hich the girl was carefully skimming the thick,
yellow cream. She worked methodically; and the rich fat dropped with a
heavy "plonk" into the small pail she carried, in a manner which
testified to the quality of the cream.

She looked a little paler than usual; the healthy bloom had almost
entirely disappeared from her cheeks, and dark shadows surrounded her
brown eyes. But this was the only sign she displayed of the tragedy
which had come into her young life. The trim figure was unimpaired,
and her wealth of dark hair was as carefully adjusted as usual. Hervey
watched his sister's movements as she passed from pan to pan.

"Iredale wants me to ride over to Owl Hoot to-day," he said slowly.
"We're going to have an afternoon's 'chicken shoot.' He says the
prairie-chicken round his place are as thick as mosquitoes. He's a
lucky beggar. He seems to have the best of everything. I've scoured
our farm all over and there's not so much as a solitary grey owl to
get a pot at. I hate the place."

Prudence ceased working and faced him. She scornfully looked him up
and down. At that moment she looked very picturesque with her black
skirt turned up from the bottom and pinned about her waist, displaying
an expanse of light-blue petticoat. Her blouse was a simple thing in
spotless white cotton, with a black ribbon tied about her neck.

"I think you are very ungrateful, Hervey," she said quietly. "I've
only been home for a few months, and not a day has passed but what
I've heard you grumble about something in connection with your home.
If it isn't the dulness it's the work; if it isn't the work it's your
position of dependence, or the distance from town, or the people
around us. Now you grumble because of the shooting. What do you want?
We've got a section and a half, nearly a thousand acres, under wheat;
we've got everything that money can buy in the way of improvements in
machinery; we've got a home that might fill many a town-bred man with
envy, and a mother who denies us nothing; and yet you aren't
satisfied. What _do_ you want? If things aren't what you like, for
goodness' sake go back to the wilds again, where, according to your
own account, you were happy. Your incessant grumbling makes me
sick."

"A new departure, sister, eh?" Hervey retorted, smiling unpleasantly.
"I always thought it was everybody's privilege to grumble a bit.
Still, I don't think it's for you to start lecturing me if even it
isn't. Mother's treated me p