to point his meaning.

"And you," she said, turning her eyes upon him, "you will be clearing
the scrub, cutting down trees, plowing the land, sowing and reaping.
Every day you will be fighting something, frost, hail or weed. You will
be fighting and I will know that you must conquer in the end. Where was
wilderness will be cultivated land. And who knows what starving child
may eat the bread that has been made from the wheat that you have
grown! _My_ life will be ineffectual and utterly useless, while
yours----"

"What do you mean? Nora, Nora!" he said more to himself than to her.

"While I was talking to Mrs. Sharp just now, I didn't know what I was
saying. I was just trying to comfort her when she was crying. And it
seemed to me as if someone else was speaking. And I listened to myself.
I thought I hated the prairie through the long winter months, and yet,
somehow, it has taken hold of me. It was dreary and monotonous, and yet,
I can't tear it out of my heart. There's beauty and a romance about it
which fills my very soul with longing."

"I guess we all hate the prairie sometimes. But when you've once lived
on it, it ain't easy to live anywhere else."

"I know the life now. It's not adventurous and exciting, as they think
back home. For men and women alike, it's the same hard work from morning
till night, and I know it's the women who bear the greater burden."

"The men go into the towns, they have shooting, now and then, and the
changing seasons bring variety in their work; but for the women it's
always the same weary round: cooking, washing, sweeping, mending, in
regular and ceaseless rotation. And yet it's all got a meaning. We,
too, have our part in opening up the country. We are its mothers, and
the future is in us. We are building up the greatness of the nation. It
needs _our_ courage and strength and hope, and because it needs them,
they come to us. Oh, Frank, I can't go back to that petty, narrow life!
What have you done to me?"

"I guess if I asked you to stay now, you'd stay," he said hoarsely.

"You said you wanted love."--The lovely color flooded her face.--"Didn't
you see? Love has been growing in me slowly, month by month, and I
wouldn't confess it. I told myself I hated you. It's only to-day, when I
had the chance of leaving you forever, that I knew I couldn't live
without you. I'm not ashamed any more. Frank, my husband, I love you."

He made a stride forward as if to take her in his arms, and