Lady Merton, Colonist

s of the morning

ed their coming, and was to have brought them hither himself. But on the night of the party's return to Laggan he had been hastily summoned by telegraph to a consultation of engineers on a difficult matter of railway grading in the Kootenay district. Delaine, knocking at his door in the morning, had found him flown. A not

ing whiteness, mountains of rose-coloured rock, fledged with pine, fell steeply to the water's edge, enclosing and holding up the glacier; and vast rock pinnacles of a paler rose, melting into gold, broke, here and there, the gleaming splendour of the ice. The sun, just topping the great basin, kindled the ice surfaces, and all the glistening pinks and yellows, the pale purples and blood-crimsons of the rocks, to flame and splendo

izabeth, under a group of pines, lay a bed of snow-lilies, their golden heads dew-drenched, waiting for the touch of the morning,

eheld a nobler fantasy of Nature than that composed by these snows and forests of Lake Louise; such rocks of opal and pearl; such dark gradations of splendour in calm water; such balanced intricacy and harmony in the building of this ice-p

as a freshness of spring; an overflow

e dawn, that morning, she had been unable to sleep. The strong light, the pricking air, had kept h

' Practically, that is what it amounted to--I admit it in sackcloth and ashes. Well!--we have thrown the dice--and it won't do! No, it won't, it won't do! And it is somehow all my fault--which is abominable. But I see now, what I never saw at home or in Italy, that he is a thousand years older than I--that I should weary and jar upon him at every turn, were I to marry him. Also I have discovered--out here--

s simple fundamental things at least--is writ so large here. Hope and ambition--love and courage--the man wrestling with the earth--the woman who bears and brings up children--it is as though I had never felt, never seen them before. They rise out of the dust and mist of our modern

oy; he is longing for a tiresome day to end, when my heart is just singing for delight. For it is not only Canada in the large that holds me, but all its dear, human, dusty, incoherent detail--all its clatter of new towns and spreading farms--of pushing railways and young parliaments--of roadmaking and bridgemaking--of saw-mills and lumber ca

nchanted woods,

often sad; his own life has been hard; and yet the heart of him is all hope and courage, all delight too in the daily planning and wrestling, the contrivance and the cleverness, the rifling and outwitting of Nature--that makes a Canadian--at

-and is shortly going into Parliament. They say that he is sure to be a great man. To us--to Philip and me, he has been extremely kind. I only meant that he seems

and 'values' would reassert themselves. But in a sense--don't be alarmed--I shall always live in Canada. Or, rather

et on his nerves--as he on mine. If you were only here! But, I assure you, he doesn't look miserable; and I think he will bear up very well. And if it will be any comfort to you to

all along, he is not so much better as you and I hoped he would be. I take every care of him that I can,

r strata of the mind than she had been willing to reveal to her mother, kept sli

d her, and she looked up

Arthur! But I ha

I. What

t her smiling eyes swept the

?" said Delaine, with a shrug. "Next year, I s

eth cr

liberately took his seat beside her. "You applaud t

e other spoils," sa

he voice was cold. "All trave

he Canadians will g

" he said to her, after a moment. His tone had an under-no

, hurriedly. "Just now, certainly, I am in love with de

ith a purpose, and that a critical moment might be approaching. Her cheeks flushed, and to

s to which she had no clue. He could not make up his mind, though h

Then, if he still groped, she s

join our wanderings," she said suddenly.

slow reply, not without dignity. "It has been an

's pulse

?" she desperately t

like all nice things. Philip and I think of staying a little in Vancouver. And the Governor has asked us to go over t

ad been assumed, he thought, that he was to return with them to Montreal and England. This gentle q

is life, and a flood of resentment

I shall go home b

considered person in the world, did not disguise from Elizabeth the soreness underneath. It was hard to

ignity. They were exactly what he coveted in a wife--what he hoped he had captured in Elizabeth. How was it they had been snatched from him?

with a slightly h

ortunity--will you allow me a few frank wor

him, and a pair of startled

e said smiling. "Have I bee

personally know of

lf under the sudden surprise of the name,

an we all know. What do you mean, Mr. Arthur? Ah, yes, I remember, you

Are you quite sure--forgive me if I seem impertinent--that he i

rally amiable and nervous man could bring himself to put such

w that everybody at Winnipeg seemed to know him and respect him; people like the Chief Justice, and the Senator--what was his name?--a

t figure had stiffened,

He would have drawn back; but it w

ity? His success in the strike of last year brought him a great notoriety. But his pri

eth's expression. It was a strange and thrilling sense that

ried, breathing quick. "Ask him what he thinks--what he feels! But i

lizabeth waited, challenging, expe

ch have made me ask you these questions. My only object--you must, y

ce--without his knowledge--that perhaps he would rather we did not know--I beg you will not tell me--indeed--please

ing, like some precise and perfect instrument strained to express a human feeling or intention.

