f. "When one thinks of all the
haphazard of history--how nations have tumbled up, or been dragged up,
through centuries of blind horror and mistake, how wonderful to see a
nation made consciously!--before your eyes--by science and
intelligence--everything thought of, everything foreseen! First of all,
this wonderful railway, driven across these deserts, against opposition,
against unbelief, by a handful of men, who risked everything, and
have--perhaps--changed the face of the world!"

She stopped smiling. In truth, her new capacity for dithyramb was no
less surprising to herself than to Delaine.

"I return to my point"--he made it not without tartness--"will the new
men be adequate to the new state?"

"Won't they?" He fancied a certain pride in her bearing. "They explained
to me the other day at Winnipeg what the Government do for the
emigrants--how they guide and help them--take care of them in sickness
and in trouble, through the first years--protect them, really, even from
themselves. And one thinks how Governments have taxed, and tortured, and
robbed, and fleeced--Oh, surely, surely, the world improves!" She
clasped her hands tightly on her knee, as though trying by the physical
action to restrain the feeling within. "And to see here the actual
foundations of a great state laid under your eyes, deep and strong, by
men who know what it is they are doing--to see history begun on a blank
page, by men who know what they are writing--isn't it wonderful,
_wonderful_!"

"Dear lady!" said Delaine, smiling, "America has been dealing with
emigrants for generations; and there are people who say that corruption
is rife in Canada."

But Elizabeth would not be quenched.

"We come after America--we climb on her great shoulders to see the way.
But is there anything in America to equal the suddenness of this? Twelve
years ago even--in all this Northwest--practically nothing. And then God
said: 'Let there be a nation!'--and there was a nation--in a night and a
morning." She waved her hand towards the great expanse of prairie. "And
as for corruption--"

"Well?" He waited maliciously.

"There is no great brew without a scum," she said laughing. "But find me
a brew anywhere in the world, of such power, with so little."

"Mr. Anderson would, I think, be pleased with you," said Delaine, drily.

Elizabeth frowned a little.

"Do you think I learnt it from him? I assure you he never rhapsodises."

"No; but he gives you the mat