It seemed a pity, too, not to see something of this new-world city while she was on the ground. Her brother's farm was still an incredible distance farther west. People thought nothing of distance in this amazing New World. Still, it might easily be long before she would be here again. The future was a blank page. There was a delightful irresponsibility about the thought. She had come over the sea at her brother's bidding. The future was his care, not hers.

The journey west had the same charm of novelty that the sea voyage had had. The nearest station to Eddie's farm was a place called Dyer in the Province of Manitoba, not far from Winnipeg. Once inured to the new and strange mode of traveling in Canada, so different from what she had been accustomed to, Nora prepared to enjoy it. Never before had she realized the possibilities of beauty in a winter landscape. The flying prospect without the window fascinated her. The magazines and papers with which she had provided herself lay unopened in her lap. She realized that these vast snow-covered stretches might easily drive one mad with their loneliness and desolation if one had to live among them. But to rush through them as they were doing was exhilarating. It was all so strange, so contrary to any previous experience, that Nora had an uncanny feeling that they might easily have left the earth she knew and be flying through space. She whimsically thought that if at the next stop she were to be told that she was on the planet Mars, she would not be greatly astonished. It was like traveling with Alice in Wonderland.

One thing, however, recalled her to earth and prosaic mundane affairs: her supply of money was rapidly getting dangerously low. Barring accident, she would have enough to get her to Dyer, where Eddie was to meet her. But suppose they should be snowed up for a day or two? Only an hour before she had been thrilled with an account of just such an experience which a man in the seat in front of her was recounting to his companion. Well, if that happened, she would either have to go hungry or beg food from the more affluent of her fellow-passengers! Fortunately she was not obliged to put their generosity to the test. The train arrived at Dyer without accident only a few minutes behind the scheduled time.

There were a number of people at the station as Nora alighted. For a moment she had a horrid fear that either she had been put off at the wrong place or that her brother had failed to meet her. Certainly none of the fur-coated figures were in the least familiar. But almost at once one of the men detached himself from the waiting group on the platform and after one hesitating second came toward her.

"Nora, my child, I hardly knew you! I was forgetting that you would be a grown woman," and Nora was half smothered in a furry embrace and kissed on both cheeks before she was quite sure that the advancing stranger was her brother.

"Oh, Eddie, dear, I didn't know you at all. But how can one be expected to with that great cap covering the upper part of your face and a coat collar hiding nearly all the rest. But you really haven't changed, now that I get a look at you. I daresay I have altered more than you. But I was little more than a child when you went away."

"Well, we have quite a little drive ahead of us," said Eddie as, having himself helped to carry Nora's trunks to a nondescript-looking vehicle to which were attached two horses, he motioned to Nora to get in. "I expect you won't be sorry to have a little air after being so long in a stuffy car."

Nora noticed that he gave the man who had helped him with the trunks no tip and that they called each other "Joe" and "Ed." This was democracy with a vengeance. She made a little face of disapproval.

Nora never forgot that drive. In the light of after-events it seemed to have cut her off more sharply from all the old life than either the crossing of the pathless sea or the long overland journey. It was taken for the most part in silence, Eddie's attention being largely taken up with his team. Also Nora noted that he seemed to feel the cold more than she did, as he kept his coat collar turned up all the way. She herself was so occupied with her thoughts that she had no sense of either time or distance.

At last they came in sight of a house such as she had never seen. It was built entirely of logs. At the sound of their approach, the one visible door opened on the crack as if to avoid letting in the cold, and Nora saw a thin dark little woman with rather a hard look and a curiously dried-up skin, whom she rightly guessed to be her sister-in-law, standing in the doorway, while lounging nonchalantly against the doorpost was a tall, strong, well-set-up young man whose age might have been anything between thirty and thirty-five. He had remarkably clean-cut features and was clean-shaven. His frankly humorous gaze rested unabashed on the stranger's face.

Forgetting all her good resolutions to adapt herself to the habits and customs of this new country, Nora felt that she could have struck him in his impudent face. The fact that she reddened under his scrutiny, naturally only made her the more furious.

"Come on out here, some of you," called Eddie jovially. "Heavens! The way you all hug the stove would make anyone believe you'd never seen a Canadian winter before in your lives. Here, Frank, lend a hand with these trunks and call Ben to take the horses. Gertie, this is Nora. Now you need never be lonely again."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," said Gertie primly.

