or manner. He commented humorously from time
to time on Nora's various experiences coming overland, quite oblivious,
to all appearances, that she pointedly ignored him. Nora had arrived at
that point in her gay recital when she had had qualms that her brother
had failed to meet her.

"You can fancy how I felt getting down at a perfectly strange
station----"

She was interrupted by Gertie's irritating little laugh.

"But what have I said? What is it?"

It was Taylor who replied.

"Well, you see out here in the wilderness we don't call it a station,
_we_ call it a depot."

"Do you really?" asked Nora with exaggerated surprise, looking at her
brother.

"Custom of the country," he said smilingly.

"But a depot is a place where stores are kept."

"Of course I don't know what you call it in England," said Gertie
aggressively, "but while you're in _this_ country, I guess you'd better
call it what other folks do."

"It would be rather absurd for me to call it that when it's wrong," said
Nora, flushing with annoyance.

Gertie's thin lips tightened.

"Of course I don't pretend to have had _very_ much schooling, but it
seems to me I've read something somewhere about doing as the Romans do
when you're livin' with them. At any rate, I'm sure of one thing: it's
considered the polite thing to do in _any_ country."

The feeling that she had been put in the wrong, even if not very
tactfully, did not tend to lessen Nora's annoyance. She looked
appealingly at her brother, but he, leaning back in his chair and seeing
that his wife's eyes were bent on her plate, shook his head at her,
smiling slightly.

"If everyone has finished," said Gertie after an awkward pause, "if
you'll all move your chairs away I'll clear away the things."

"May I help you?" said Nora with an effort at conciliation.

"No, thanks."

"No, no. You're company to-night," said her brother with a man's relief
at finding an unpleasant situation at an end. "But I daresay to-morrow
Gertie'll find plenty for you to do. We'll all be out till dinner time.
You girls will have a lot to talk over while you're getting acquainted."

Hornby groaned dismally.

"It doesn't make any difference what the weather is in this blessed
country," he said dismally to Nora, "you have to go out whether there's
really anything to do or not."

"That's so," laughed Taylor; "still I think you'll admit the Boss always
manages to find something to fill up the time."

"That h