adventured too much of her capital on the first year's harvest; but
success might encourage Bob, while failure would certainly daunt him.
He would work for an object he was likely to gain, but if disappointed,
regretted the exertions he had made, and refused, with humorous logic,
to be stirred to fresh effort.

"I'm not convinced that farming's my particular duty," he once said.
"When I plow it's in the expectation of cashing the elevator warrants
for the grain. If I'm not to reap the crop, it seems to me that working
fourteen hours a day is a waste of time that might be agreeably employed
in shooting or riding about."

Sadie urged that one got nothing worth having without a struggle. Bob
rejoined: "If you get the thing you aim at, the struggle's justified;
if you don't you think of what you've missed while you were uselessly
employed. Of course, if you like a struggle, you have the satisfaction
of following your bent; but hustling is a habit that has no charm for
me."

Sadie reflected that the last remark was true. Bob never hustled; his
talk and movements were marked by a languid grace that sometimes pleased
and sometimes irritated her. It was difficult to make him angry, and
she was often silenced by his whimsical arguments when she knew she was
right. But he was her husband, and she meant to baulk the man who hoped
to profit by his carelessness.

Then she urged the horse. It was a long drive to the settlement where
she had kept the hotel, and she had not been there for some time. The
goods she and her neighbors bought came from the new settlement on the
railroad, which was not far off; but she had an object in visiting the
other. It was noon when she reached the hotel and sat down to dinner in
the familiar room. She did not know if she was pleased or disappointed
to find the meal served as well as before, but her thoughts were not
cheerful while she ate. She remembered her ambitions and her resolve to
leave the dreary plains and make her mark in Toronto or Montreal. Now
her dreams had vanished and she must grapple with dull realities that
jarred her worse than they had done.

The dining-room was clean, but unattractive, with its varnished board
walls, bare floor, and wire-mesh filling the skeleton door, which a
spring banged to before the mosquitoes could get in. There were no
curtains or ventilator-fans, the room was very hot, and the glaring
sunshine emphasized its ugliness. Then it was full of flies that fe