The man called Frank, the one who had been honoring Nora with his regard, came forward with a hand outstretched to help her alight, while another man, the ordinary type of English laborer placed himself at the horses' heads.

"Come, hop out, Nora."

There was nothing else to do, Nora put the very tips of her fingers into the outstretched hand. To her unspeakable indignation, she felt herself lifted bodily out and actually carried inside the door. At her smothered exclamation, Gertie gave a shrill laugh.



CHAPTER VI

Three weeks had passed with inconceivable rapidity, leaving Nora with the dazed feeling that one has sometimes when waking from a fantastic dream.

There were moments when she was overwhelmed with the utter hopelessness of ever being able to adapt herself to a mode of life so foreign to all her traditions. She had, she told herself, been prepared to find everything different from life at home; and, while she had smiled—on that day such ages ago when young Hornby had called on her at Tunbridge Wells to announce his impending departure from the land of his birth—at his airy theory that the life of the Canadian farmer was largely occupied with riding, hunting, dancing and tennis, she found to her dismay that her own mental picture of her brother's existence had been nearly as far from the reality.

On the drive over from the station, Eddie had vaguely remarked that he had a great surprise for her when she reached the house. Nora had paid but little attention at the moment, thinking that he probably meant the house itself. What had been her astonishment—when once her rage at being lifted bodily from the sled by the man called Frank had permitted of her feeling any other emotion—to find Reginald Hornby himself an inmate of her brother's household. There was but little trace of the ultra smart young Londoner, beyond his still carefully kept hair and mustache. The only difference between his costume and that of the others was that his overalls were newer and that his flannel shirt was plainly a Piccadilly product.

Nora had known gentlemen farmers in England who worked hard, riding about their estates every day supervising and directing everything, and who seemed, from their conversation, to take it all seriously enough. She had made all allowance for the rougher life in a new and unsettled country. There was something picturesque and romantic about the frontiersman which had always appealed to her imagination. She had read a little of him and had seen a play in London the night she recognized Reggie from afar, where the scene was laid in the Far West. On returning to the hotel she had looked with new interest at Eddie's photograph and tried to picture him in the costume worn by the leading man.

But to find that her own brother, a man of education and refinement, actually worked with his own hands like a common laborer and—what to Nora's mind was infinitely more incomprehensible—on a footing of perfect equality with his hired men, calling them familiarly by their given names and being called "Ed" in turn, was a distinctly disagreeable revelation. That they should be familiar with Gertie was quite another matter. Probably they were acquaintances of long standing dating back to her old hotel days.

Her sister-in-law, too, was absolutely different from the type she had imagined. Always she had seen her as one of those vapid, pretty little creatures who had become old long before her time; peevish, spoiled, inclined to be flirtatious, refusing to give up her youth, still living in the recollection of her little day of triumph.

Gertie fulfilled only one of these conditions. She was a small woman, not nearly so tall as Nora herself. In all else she was as different as possible from what she had imagined. There could never have been anything of the 'clinging vine' about Gertie. As a girl she might have been handsome in an almost masculine way; pretty, in the generally accepted sense, she could never have been.

Her one coquetry seemed to be in the matter of shoes. Her feet were unbelievably small. Nora divined that she was inordinately proud of them. While always scrupulously neat, she was apparently indifferent to clothes so long as they were clean and not absolutely shabby. But her high-heeled shoes were the smartest that could be had from Winnipeg.

And as for her being soft and spoiled! Never was there a more tireless and hard-working creature. From early morning till late at night she was never idle. She was a perfect human dynamo of force and energy. The cooking and washing for the 'family' which, now that Nora was here, consisted of six persons, four of whom were men with the appetites which naturally come with a long day's work in the open air, in itself was no light task. But, by way of recreation, after the supper dishes had been washed up, Gertie darned socks, mended shirts, patched trousers for the men folk or sewed on some garment for herself. Nora longed to see her sit with folded hands just once.

That she was as devoted to her husband as he to her there could be no doubt. All other men were a matter of complete indifference to her. Were they good workers or shirkers? That was the only thing about them of any interest. But she was not the sort of woman to show tenderness or affection.

