she has so many of her own
people. I know she is happy with you--happier than she has been with
any of us--but what will people think? It looks as if we didn't care
for her, and we do. She is the sweetest old lady in the world." Maud
was very much in earnest.

Shaw's eyes followed the wild geese until they faded into tiny specks
on the horizon. Then he turned and looked straight into her face.

"Maud," he said, with a strange vibration in his voice, "I know a way
out of the difficulty; a real good, pleasant way, and by it your
grandmother can continue to live with me, and still be with her own
folks. Maud, can you guess it?"

The blush that spread over Maud's face indicated that she was a good
guesser!

Then the meadow-lark, all unnoticed, hopped a little nearer, and sang
sweeter than ever. Not that anybody was listening, either!

THE RETURN TICKET

(Reprinted by permission of _The Canadian Ladies' Home Journal_.)

In the station at Emerson, the boundary town, we were waiting for the
Soo train, which comes at an early hour in the morning. It was a
bitterly cold, dark, winter morning; the wires overhead sang dismally
in the wind, and even the cheer of the big coal fire that glowed in the
rusty stove was dampened by the incessant mourning of the storm.

Along the walls, on the benches, sat the trackmen, in their sheepskin
coats and fur caps, with earlaps tied tightly down. They were tired and
sleepy, and sat in every conceivable attitude expressive of sleepiness
and fatigue. A red lantern, like an evil eye, gleamed from one dark
corner; in the middle of the floor were several green lamps turned low,
and over against the wall hung one barred lantern whose bright little
gleam of light reminded one uncomfortably of a small, live mouse in a
cage, caught and doomed, but undaunted still. The telegraph instruments
clicked at intervals. Two men, wrapped in overcoats, stood beside the
stove and talked in low tones about the way real estate was increasing
in value in Winnipeg.

The door opened and a big fellow, another snow shoveller, came in
hurriedly, letting in a burst of flying snow that sizzled on the hot
stove. It did not rouse the sleepers from the bench; neither did the
new-comer's remark that it was a "deuce of a night" bring forth any
argument--we were one on that point.

The train was late; the night agent told us that when he came out to
shovel in more coal--"she" was delayed by the storm.

I leaned