ll we got entangled in the Land Company,
five years ago, that we were sold up; and we have been sinking deeper
ever since--till the old cow and I had the farm all to ourselves.'

'How could you bear it?' asked Phoebe.

'Well! it was rather dreary to see one thing going after another. But
somehow, after I lost my own black mare, poor Minnehaha, I never cared so
much for any of the other things. Once for all, I got ashamed of my own
childish selfishness. And then, you see, the worse things were, the
stronger the call for exertion. That was the great help.'

'Oh, yes, I can quite imagine that--I know it,' said Phoebe, thinking how
exertion had helped her through her winter of trial. 'You never were
without some one to work for.'

'No; even when my father was gone'--and his voice was less clear--'there
was the less time to feel the change, when the boys and their mother had
nothing but me between them and want.'

'And you worked for them.'

'After a fashion,' he said, smiling. 'Spade-husbandry alone is very poor
earth-scratching; and I don't really know whether, between that and my
gun, we could have got through this winter.'

'What a life!' exclaimed Phoebe. 'Realities, indeed!'

'It is only what many colonists undergo,' he answered; 'if they do not
prosper, it is a very hard life, and the shifting hopes render it the
more trying to those who are not bred to it.'

'And to those that are?' she asked.

'To those that are there are many compensations. It is a free
out-of-doors life, and the glorious sense of extent and magnificence in
our woods, the sport one has there, the beauty of our autumns, and our
white, grand, silent winters, make it a life _well_ worth living.'

'And would these have made you content to be a backwoodsman all your
life?'

'I cannot tell,' he said. 'They--and the boys--were my delight when I
was one. And, after all, I used to recollect it was a place where there
was a clear duty to do, and so, perhaps, safer than what fancy or choice
would point at.'

'But you are very glad not to be still condemned to it.'

'Heartily glad not to be left to try to prop up a tumble-down log-hut
with my own shoulder,' he laughed. 'This journey to England has been the
great desire of my life, and I am very thankful to have had it brought
about.'

The conversation was broken off by Robert's entrance. Finding that it
was nearly nine o'clock, he went up-stairs to remind Miss Charlecote that
tea