--can you not tru

d not

mile flashed--"even new acqu

o wish or will of mine. You cannot suppose that I have been prying into Mr. Anderson's a

it. I am a w

least be sure that"--he hesitated

ted her eyebrows proud

y what you won't

d--a littl

Arthur, how soon we shall all be separating. Nothing

here was a touch of

along the path in front of her, an

oned away--immediately--before you get to Vancouver. But that I will discuss with him

's eyebrows wen

at you think best. Shall

excited, and that he had completely missed his str

th at last, as though nothing had happened. "I won

ached to the hotel as guide, fisherman, hunter--at the pleasure of visitors. But Elizabeth had already discovered that he had the speech of a ge

o scramble over them to a point where several large trunks overhung deep wate

said Delaine, suddenly. "There

logs, turned again to shout to his sister, his light figure clear against the sunlit distance. Then the

he water. Elizabeth, as she rushed along the edge, recognized Anderson. Philip seemed to have disappeared; but Anderson dived, and presently emerged with a limp burden. The guide was now aiding him, and between the

with a moan of anguish

refusing Delaine's help, carrying the thin body apparently with ease along the path and up

at Lake Louise. Elizabeth sat down in deep despondency to write to her mother, and then lingered awhile with the letter before her, her head in her hands, pondering with emotion what she and Philip owed to George Anderson, who had, it seemed, arrived by a night train, and walked up to the hotel, in the very nick of time. As to the accident itself, no doubt the guide, a fine swimmer and coureur de bois, would have been sufficient, unaided, to save her brother. But after all, it was Anderson's strong arms that had drawn him

e, ambitious young man, full of practical interests, with brusque manners, and a visible lack of some of the outer wrappings to which she was accustomed--it was so that she had first envisaged him. Then at Winnipeg--through Mariette and others--she had seen him as other men saw him, his seniors and contemporaries, the men engaged with him in the making of this vast country. She had appreciated his character in what might be hereafter, apparently, its public aspects; the character of one for

h colour against her will. "Out of the strong shall come forth sweetness." The words rushed into her mind. She hoped, as

s occurred to her. She lau

accident? Yet he was still on the spot. She realised, indeed, that it was hardly possible for their

-room door disturbed h

d from the threshold. "I think I have al

p at him; and for the first time he saw her tremulo

hand; and one of those beautiful looks--generou

a moment by hers. Then he, somew

de would have had him out in a twinkle. I wish"--

am all

Mercifully I left it in the drawing-

It was a French novel she

excl

d you g

He sends it me from Vancouver. Will

to the writing-table, one hand upon it. He saw the lines of her gray dress, her small neck and head; the Quakerish smoothness of her brown hair, against the light. The l

zabeth was left breathing quick, one hand on her breast. It

f intercepted by Delaine in the garden, and

e said, with a cordiality born of their common anxiet

aring his throat, "Mr. Anderson, may

way to Laggan. They turned into a solitary road, running between the woods. It was late evening,

is more than disagreeable to myself. But I have no choice. By some extraordinary chance, with which I beg you to believe my own will has had not

n stood

ly mean?" he said, i

re, a man who--pardon me, it is most painful to me to seem to be interfering with anyone's private affairs--who

mad!" said Anderson quietly. "My

ications with you, and to my great regret, to my indignation, I may say he chose me--an entire stranger--as his intermediary. He seems to have watched our party all the way from Winnipeg, where he first saw you

ason for not com

ling light that Anderson had grown pale. But he perceived also an

fessed to b

d Anderson with a laugh. "And h

e, I regre

t to my

tainly hostile. I would

ou to do so. And where is this

ad been given him--of a lodging m

le story of course is a mere attempt to get money--fo

fear lest he should ask it. In the light of the countenance beside him, no less than of the event of the day, his behaviour of the morning began to seem to him more than disputable. In the morning he had seemed to himself the defender of Eli

ffened his manner. And Anderson ask

y investigations." And, with the shortest of nod

hotel. "It was uncommonly difficult to do it at such a moment! But to him I ha