Eddie had apparently the greatest respect for her judgment in all matters pertaining to the running of the farm. Frequently in the evenings they sat together in the far corner of the living room, Eddie talking in a low voice, while Gertie, always at her eternal sewing, listened with close attention, often nodding her head in approval, but occasionally shaking it vehemently when any project failed to meet with her approbation. Occasionally her sharp bird-like glance flashed over the other occupants of the room: at the three men yarning lazily by the big stove or playing cards at the dining table and at Nora making a pretense of reading a six-months-old magazine, or writing, her portfolio on her knee. Always, when Nora encountered that glance, she understood its exultant message.

"Look, you," it said as plainly as if it had been couched in actual words, "look at me ruling over my little court, advising, as a queen might, with her prime minister. You think yourself my superior, you with your fine-lady's airs and graces! A pretty pass your education and accomplishments have brought you to. Of what use are you to anyone?"

There was no blinking the fact: the antagonism between the two women was too instinctive, too deep ever to be more than superficially covered over. They each recognized it. And yet neither was wholly to blame. It had its roots in conditions that were far more significant than mere personal feeling.

Nora, for her part, had come to her brother's house with the sincere intention of doing everything in her power to win her sister-in-law's good will if not affection. She had believed that their common fondness for Eddie would be a sure foundation on which to build. But from the first, without being at all conscious of it, her manner breathed patronage and disapproval of a mode of life so foreign to all her experience. She had made the resolution to remember nothing of Gertie's humble origin, to treat her in every way with the deference due her brother's wife.

Gertie, too, had made good resolutions. She was at heart the more generous nature of the two. She was prepared to find her husband's sister unskilled to the point of incompetency in all the housewifely lore of which she was past mistress; for she, too, had her traditions. She would have laughed at the idea that it was possible for her to be jealous of anybody. But secretly she knew that there was one thing which aroused in her a frenzy of jealous rage; that was those years of her husband's life in which she had neither part nor lot. Any reference to his old life 'at home' fairly maddened her.

And deep down in her heart, each woman nursed a grievance. With Gertie it was the remembrance of the angry letter of protest which Nora had written her brother when she learned of his approaching marriage and which he had been indiscreet enough to show her; with Nora, it was the recollection of Gertie's laugh the night of her arrival when her brother's hired servant had dared to take her for a moment in his arms.

Still, any open rupture might have been avoided or at least delayed for several months longer, if either could have been persuaded to exercise a little more patience and self-control. Each of them, in her different way, had known adversity. Both of them had had to learn to control tempers naturally high while they were still dependent. But it never occurred to either of them that the obligation to do so still existed.

From Gertie's point of view, Nora was just as much a dependent as in the days when she was a hired companion to a rich woman. It was her house in law and in fact, for her husband had made it over to her. It was her bread that she ate, her bed she slept in. It behooved her, therefore, to be a little less lofty and condescending. She had always known how it would be, and it was only because the project seemed so near her husband's heart that she had consented to such an experiment.

In simple justice it must be said that such a thought had never entered Nora's head. She had accepted gladly her brother's invitation to make her home with him. What more natural that he should offer it, now that he was able to do so? In return she was perfectly willing to do everything she could to help in all the woman's work about the house as far as her ignorance would permit. It could hardly be expected that she would be as proficient in household work as a person who had done it all her life. She was more than willing to concede her sister-in-law's superiority in all such matters. And she was perfectly ready to learn all that Gertie would teach her. She had, in everything, been prepared to meet her half-way; further she would not go. For the rest, it was her brother's place to protect her.

Sadly Nora confessed to herself that Eddie had deteriorated in a degree that she could not have believed possible. The first shock had come when they sat down to supper the night of her arrival. To her amazed disgust, they had all eaten at the same table, hired men and all. And then, to see her brother, a gentleman by birth, breeding, and training, sitting down at his own table in his shirt-sleeves!

Her own seat was on the right of her sister-in-law, next Reginald Hornby. All the men except Eddie wore overalls. He had replaced his with an old black waistcoat and a pair of grubby dark trousers. Nora wondered sarcastically if his more formal costume was in honor of her arrival, but quickly remembered that he had had to drive to Dyer. It was cold outside; probably these festive garments were warmer. She found herself speculating as to whether any of the men owned anything but outer coats.

