rough the prairies, already whitening
to the harvest, through the Ontarian forests and the Ottawa valley. The
wheat was standing thick on the illimitable earth; the plains in their
green or golden dress seemed to laugh and sing under the hot dome of
sky. Again the great Canadian spectacle unrolled itself from west to
east, and the heart Elizabeth brought to it was no longer the heart of a
stranger. The teeming Canadian life had become interwoven with her life;
and when Anderson came to bid her a hurried farewell on the platform at
Regina, she carried the passionate memory of his face with her, as the
embodiment and symbol of all that she had seen and felt.

Then her thoughts turned to England, and the struggle before her. She
braced herself against the Old World as against an enemy. But her spirit
failed her when she remembered that in Anderson himself she was like to
find her chiefest foe.

CHAPTER XIII

"What about the shooters, Wilson? I suppose they'll be in directly?"

"They're just finishing the last beat, ma'am. Shall I bring in tea?"

Mrs. Gaddesden assented, and then leaving her seat by the fire she moved
to the window to see if she could discover any signs in the wintry
landscape outside of Philip and his shooting party. As she did so she
heard a rattle of distant shots coming from a point to her right beyond
the girdling trees of the garden. But she saw none of the shooters--only
two persons, walking up and down the stone terrace outside, in the glow
of the November sunset. One was Elizabeth, the other a tall, ungainly,
yet remarkable figure, was a Canadian friend of Elizabeth's, who had
only arrived that forenoon--M. Felix Mariette, of Quebec. According to
Elizabeth, he had come over to attend a Catholic Congress in London.
Mrs. Gaddesden understood that he was an Ultramontane, and that she was
not to mention to him the word "Empire." She knew also that Elizabeth
had made arrangements with a neighbouring landowner, who was also a
Catholic, that he should be motored fifteen miles to Mass on the
following morning, which was Sunday; and her own easy-going Anglican
temper, which carried her to the parish church about twelve times a
year, had been thereby a good deal impressed.

How well those furs became Elizabeth! It was a chill frosty evening, and
Elizabeth's slight form was wrapped in the sables which had been one of
poor Merton's earliest gifts to her. The mother's eye dwelt with an
habitual pride