ieve a syllable against the _habitans_ again,' said
Arthur. 'Their old-fashioned politeness is a perfect relief from the
bluff manners of most other Canadians. They seem to me to have a lot
of virtues,--cleanliness, good-humour, good-nature,--and I like their
habit of living altogether, children settled round the parent tree
like branches of a banyan. We would give a trifle to be able to do it
ourselves, Bob;' and the smile with which the brothers met each other's
eyes was rather wistful.

CHAPTER IX.

'FROM MUD TO MARBLE.'

Hiram Holt was proud of his ancestry. Not that he had sixteen quarterings
whereof to boast, or even six; his pedigree could have blazoned an
escutcheon only with spade, and shuttle, and saw, back for generations.
But then, society all about him was in like plight; and it is a strong
consolation in this, as in matters moral, to be no worse than one's
neighbours. Truly, a Herald's College would find Canada a very jungle as
to genealogy. The man of marble has had a grandfather of mud, as was the
case with the owner of Maple Grove.

And, instead of resenting such origin as an injury received from his
progenitors, worthy Hiram looked back from the comfortable eminence of
prosperity whereunto he had attained, and loved to retrace the gradual
steps of labour which led thither. He could remember most of them; to
his memory's eye the virgin forest stretched for unknown and unnumbered
miles west and northward of the settler's adventurous clearing, and the
rude log shanty was his home beside the sombre pines. Now the pines were
dead and gone, except a few isolated giants standing gloomily among
the maple plantations; but the backwoodsman's shanty had outlived all
subsequent changes.

Here, in the wide courtyard to the rear of Mr. Holt's house, it was
preserved, like a curious thing set apart in a museum--an embodiment
of the old struggling days embalmed. The walls of great unhewn logs
fastened at the corners by notching; the crevices chinked up with chips
and clay; the single rude square window shuttered across; the roof of
basswood troughs, all blackened with age; the rough door, creaking
on clumsy wooden hinges when Mr. Holt unlocked it,--these were not
encouraging features, viewed by the light of a future personal experience.
Robert stole a glance at Arthur as they stepped inside the low dark
shed, and, as Arthur had with similar motives also stolen a glance at
Robert, their eyes naturally met