By Right of Purchase

les came ringi

put them on. They were one of the visible tokens that in the most sordid sense of the word she belonged to him. The man had not won her favour. In fact, he had made no great pretence of seeking it, for which, so far as that went, she was grateful; but he had evidently carried out his part of the bargain, and now she was part of his property, acquired by purchase. The

n to relieve its ugliness, an unsightly jumble of wooden houses in the midst of a vast white plain, which stretched gleaming to the far horizon, with not even a willow bluff to relieve its desolation. She set her lips tight as the cars ran slowly into the station. It consisted apparently of a stock-yard, a towering water-tank, and a weatherbeaten shed half-buried in snow, and was, as usual when the trains came

ggy furs clustered about him, and their harsh, drawling voices grated on her ears. They made it evident that he was one of them, for they greeted him with rude friendliness as "Charley". That wa

to be astonished," he

pair, and awkwardly held out mittened hands. They were most of them speaking, and, though it was dif

ry you have come to, ma'am. . . . She's a daisy. . . . Where'd he get her from? . . . Yo

had she loved him, for she would then, perhaps, have found pleasure in his evident popularity; but, as it was, she felt merely the indignity of being exposed to the gaze and comments of these ox-drivers or ploughmen, as she took them to be. That she was apparently expected t

word to them? They mea

nd turned to the men again. "Mrs. Leland doesn't feel quite equal to thanking you, bo

ne of them pushed his way through t

her forty sledge-loads in," he said. "We're rather tightly fixed for room, and want to

y. "Still, in the meanwh

held back a month or two, it might have been better. They've been rushing a good deal on to the markets lately,

seemed desirous of changing t

t once. It's forty miles to Prospect, and there's not much of the afternoon left. Still, of

It appeared uninviting enough, but when she

d; "I would s

rty wooden room with a big stove in the midst of it, after which he left her to

of dismay, she noticed that he now looked very much as the others did. In another minute he had lifted her into the sleigh and wrapped th

ntensified by the screech of runners and the soft drumming of hoofs. A vast sweep of fleckless azure overhung the glistening plain below. It was not all white, however, for there were shades of grey and dusky purple in the hollows, and the trail was a wavy riband that rose and fell in varying blue. It was be

warm?"

the frost of the Northwest strikes keen and deep, and, afte

aid; "I am

s look in his eyes. "Well," he said, "that ought to be excuse e

d that held the reins, and Carrie, who felt that protest would be useless and undignified, said nothing when she found her sh

t is where you ought to be," he said. "Perhaps, if I am very g

of the delicacy he had displayed, and which she had scarcely expected from one so much beneath her in station. It was not even so repugnant as she had fancied to lie there warmed by the heat of his body, with his arm about her, and she felt, at least, a comforting confidence in h

s and a flitting by of ghostly trees that vanished when they once more swept out into the awful cold of the open. Now and then Leland called to the horses, but his voice was lost again next moment in the silence it had scarcely broken. A curious sense of the unreality of it all came upon the girl. She almost felt that, if she could cry out, he and the team would vanish, and all wo

in front of us,"

ey did not in the least look like English stables, barns, or granaries. Then there was a sound of voices, and a door swung open, letting out a broader track of brightness, in the midst of which the sleigh pulled up. Shadowy figures appeared here and there, and Leland, who unstrapped the robes, rolled them about her. T

e for me lately. My wife's 'most frozen, and you'll do what you can to ma

the sledges too late to be opened that day. Leland pointed to seve

n't worry much about them on the prairie, but this room and the next one are your

, and the furniture appeared to consist of a table, a carpenter's bench, a set of bookshelves, and a few lounge chairs. Still, it was well warmed by the big crackling stove, and she sank with a little sigh of physical content into one of the chairs he dr

. What I can do to make it hom

and, seeing she made

, no woman but Mrs. Nesbit has crossed my threshold. It has been all

she turned her eyes away. A caress would have been in one sense a very little thing, but she could n

nds. Presently he smiled again and, drawing a

omebody from Winnipeg, though I don't know that it wouldn't be better to let Jake do the cooking and cleaning as before. It's quite difficult to get maids in this country, and, when you've

d she was willing to humour him in this. "Of course,

n when there's little doing with the snow upon the ground, and he's away railroa

have done that, if

whose wife wants help and can't hire it. Mrs. Nesb

he man, but she felt that, if she had been his housekeeper, a device of that kind

to her as Tom Gallwey. He called her husband "Ch

he said. "We have cleaned out the sod granaries as you

ou'll go on hauling wh

ened to the market? One would fan

. We'll go into the rest to-morro

nd will excuse me, I think not," he said, and

the girl, with a trace

velling on a railroad, and looking very sick, two or three yea

ray with his left hand, brought in supper. He gazed at Carrie so hard that he spilled some o

is another pensi

to make it a little easier for him. He got himself mixed

turally ca

" he said, "I guess I get my full value

in the great bare room, and was not displeased when Leland told her so. In fact, the more she saw of him, the more favourably he impressed her, and, though she remembered always that she was a Denham of Ba

the letter I gave you

talk to you about it in a day or two, because it wouldn't be q

You told me I could fill the hou

yway, I meant it. Still, we're not

ubject. She had not yet quite shaken off the effects of the c

. "Mrs. Nesbit will see you have everything you want,

a wee bit faster than usual, as it had done once or twice before that day. Again she felt t

ade her a little inclination as