ward tokens of a grief, cherished deep
in her protesting, pitiful heart. Her brother had lived for some four
months after her engagement to Anderson; always, in spite of encouraging
doctors, under the same sharp premonition of death which had dictated
his sudden change of attitude towards his Canadian friend. In the
January of the new year, Anderson had joined them at Bordighera, and
there, after many alternating hopes and fears, a sudden attack of
pneumonia had slit the thin-spun life. A few weeks later, at Mrs.
Gaddesden's urgent desire, and while she was in the care of a younger
sister to whom she was tenderly attached, there had been a quiet wedding
at Genoa, and a very pale and sad Elizabeth had been carried by her
Anderson to some of the beloved Italian towns, where for so long she had
reaped a yearly harvest of delight. In Rome, Florence, and Venice she
must needs rouse herself, if only to show the keen novice eyes, beside
her what to look at, and to grapple with the unexpected remarks which
the spectacle evoked from Anderson. He looked in respectful silence at
Bellini and Tintoret; but the industrial growth of the north, the
strikes of _braccianti_ on the central plains, and the poverty of Sicily
and the south--in these problems he was soon deeply plunged, teaching
himself Italian in order to understand them.

Then they had returned to Mrs. Gaddesden, and to the surrender of
Martindale to its new master. For the estate went to a cousin, and when
the beauty and the burden of it were finally gone, Philip's gentle
ineffectual mother departed with relief to the moss-grown dower-house
beside Bassenthwaite lake, there to sorrow for her only son, and to find
in the expansion of Elizabeth's life, in Elizabeth's letters, and the
prospects of Elizabeth's visits, the chief means left of courage and
resignation. Philip's love for Anderson, his actual death in those
strong arms, had strengthened immeasurably the latter's claim upon her;
and in March she parted with him and Elizabeth, promising them boldly
that she would come to them in the fall, and spend a Canadian winter
with them.

Then Anderson and Elizabeth journeyed West in hot haste to face a
general election. Anderson was returned, and during three or four months
at Ottawa, Elizabeth was introduced to Canadian politics, and to the
swing and beat of those young interests and developing national hopes
which, even after London, and for the Londoner, lend romance and
s