There hadn't been much general conversation at that first meal. Naturally, Eddie had had many questions to ask about old acquaintances in England. Nora had given her first impressions of travel in the New World, addressing many of her remarks to Gertie, who had been noticeably silent. Through all her bright talk the thought would obtrude itself: "What can Reggie Hornby think of my brother?"

She had an angry consciousness, too, that she was unwittingly furnishing much amusement to that objectionable person opposite, whose name she learned was Frank Taylor. She meant to speak to Eddie about him later. He was an entirely new type to her. His fellow servant, whose name was Trotter, on the contrary, could be seen about London any day, an ordinary, ignorant Cockney. He, at least, had the merit of seeming to know his place and how to conduct himself in the presence of his betters, and except when asking for more syrup, of which he seemed inordinately fond, kept discreetly silent.

But the idea that there was any difference in their stations was not betrayed in Taylor's look or manner. He commented humorously from time to time on Nora's various experiences coming overland, quite oblivious, to all appearances, that she pointedly ignored him. Nora had arrived at that point in her gay recital when she had had qualms that her brother had failed to meet her.

"You can fancy how I felt getting down at a perfectly strange station——"

She was interrupted by Gertie's irritating little laugh.

"But what have I said? What is it?"

It was Taylor who replied.

"Well, you see out here in the wilderness we don't call it a station, we call it a depot."

"Do you really?" asked Nora with exaggerated surprise, looking at her brother.

"Custom of the country," he said smilingly.

"But a depot is a place where stores are kept."

"Of course I don't know what you call it in England," said Gertie aggressively, "but while you're in this country, I guess you'd better call it what other folks do."

"It would be rather absurd for me to call it that when it's wrong," said Nora, flushing with annoyance.

Gertie's thin lips tightened.

"Of course I don't pretend to have had very much schooling, but it seems to me I've read something somewhere about doing as the Romans do when you're livin' with them. At any rate, I'm sure of one thing: it's considered the polite thing to do in any country."

The feeling that she had been put in the wrong, even if not very tactfully, did not tend to lessen Nora's annoyance. She looked appealingly at her brother, but he, leaning back in his chair and seeing that his wife's eyes were bent on her plate, shook his head at her, smiling slightly.

"If everyone has finished," said Gertie after an awkward pause, "if you'll all move your chairs away I'll clear away the things."

"May I help you?" said Nora with an effort at conciliation.

"No, thanks."

"No, no. You're company to-night," said her brother with a man's relief at finding an unpleasant situation at an end. "But I daresay to-morrow Gertie'll find plenty for you to do. We'll all be out till dinner time. You girls will have a lot to talk over while you're getting acquainted."

Hornby groaned dismally.

"It doesn't make any difference what the weather is in this blessed country," he said dismally to Nora, "you have to go out whether there's really anything to do or not."

"That's so," laughed Taylor; "still I think you'll admit the Boss always manages to find something to fill up the time."

"That he does," said Hornby with another hollow groan.

"The last time I saw you," said Nora, "you were calling poor old England all sorts of dreadful names. Isn't farming in Canada all your fancy painted it?"

Gertie paused in the act of pouring water from the kettle into the dishpan. "Not a bit like it," she said dryly. "He's like most of the English I've run up against. They think all you've got to do is just to sit down and have afternoon tea and watch the crops grow by themselves."

"Oh, come now, Gertie. You've never had to accuse me of loafing, and I'm an Englishman," said her husband good-naturedly.

"I said 'most.'"

"And as for afternoon tea," broke in Hornby, "I don't believe they have that sacred institution in the whole blessed country."

"You have tea with all your meals. Men out here have something else to do but sit indoors afternoons and eat between meals."

"Do you know," said Nora after a pause, "it isn't nearly so cold as I expected to find it. Don't you usually have it much colder than this?"

"It's rarely colder until later in the season. But Frank, here, who's our champion weather prophet, says it's going to be an exceptional season with hardly any snow at all."

Nora had been conscious all through the evening that Taylor had hardly once taken his eyes from her face. She looked directly at him for the first time, to find him watching her with a look of quiet amusement.

"That would indeed be an exceptional season, if all one hears of the rigors of the climate be true," she said coldly.

"Every season in this country is exceptional," he said humorously; "if it isn't exceptional one way, it's sure to be exceptional the other."

"Fetch me those pants of yours," said Gertie to Trotter.

