ision of Anderson. Canada was
no longer mere fairy tale and romance; Anderson was no longer merely its
picturesque exponent or representative. She had come to realise him as a
man, with a man's cares and passions; and her feelings about him had
begun to change her life.

Arthur Delaine, she supposed, had meant to warn her that Mr. Anderson
was falling in love with her and that she had no right to encourage it.
Her thoughts went back intently over the last fortnight--Anderson's
absences--his partial withdrawal from the intimacy which had grown up
between himself and her--their last walk at Lake Louise. The delight of
that walk was still in her veins, and at last she was frank with
herself about it! In his attitude towards her, now that she forced
herself to face the truth, she must needs recognise a passionate
eagerness, restrained no less passionately; a profound impulse, strongly
felt, and strongly held back. By mere despair of attainment?--or by the
scruple of an honourable self-control?

Could she--_could_ she marry a Canadian? There was the central question,
out at last!--irrevocable!--writ large on the mountains and the forests,
as she sped through them. Could she, possessed by inheritance of all
that is most desirable and delightful in English society, linked with
its great interests and its dominant class, and through them with the
rich cosmopolitan life of cultivated Europe--could she tear herself
from that old soil, and that dear familiar environment? Had the plant
vitality enough to bear transplanting? She did not put her question in
these terms; but that was what her sudden tumult and distress of mind
really meant.

Looking up, she saw Delaine beside her. Well, there was Europe, and at
her feet! For the last month she had been occupied in scorning it.
English country-house life, artistic society and pursuits, London in the
season, Paris and Rome in the spring, English social and political
influence--there they were beside her. She had only to stretch out
her hand.

A chill, uncomfortable laughter seemed to fill the inner mind through
which the debate passed, while all the time she was apparently looking
at the landscape, and chatting with her brother or Delaine. She fell
into an angry contempt for that mood of imaginative delight in which she
had journeyed through Canada so far. What! treat a great nation in the
birth as though it were there for her mere pleasure and entertainment?
Make of it a mere spec