rare in
the district. He paid in sundry equivalents of produce; and a nice little
mortgage might be effected on his nice little farm of Daisy Burn if
needs be. Zack held his greedy grasping fingers over it; for the family
were obliged to go a good deal in debt for sundry necessities. Slave and
scrape as Miss Armytage might, she had no way of raising money for such
things as tea and coffee. Once she attempted to make dandelion roots,
roasted and ground, do duty for the latter; but it was stigmatized as
a failure, except by loving little Jay. Then wages must be paid to the
Irish labourer, whose services to chop wood, etc., were now absolutely
necessary. Meat was another item of expense. A large store of potatoes
was almost the sole provision upon which the household could reckon with
certainty; mismanagement and neglect had produced the usual result of
short crops in the foregoing season, and their wheat went chiefly to the
store in barter.

'An' ef Zack ain't shavin' the capting, I guess I'm a Dutchman,'
remarked a neighbouring settler to Robert. 'I reckon a matter of two
year'll shave him out o' Daisy Burn, clear and clean.'

But its owner had some brilliant scheme in the future for lifting him
free of every embarrassment. Rainbow tints illuminated all prospective
pages of Captain Armytage's life.

'Edith, my dear,' he would say, if that young lady deprecated any fresh
expenditure, or ventured an advice concerning the farm,--'Edith, my
dear, the main fault of your character is an extraordinary want of
the sanguine element, for the excess of which I have always been so
remarkable. You know I compare it to the life-buoy, which has held me up
above the most tempestuous waves of the sea of existence, eh! But you,
my poor dear girl, have got a sad way of looking at things--a gloomy
temperament, I should call it perhaps, eh? which is totally opposite to
my nature. Now, as to this beast, which Mr. Bunting will let me have for
twenty-eight dollars, a note of hand at three months, he is kind enough
to say, will do as well as cash. And then, Reginald, my boy, we need
drink _cafe noir_ no longer, but can have the proper _cafe au lait_
every morning.'

'I don't know who is to milk the cow, sir,' said his son, rather bluntly.
'Edith is overwhelmed with work already.'

'Ah, poor dear! she is very indefatigable.' He looked at her patronizingly,
while he wiped his well-kept moustache in a handkerchief which she had
washed. 'Inde