own land, and though there are drawbacks--drought,
hail, and harvest-frost--they meet them lightly, for you see neither
anxious faces nor bent shoulders there. Our people walk upright, as
becomes free men. Then, through the long winter, when the snow lies firm
and white, and the wheat crop has been hauled in, you can hear the
jingling sleigh teams flit across the prairie from homestead to homestead
under the cloudless blue. The settlers enjoy themselves when their work is
done--and we have no drunkenness."

She ceased, turning an eager face toward me, and I felt an old longing
increase. It was the inborn love of a fertile soil--and that wide sunlit
country seemed to call me, for my father had been the last of a long
family to hold one of the extensive farms which with their crumbling
feudal halls may yet be found in the remoter corners of Lancashire. Then,
asking practical questions, I wondered as Grace Carrington answered,
because, though she wore the stamp of refinement to her finger-tips, she
knew all that concerned the feeding of stock, and the number of bushels
that might be thrashed from an acre of wheat. I knew she spoke as one
having experience, for I had been taught to till the soil, and only
entered the cotton-mill when on my father's death it was found that his
weakness for horses and his unlucky experiments had rendered it impossible
that I should carry on the farm. So, while unobserved the sun sank low, I
listened eagerly; until at last there was a sound of footsteps among the
fern, and she ceased, after a glance at her watch. But, like the grain she
spoke of, drilled into the black Assiniboian loam, the seed had been sown,
and in due time the crop would ripen to maturity.

A man came out from the birches, a handsome man, glancing about him with a
look of indolent good humor on his face, and though for a moment Grace
Carrington seemed displeased, she showed no sign of it as she rose
leisurely to meet him.

"I am sorry you had to come in search of me, Geoffrey," she said; "this is
Mr. Lorimer--Captain Ormond. I think you have met before. I lost my way,
and he kindly brought me across the moor. I have been telling him about
Canada."

The newcomer bowed with an easy indifference, for which, not knowing
exactly why, I disliked him, as he said, "Don't remember that
pleasure--meet so many people! Canada must be a very nice place; been
thinking of going out there myself--drive oxen, grow potatoes, and that
kin