ay to fill the third
sleigh.

Of course that sublime aurora overhead formed a main topic of
conversation; but irrelevant matter worked in somehow. Blunt Hiram at
last furnished a key to what had puzzled his fair companion by asking
abruptly, when Captain Argent was expected at Cedar Creek?

'Captain Argent?' she repeated, in surprise; 'he's not expected at all;
I believe he has gone to Ireland on a year's leave.'

'Then you are not about to be married to him?' said Mr. Holt, still more
bluntly.

'No indeed, sir,' she answered, feeling very red, and thankful for
the comparative gloom. Whereupon Mr. Holt shook hands with her, and
expressed his conviction that she was the best and prettiest girl in the
county; afterwards fell into a brown study, lasting till they got home.

The pair in the hindmost sleigh diverged equally far from the aurora;
for heavy upon Edith's heart lay the fact that the mortgage was at last
about to be foreclosed, and they should leave Daisy Burn. This very
evening, her father coming late to Mrs. Vernon's corn-shelling bee, had
told her that Zack would be propitiated no longer; he wanted to get the
farm in time for spring operations, and vowed he would have it. They
must all go to Montreal, where Captain Armytage had some friends, and
where Edith hoped she might be able perhaps to turn her accomplishments
to good account by opening a school.

'Papa is not at all suited for a settler's life,' she said. 'He has
always lived in cities, and town habits are strong upon him. It is the
best we can do.'

CHAPTER XLIII.

A BUSH-FLITTING.

Into Robert Wynn's mind, during that sleigh-drive under the northern
lights, had entered one or two novel ideas. The first was a plan for
frustrating the grasping storekeeper's design. He laid the whole
circumstances before Mr. Holt, and asked for the means of redeeming the
mortgage, by paying Captain Armytage's debt to Bunting, which was not
half the value of the farm.

The gallant officer was not obliged for his friend's officiousness. He
had brought himself to anticipate the move to Montreal most pleasurably,
notwithstanding the great pecuniary loss to himself. The element of
practicality had little place in his mental composition. An atmosphere
of vagueness surrounded all his schemes, and coloured them with a
seductive halo.

'You see, my dear fellow,' he said to Robert, when the proposition of
redeeming the mortgage was made, 'you see, it does not