the spoon-fed. You know how fond he is of forcible
simile, and he frowned when I suggested that Canada was not a gutter.
Still, it is too late to consider whether you did well, and I ask, as a
last favor, if you are ever unfortunate, if only for the sake of old
times, you will let us know. And now I wish you all prosperity. Good-bye,
Ralph dear, and God bless you."

Her eyes were dim, and she looked so small and fragile that I stooped and
kissed her, while though she drew herself suddenly away with the crimson
mantling upward from her neck, I felt that whatever happened I had a
friend for life in Alice Lorimer.

Now all of that had faded into the past that I had left behind across the
sea, and henceforward I knew there must be no more glancing back. I had
chosen my own path, and must press forward with eyes turned steadfastly
ahead, although at present I could see no further than the prairie station
that I would reach some time before dawn the next day. A wheat-grower's
dwelling thirty miles back from the railroad was registered as wanting
assistance, the immigration officer said. Slowly, with more snow and a
freshening of the bitter wind, the afternoon wore itself away, and I was
glad when that evening I boarded the west-bound train. It was thronged
with emigrants of many nationalities, and among them were Scandinavian
maidens, tow-haired and red-cheeked, each going out to the West to be
married. Their courtship would be brief and unromantic, but, as I was
afterward to learn, three-fourths of the marriages so made turned out an
unqualified success. Still, I found a corner in the smoking end of a long
Colonist car, and, with the big bell clanging and a storm of voices
exchanging farewells in many tongues, the great locomotive hauled us out
into the whirling snow.

Thick flakes beat on the windows, and icy draughts swept through the car,
while the big stove in a boxed-in corner hummed with a drowsy roar. With
half-closed eyes I leaned back against the hard maple while the preceding
scenes of the long journey rolled like a panorama before me. Twelve days
it took the ancient steamer, which swarmed like a hive, to thrash through
mist and screaming gale across the Atlantic, while fifteen hundred
emigrants below wished themselves dead. Then there followed an apparently
endless transit in the lurching cars, where we slept as best we could on
uncushioned seats and floor, through dark pine forests, with only an
occasional tin-