Lady Merton, Colonist

t of the line be

n the railway line, and the tiny smoke from it curled up for a m

ing parts of Canada before long," said Lady Merton, look

anion hastily. "My dear Elizabeth, I real

a bore--to-morrow I shall be a nu

ld see the same thing for twelve hours more. What is there to go mad over in that?" Her brother waved his hand indignantly from right to left across the disappearing scene. "As for m

arling! That's the twentieth since tea. Look at the reflectio

of islands covered with scrub of beech and spruce, set sharply on the clear water. On one side of the lake, the forest was a hideous waste of burnt trunks, where the gaunt stems--charred or singed, snapped or twisted, or flayed--of the trees which remained standing rose dreadfully into the May sunshine, above a ch

rself, there are about two a mile, and none of them has got a name to its back, and they're all exactly alike, and all full of beastly mos

-and the place is so big!--and the people so few!--and the chan

ort of

of the

aid Philip Gaddesden, keepi

ned to you many times before, this is the Hinterland of Ontario--and it's only been

at!" grumbled the somnolent person beside her. "As if I did

any money out

er fellows did.

mmer of water in the hollows; everywhere the sparkle of fresh leaf, the shining of the birch trunks among the firs, the greys and purples of limestone rock; everywhere, too, the

here to James Bay. A thousand miles of it--stretched below us--just waiting for man! And we'd drop down into an undiscovered lake, and give it a name--one of

ing better to do with it than waste it on a lake in--what do you call it

aughed and

erson of much travel, and many experiences; and had it been prophesied to her a year before this date that she could feel as she was now feeling, she would not have believed it. She was then in Rome, steeped in, ravished by the past--assisted by what is, in its way, the most agreeable society in Europe. Here she was absorbed in a rushing present; held by the vision of a colossal future; and society had dropped out of her ken.

he coffers of the company to pay the weekly wages of the navvies working on the great iron road. He was dead now, and his property in the line had been divided among his children. But his name and services were not forgotten at Montreal, and when his son and widowed daughter let it be known that they desired to cross from Qu

the pleasant Ontario farms flitted by, so mellowed and homelike already, midway between the old life of Quebec, and this new, raw West to which they were going. They had passed, also--but at night and under the moon--through the lake country which is

sitting there in her shady hat at the rear of the train, her eyes pursuing the great track which her father had helped to bring into bei

s ready,

addesden, springing up. "Get s

vingly, "it is not good for you

ck his curly he

without it to-morrow.

and the tiny kitchen to the dining-room at the further end. Here stood a man in steward's livery ready to serve, while

kes!" said Gaddes

ook n

ething she likes," he said, not w

aid her brother as they sat d

be liked--adored, perhaps, is the better word--by her servants and she gen

speak of tea," she said, looking in dismay at the menu before h

fe of their local clergyman in Hampshire; a poor l

course Yerkes sees that he could do a lot for you. All the same, that's a pretty gown you've got on--an awfully pretty gown," he

came lingeringly out, and as the servant removed her plate, Elizabeth turned

. The modelling of the features, of the brow, the cheeks, the throat, was singularly refined, though without a touch of severity; her hands, with their very long and slender fingers, conveyed the same impression. Her dress, though dainty, was simple and inconspicuous, and her movements, light, graceful, self-controlled, seemed

her an insubstantial memory. She had been happy, but in the depths of the mind she knew that she might not have been happy very long. Her husband's piteous death had stamped upon her, indeed, a few sharp memories; she saw him always,--as the report of a brother officer, present at his funeral, had described him--wrapped in the Flag, and so lowered to his grave, in a desert land. This image effaced everything else; the weaknesses she knew, and those she had begun to guess at. But at the same time she had not be

covered, but his health was not yet what it had been; and as at home it was impossible to keep him from playing golf all day, and bridge all night, the family doctor, in despair, recommended travel, and Elizabeth had offered to take charge of him. It was not an easy task, for although Philip was extremely fond of his sister, as the male head of the family since his fath

up the blind beside her, and looked occasionally into the evening, and that endless medley of rock and forest and lake which lay there outside, under the sunset. Once she gazed out upon a great gorge, through which ran a noble river, bathed in crimson light; on its way, no doubt, to Lake Superior, the vast, crescent-shaped lake she had dreamed of in her school-room days, over her geography lessons, and was soon to see with her ow

said Philip discontentedly. "Yerkes must really try

ime to-morr

the boy, lighting his cigarette. "You won

the gradual passing away of the look of illness, the brightening of the eye

ts had made up berths in the dining-room; Elizabeth's maid slept in the saloon. Elizabeth herse

in sped on its wonderful way. Elizabeth on her platform at its rear was conscious of no other living creature. She seemed to be alone with the night and the vastness of the lake, the awfulness of its black and purple coast. As far as she could see, the trees on its shores were still bare; they had temporarily left the spring behind; the North seemed to have rushed upon her in its terr

and little by little her exultation passed into yearning; her eyes grew wet. For she had no one beside her with whom to share these secret thought

h she sometimes thought. She thought of it now, wistfully and kindly; but it scarcely avail

ing the young spruce and birch growing among the charred wreck of the older forest, through which the railway

Poles. She remembered the women's faces, and the babies at their breasts. Were they all asleep, tired out perhaps by long journeying, and soothed by the noise of the train? Or were there hearts among them aching for some poor hovel left behind, for a de

in her little room. The train

he train? She pushed aside a corner of the blind beside her. Outside a railway cutt

n elderly and precise person who had

the matter? Are w

ast two hours, my lady. I've been e

been somewhat crassly sleeping while more s

s. "But what's wrong, Si

from Winnipeg--that's all I know--and we're

e been an

ut it down to "the sink-hole," which according to him was "always doing it"--that there wer

geration. There aren't trains every min

et, my

h is a sink-hole?