Kroof suffered herself to be led away from the unhappy spot. Soon Miranda grew calm, and the painful scene seemed forgotten. The rest of the afternoon was spent very pleasantly in eating wild raspberries along the farther side of the clearing. To Kroof's mind it gradually became clear that her offence lay in killing the hare; and as it was obvious that Miranda liked hares, she resolved never to offend again in this respect, at least while Miranda was anywhere in the neighbourhood. After Miranda had gone home, however, the philosophical Kroof strolled back discreetly to where the hare was buried. She dug it up, and ate it with great satisfaction, and afterward she smoothed down the earth again, that Miranda might not know.
After this trying episode Miranda had every reason to believe that Kroof's reformation was complete. Little by little, as month followed month, and season followed season, and year rolled into year at the quiet cabin in the clearing, Miranda forgot the few scenes of blood which had been thrust upon her. The years now little varied one from another; yet to Miranda the life was not monotonous. Each season was for her full of events, full of tranquil uneventfulness for Kirstie. The cabin became more homelike as currant and lilac bushes grew up around it, a green, sweet covert for birds, and abundant scarlet-blossomed bean-vines mantled the barrenness of its weathered logs. The clearing prospered. The stock increased. Old Dave hardly ever visited at the clearing but he went back laden with stuff to sell for Kirstie at the Settlement. Among the folk of the forest Miranda's ascendency kept on growing, little by little, till, though none of the beasts came to know her as Kroof did, they all had a tendency to follow her at respectful distance, without seeming to do so. They never killed in her presence, so that a perpetual truce, as it were, came at last to rule within eyeshot of her inescapable gaze. Sometimes the advent of spring would bring Kroof to the clearing not alone, but with a furry and jolly black morsel of a cub at her side. The cub never detracted in the least from the devotion which she paid to Miranda. It always grew up to young bearhood in more or less amiable tolerance of its mother's incomprehensible friend, only to drift away at last to other feeding grounds; for Kroof was absolute in her own domain, and suffered not even her own offspring to trespass thereon, when once they had reached maturity. Cubs might come, and cubs might go; but the love of Kroof and Miranda was a thing that rested unchanging.