Lorimer of the Northwest

h me of the Canadian Dominion on the bleak slopes of Starcross Moor. There was a hollow in the hillside where a few pale-stemmed birches and somber firs formed,

gh she was the well-dowered daughter of a race which has long been famous for fair women, but a certain grave dignity that made her softly spoken wishes seem commands that it would be a pleasure to obey. Grace was nineteen then, and she lived in Western Canada with her wid

e fields between, for hedgerows were scanty and fences of rusty colliery rope replaced them. Yet it was a wealthy country, and bred keen-witted, enterprising men, who, uncouth often in speech and exterior,

everyone looks careworn in your dingy towns, and there are so many poor. Besides, the monotony

love of the open sky had been handed down to me through long generations of a yeoman ancestry, and yet fate had apparently decreed that I should earn my bread in the counting-house of a cotton-mill. It is probable that I should have been abashed and awkward before this patrician dam

been a wet season, and trade is bad," I said. "

dusk under the clear sunshine of the open prairie, paying rent to no one, for each tills his own land, and though there are drawbacks-drought, hail, and harvest-frost-they meet them lightly, for you see neither anxious faces nor bent shoulders there. Our people walk upright, as becomes free men. The

e Carrington answered, because, though she wore the stamp of refinement to her finger-tips, she knew all that concerned the feeding of stock, and the number of bushels that might be thrashed from an acre of wheat. I knew she spoke as one having experience, for I had been taught to till the soil, and only entered the cotton-mill when on my father's 10 death it was found that his weakness for horses

k of indolent good humor on his face, and though for a moment Grace Carrington

Mr. Lorimer-Captain Ormond. I think you have met before. I lost my way, and

as he said, "Don't remember that pleasure-meet so many people! Canada must be a very nice place; b

h flour-bags, Geoffrey;" while, feeling myself overlooked, and not knowing what to say, I raised my cap and awkwardly turned away. Still, looking back, I caught the waft of a light dress among the fe

t Grace was laughing at the stories her companion told of his stran

There is something in that untrained cub-could recognize it by the steady, disapproving way he

her merry laugh. In spite of his love of ease and frivolous badinage, he was, as I was to learn so

is mill, and the sighing of the pine branches under a cold breeze served to increase my restlessness. So it was with a sense of relief that I found my cousin Alice waiting in a cosy corner of the fire-lit drawing-room. We had known each other from childhood, and, though for that very reason this is not always the case, we were the best of friends. She would be rich some day, so the men I met in her father's business

ed and moody-you have been out on the moors too long. See, here is a low chair ready ju

e corner, and answered

elp thinking that these brief holidays, though they are like a glimpse of Paradise after my dingy rooms in that sickening town, are not good for me. I am only a poor clerk in your fath

young person, then she laid her little ha

es them? Now, I'm guessing at a secret, but it's probable that your uncle bought that gun especially for you. Ralph

way of avoiding it, and when I said as unconcernedly as I could, "Yes, and talked to her about Canada!" Alice for no particular reas

ther's death that there was nothing left, I tried the cotton-mill. Well, after four years' trial I like it worse than I did

lph you will not be rash; think it over well. Now tell me if you

h a slight flush of color in her usually pale face where the soft lamplight touched it. So we sat and talked until Martin Lorimer entered unobserved, and when, on hearing a footstep, I looked up I saw that he was smiling

s eyes seemed heavy, and I wondered what 14 could be the reason. In after years I mentioned it when Grace and I were talking

e poor and anxious; so, divided between two courses, I wandered up and down, finding rest nowhere until I chanced upon a large new atlas in my uncle's library. Martin Lorimer was proud of his library. He was a well-read man, though like others of his kind he made no pretense at scholarship, and used the broad, burring dia

med out of spirits, so when I left the library there was the weary afternoon to be dragged through somehow. It passed very slowly, and then a

l's daughter's going to the church parade. They're sayin' it's a grand tu

ntly calling the lad I bade him p

Not done nothink but eat for a long time now, an' he nearl

ember it, and looking for Alice I said, "I am driving

shrewdest man I ever met; so when she looked me straight in the face I dropped my eyes, because I reall

" she asked. "Or have you forgotten you tol

but Alice smiled dryly, and

, I will not go with you. But don't leave the

troke of diplomacy. I learned afterward that diplomacy is a mistake for the simple man. With a straightforward "Yes" or "No" he can often turn aside the schem