rl
on the other side of Treasure Valley was a constant source of reproach
to him, though he recognized it not.

So, being the man he was, Gilbert could not be happy in view of what he
had promised to do. Even Rosalie's smile was scarcely compensation for
the pang he felt when he reflected that the splendid Christmas present
he had in store for the man who had given him his chance in life must
be used for selfish ends, and Martin must wait. That was the sting;
Martin was always waiting, and when would the waiting end?

But he soon lost sight of the future, its joys, as well as its pangs,
in the imperative call of the present. When the winter set in he
discovered that, hitherto, his work had been but child's play. The
high ridge of Elmbrook offered a splendid battle-ground for all the
opposing winds. Here they met in furious combat, filling the air with
the white dust of battle, and piling up their ramparts of snow until
roads and fields and fences were blotted out, and the whole earth lay
one dazzling waste.

With the opening of winter came an epidemic of grip [Transcriber's
note: grippe?], and other seasonable maladies. The orphans went
sliding on the pond before the ice was as thick as window-glass, and
broke through and got severe colds; Mrs. McKitterick fell ill of
pneumonia, and all the children up among the stormy hills of Glenoro
took the measles. So the young doctor learned all that it meant to be
a country physician during an Ontario winter. An early December storm
made some of the roads impassable, and he often had to leave Speed, or
the new horse he had lately bought, at some wayside farmhouse while he
made the rest of the journey on snowshoes. Often he drove home in the
gray winter dawn staggering for want of sleep, only to change his horse
and start off in another direction. But he never shirked. His
troubled conscience drove him to a vigorous fulfilment of the duty at
hand. He had a vague notion that in this way he was atoning for the
neglect of the greater obligation.

His capacity for toil won the admiration of the hard-working people
among whom he lived. Often, as they watched his lonely cutter moving
down the road, like a little ship in a stormy sea, now rising high on a
snowy billow, now almost disappearing in the hollow, as he fought his
way against the bitter blast to relieve some one's pain, they
unanimously voted the doctor a man.

And the cures he worked! They talked them over