He left the room, to return shortly with the desired articles, exhibiting a yawning tear in one of the knees. Gertie at once set about mending them in the same workmanlike manner that she did everything.

"Doesn't she ever rest?" asked Nora in an undertone of Hornby.

"Never," he whispered. "Her one recreation is abusing me. I fancy you'll come in for a little of the same medicine. She's planning an amusing winter, I can see that already."

"I think, if I may, I'll ask you to excuse me," said Nora, rising abruptly. "I'm a little tired after my long journey. Oh, how good it'll be to find oneself in a real bed again."

"I'm sure you must be," said her brother. "Nora knows where her room is?" he said, turning to his wife.

"She was up before supper; she can't very well have forgotten the way. The house is small after what she's been accustomed to, I dare say."

"Thank you, I can find it again easily," said Nora hastily. "I'll see you at breakfast, Eddie?" She crossed over to where Gertie was sewing busily. "Good night—Gertie. I hope you will not find me too stupid about learning things. You'll find me willing, anyway," she said almost humbly.

Gertie looked up at her with real kindness.

"Wllling's half the battle," she said in softened tone.

As Nora was leaving the room, satisfied at having done her part as far as Gertie was concerned, she was recalled by Taylor's drawling tone.

"Oh, Miss Nora, you're forgetting something."

"Am I? What?"

"You're forgetting to say 'good night' to me."

"Why, so I am!"

She could hear them laugh as she left the room. And so ended the first day in her brother's house.

Breakfast the next morning was of the most hurried description. Gertie herself did not sit down until the men had gone, being chiefly occupied with baking some sort of hot cakes which were new to Nora, who confined herself to an egg and some tea. She secretly longed for some toast; but as no one else seemed to have any, she refrained from making her wants known. Perhaps later, when she was more familiar with the ways of this strange household, she would be permitted to make some for herself when she wanted it.

While her sister-in-law was eating her breakfast, Nora stood looking out of the window at the vast expanse of snow-covered country with never a house in sight. Already there were signs that Taylor's prophecy would be fulfilled. The sun, which had been up only a few hours, shone brightly, and already the air had lost much of its sharpness. It was distinctly warmer than it had been the day before.

At the first sign that Gertie had finished her breakfast, Nora began to gather the things together for washing, wisely not waiting to ask permission. If possible, Gertie seemed to be less inclined for conversation in the early morning than at night. They finished the task in unbroken silence. When the last dish had been put away, Gertie spoke:

"Can you bake?"

"I have baked cakes."

"How about bread and biscuits?"

"I've never tried them."

"Umph!"

"I should be glad to learn, if you would be good enough to teach me."

"I have little time for teaching," said Gertie ungraciously. "But you can watch how I do it and maybe you'll learn something."

"Can you wash and iron?" said Gertie while she was kneading her dough.

"Of course I can iron and I can wash lace."

"People round here wear more flannel shirts than lace. I suppose you never washed any flannels?"

"No, never."

"Have you ever done any scrubbing?"

"Of course not." Nora was beginning to find this catechism a little trying.

"Not work for a lady, I suppose. Just what does a companion do?"

"It depends. She does whatever her employer requires; reads aloud, acts as secretary, goes riding and shopping with the lady she lives with, arranges the flowers, everything of that sort."

"Oh. But nothing really useful."

Nora gave an angry laugh. "It's clear that some people consider a companion's work useful, since they employ them."

"You take pay for it; after all, it's much the same as being a servant."

"It's not at all the same."

"Ed tells me that sometimes when Miss Wickers, Wickham—whatever her name was——"

"Miss Wickham."

"That when Miss Wickham had company for dinner, you had to have your dinner alone."

"That is true."

"Then she considered you sort of a servant," said Gertie triumphantly. Nora was silent. Gertie having cut her dough into small round pieces with a tin cutter and put them into her pans, went toward the oven.

"And yet you object to eating at the same table with the hired men."

Having satisfied herself that the oven was at the proper heat, she shut the door with a bang.

"I've said nothing about it."

"You didn't need to."

"But I most certainly do object to it and I can't for the life of me see the necessity of it."

"I was what you call a servant for years; I suppose you object to eating at the table with me."

"What perfect nonsense! It's not at all the same thing. You're my brother's wife and the mistress of his house."

"Yes, I'm the mistress of the house all right," said Gertie grimly.

