echoed Jacques.
“Well, I mean as long as you live in this world.”
“Ah, master,” rejoined the guide, in a sad tone of voice, “it’s just because I have neither kith nor kin nor friends to draw me to any partic’lar spot on arth, that I don’t care to settle down in this one, beautiful though it be.”
“True, true,” muttered Harry; “man’s a gregarious animal, there’s no doubt of that.”
“Anon?” exclaimed Jacques.
“I meant to say that man naturally loves company,” replied Harry, smiling.
“An’ yit I’ve seen some as didn’t, master; though, to be sure, that was onnat’ral, and there’s not many o’ them, by good luck. Yes, man’s fond o’ seein’ the face o’ man.”
“And woman too,” interrupted Harry.—“Eh, Hamilton, what say you?
“‘O woman, in our hours of ease
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou.’