The Imperialist

f congratulation was corrected by a tendency to assert it another proof of sagacity on the chairman's part; Elgin wouldn't be too flattered; Lawyer Cruickshank couldn't have done better. Yo

superintending the spring cleaning in order to get Lorne ready to go to the Old Country at such short notice, but nothing he could put in the paper. Lorne, sought at the office, was hardly more commun

nough shout and you get things taken for granted in economics for a long while. Conditions keep changing, right along, all the time, a

ver here, right en

ing to old man Milburn just now-he's dead against it. 'Government has no business,' he said, 'to apply the taxes in the inter

surprises me

atives never did,' I said. 'We don't-I haven't,' he said. 'What d'ye mean? Twenty-five years ago,' I said, 'when you were considering whether you'd start the Milburn Boiler Wor

: "What did h

or you to write out an account of them from the beginning, would it? Working in the last quarter of a century of the town's progress, you know, and all that. Come round to the office tomorrow,

say anyt

l conscience, but he's got a sense of what's silly.

ble, which was strewn with maps and bluebooks, prin

e and cold storage. Get 'em a little ashamed to have made so many fortunes for Yankee beef combines; persuade 'em the cheapest market h

atters that prevented his at once feeling the value of this assura

ms, Mr Milburn didn't say anything-anything about me in connection with t

away up in abstract principl

ent down the stairs. "He's probably just feeding on what folks think of it.

tive freights with New York. What did they import, confound them! Pig-iron? Plates and rivets? Fortunately he was in a position to get at the facts, and he got at them with an interest of even greater intensity than he had shown to the whole question since ten that morning. Even now, the unprejudiced observer, turning up the literature connected with the Cruickshank deputation, may notice a stress laid upon the advantages to Canadian importers of ore in certain stages of manufacture which may strike him as slightly, very slightly, special. Of course there are a good many of

ravest, sincerest appreciation of his recent success, which he took as humbly as a dog will take a bone; he read a fatherly thought at which his pulses bounded in an arrogance of triumph, and his heart rose to ask its trust. And Octavius Milburn had held the gate open because it was more convenient to hold it open than to leave it open. He had not a political view in the world that was calculated to affect his attitude toward a practical matter; and his opinion of Lorne was quite uncomplicated: he thought him a very likely young fellow. Milburn himself, in the Elgin way, preferred to see no great significance of this sort anywhere. Young people were young peopl

for the irruption of a visitor, would probably not have entered the formal apartment of the house at all that evening. Drawing-rooms in Elgin had their prescribed uses-to receive in, to practise in, and for the last sad entertainment of the dead, when the furniture was disarranged to accommodate the tre

eping the lawn tidy; they had had so much rain. Mrs Milburn assured him kindly that there was not such another lawn as his father's in Elgin. How Mr

ach standing in its own grounds. Nothing very grand, as I tell my friend, Miss Cham, from Buffalo wh

eed," sa

hison," said Miss Filkin. "Leaving Elgin and all its beauties! An

ot be so busy as

town altogether," said Mrs Milburn, "though perhaps h

Lorne simply, "to

shall feel quite complimented. But I'm afraid you will find a great deal to criticize when you come back-tha

handling their public business. I don't believe I shall find our men so far behind, for point of view and grasp and d

ing at breakfast was such a dangerous man? So able, he

clothes, which hung and "sat" upon her like the rhythm of verses; they could fall no other way. She had in every movement the definite accent of young ladyhood; she was very much

? Mother, do you mind if I open the window?

s Filkin, murmuring that it had been a bea

very much!" Miss Milburn continued, and subsided

e had been able to get d

r. They want about a week's rolling.

rcise. I hope it will never go out of fashion; but that is what w

nis, dealt lightly with badminton, and brought the conversation round with a graceful sweep to canoeing. Dora's attitude before she had done became slightly

e is on his way to England by China and Japan, and is staying with

iss Filkin, in a sprightly way, "

bishop was a bishop, of whatever colour. She stayed three minutes longer than Mrs Milburn, but she went. The Filkin tradition, though strong,

A simpler relation established itself between them and controlled all that surrounded them;

Dora, "I hate y

uth, to discontent. There was some litt

e wouldn't get better

to her. I don't know whether she saw it; but she must have bee

good thing t

une, and a whole crowd coming from Toronto for it. There isn't anothe

orry!" said Lo

ronto, and asked me to sail with him. I haven't told Mother,

, really," she assured him. "And we'll all be proud to be acquainted with such a distinguished

uld be something to tell your mother, wouldn't it? But

e you ever had in all your life. Do you

. They didn't grow so fast in England, to begin with, and now they're rich with character and strong with conduct and hoary with ideals. I've been reading up the history of our political relations with England. It's astonishing what we've stuck to her through, but you can't help seeing why-it's for the moral advantage. Way down at the bottom, that's what i

h opinion of the Englishmen that come out here. They don't think anything of getting into debt, an

not expected back till they're making a living. The best men find their level somewhere else, along recognized channels. Lord k

ne, how perfectly dear of you to send me those roses. I wore them, and nobody there had such beauties. All the girls wanted to know where I got them, but I only told Lily, just to make her feel a pig for not having asked you-my very greatest friend!

ving been asked. But I'm gl

il Carter wanted to ke

d you let h

think I'd let any man kee

ut pansies-those are awfully nice ones in your dress. I'm very fond of pa

them Dora grew delicately pink. The pansies drooped a little;

for your butto

ttonhole. I know lots of

it slowly out, and the young man got up and wen

ly. "If I give you this you will have

," said

and there was a little effort in her composure.

graceful and fair, to fasten it

it?" said Lorne. "A

y are you-why do you-O

vague tender knowledge that he offered her a garden, where she h