"Frank Taylor's an uncommonly handsome man, isn't he?"

"I really haven't noticed."

"What perfect nonsense!" mimicked Gertie. "Of course you've noticed. Any woman would notice him."

"Then I must be different from other women."

"Oh, no, you're not; you only think you are. At bottom women are all alike, take it from me, and I've known a few."

"If I can be of no help to you here, I think I'll go and unpack my box," said Nora. She felt as if she had borne all she possibly could.

"As you like."

Once in her own room, Nora found it hard to keep back her angry tears. Only the thought that her reddened eyes would betray her to Gertie at dinner kept her from having a good cry.



CHAPTER VII

That one morning was a fair sample of all the other days. Each suspected the other, neither would make allowances or concessions. As a consequence, day by day the breach widened. Even Eddie, who was more unobserving than most men, felt vaguely uncomfortable in the surcharged atmosphere. From the first Nora realized that it was an unequal contest; Gertie was too strongly intrenched in her position. But it was not in her nature to refrain from administering those little thrusts, which women know so well how to deal one another, from any motive of policy. The question of what she should do once her brother's house became intolerable she never permitted herself to ask.

In the needle-pricking mode of warfare she was, of course, far more expert than her rival. But if Gertie's hand was clumsy it was also heavy. And always in the back of her mind was the consciousness that she, so to speak, had at least one piece of heavy artillery which she could bring up once the enemy's fire became unendurable.

During the day, the men being out of the house except at meal time, there was to a certain degree, a cessation of hostilities. Nora gradually acquired some knowledge of housework. She learned to cook fairly well and always helped with the washing, rarely complaining of her aching arms and back. The only indication she had that she was making progress was that Gertie complained less. Praise, of course, was not to be expected.

At dinner the men were usually too anxious to get back to work—always with the exception of Hornby, who according to his own highly colored account, had been assigned the herculean task of splitting all the wood required by the Province of Manitoba for the ensuing winter—to linger longer than the time required for smoking a hurried pipe, so that it was only during the long evenings that hostilities were resumed. And then, more or less under cover.

There was one person upon whom Nora could openly vent her nervous irritation after a long day in Gertie's society, and that was Frank Taylor. They quarreled constantly, to the great amusement of the others. But with him, too, she felt hopelessly at a disadvantage. He was maddeningly sure of himself, and while he sometimes gave back thrust for thrust, he never lost his temper. Seemingly, nothing could penetrate his armor of good nature, nor make him comprehend that she really meant her bitter words. Slow of movement and speech, his mind was alert enough, and Nora had to admit to herself, although she always openly denied it, that he had humor. To lose one's own temper in a wordy passage at arms and find one's opponent still smiling and serene is not a soothing experience.

Often, in the darkness of the night after she had gone to bed, she could feel her cheek burn at the recollection that this 'ignorant clod,' as she contemptuously called him to herself, had the power to make her feel a weak, undisciplined child by merely never losing his self-control.

There would have been consolation in the thought that in his stupidity he did not understand how she despised him, how infinitely beneath her she considered him, had it not been darkened by the suspicion that he understood perfectly well and didn't care.

How dared he, how dared he!

She had complained of his familiar manner to her brother a day or two after her arrival. But he had given her neither support nor consolation.

"My dear Nora," he said, "we are not back in England. The sooner you forget all the old notions of class and class distinctions, the happier you'll be. They won't go here. As long as a man's straight, honest and a worker—and Frank's all three—it doesn't make any odds whether he's working for himself or for someone else. We're all on the same footing. It is only due to the fact that I've had two good years in succession that I'm not somebody's 'hired man' myself."

"Don't, Eddie, don't; you don't realize how you hurt me."

"My dear girl, I'm sorry; but I'm in dead earnest."

"You, a hired man? Oh, I can't believe it."

"It's true, nevertheless. Plenty of better fellows than I have had to do it. When you're starting in, unless you have a good deal bigger capital than I had, you only need to be hailed out, frosted out, or weeded out a couple of years in succession to use up your little stake, and then where are you?"

"What do you mean by 'weeded out'?"

He was just about to explain when a halloo from the stables cut him short. "There's Frank now. I ought to be out helping him this minute; we've got a good stiff drive ahead of us. You ask Gertie about it, she'll explain it to you."

But Gertie had been deeply preoccupied with some domestic problem and Nora had forborne to question her. She had intended returning to the subject that evening, but Eddie and Gertie were deep in one of their conferences until nearly bedtime. It would never have suggested itself to her to seek any information from the objectionable Frank, so under cover of a heated discussion between him and Trotter, she appealed to Reggie.

"What does it mean to be weeded out?"

"Oh, Lord, I don't know! Kicked out, I suppose. Isn't there something in the Bible about tares and wheat?"

"Nonsense; it doesn't mean that. I'd forgotten, by the way, how strong you were on Biblical references. Do you remember your discussion about Sarah and Benjamin with Agnes Pringle?"

"Of course I do. And I completely stumped her; don't you recollect?"

"Goose! She only wanted to make you look it up for yourself. But being 'weeded out' is something disastrous that happens to the farmers here, like having the crops frozen."

"Well, it hasn't happened since I've been here, anyway. But I'll bet you a bob it means kicked out. I tell you, I'll ask Gertie if she doesn't think that I ought to be weeded out."

"You'd better not," laughed Nora.

The first open quarrel had taken place one day at dinner.

The night before Nora had proposed making her first attempt at baking bread. Gertie had given a grudging consent. Everything had gone well until the bread, once in the oven, Nora had gone to her room to add some pages to a long letter which she had begun, some evenings before to Agnes Pringle.

Gertie had been out in one of the barns most of the morning engaged in some mysterious task which she had been reserving until the weather became milder—there had been a decided thaw, setting in the day before—and Nora intended to be gone only a short time.

Filled with a warm feeling of gratitude to Miss Pringle for her generous loan of the ten-pound note, she was writing her a long letter in the form of a diary describing her voyage across the Atlantic and the trip across the Continent, both of which she was sure would greatly interest her friend and furnish her with topics for her tete-a-tete dinners with the excellent Mrs. Hubbard for some days to come.

Of the difficulties and disappointments in her new life she was resolved to say nothing. Nora hated to confess that she had failed in anything. And, so far, she could hardly say that she had made a success. Later on, she might have to acknowledge that her move had been a mistake. But for the moment she would confine herself to describing all that struck her as novel and strange while the impression was still fresh, while she still had the 'seeing eye.'

"When I came to the end of my last page (and I remember that I was getting extremely sleepy at that point)," she wrote, "I had just finished describing the exterior of my brother's house to you. I am sure I can never do justice to the interior! You can never have seen, much less imagined, anything in the least like it. I have decided, upon reflection, that it is the most un-English thing I have seen yet: and I have not forgotten those strange railway carriages either.

"Try to imagine a large room, longer than it is deep, at once living-room, dining-room and kitchen; with nothing but rough brown boards for walls, on which—some framed, some unframed—are the colored supplements of the Christmas illustrated papers, both English and American. Over one of the doors is a magnificent trophy—at least that is what we would call it at home—I think it is a moose. I am not at all sure, although I have been told more than once. Over another door is a large clock, such a one as one finds in a broker's office with us. The floor is covered with what is called oilcloth—I wonder why: it certainly is not the least like cloth—very new and excessively shiny. It has a conventional pattern in black and white, and when the sun shines on it, it quite dazzles one's eyes.

"There are two windows, one to the south, the other looking west. The western view is magnificent. I feel as if I could see straight away to the setting sun! In the summer, when the prairie is one great waving green sea, it must be superb. Two days ago it was covered with snow. As I write, I can see great patches of brown every here and there, for we have had a sudden thaw. The window sills are filled with geraniums planted, my dear, in tins which once contained syrup, of which everyone here, including my brother, seems extravagantly fond. The syrup jug appears regularly at every meal and is almost the first thing put on the table. I have yet to acquire a taste for it—which they all think extremely queer.

"The furniture consists of two American rockers and a number of kitchen chairs; an unvarnished deal dresser covered with earthenware;—I don't think there are any two pieces that match!—two tables, one a dining table; a bookcase containing a few paper-backed novels and some magazines, none so recent, however, as those I saw before I left England; and last and most important, an enormous American cooking stove.

"Our principal meal, called dinner, is——"

Great heavens, her bread!

Nora dashed from her room. Gertie was standing at one of the windows in the unwonted indulgence of a moment's leisure. Nora threw open the oven door. It was empty.

"Oh, did you look after my loaf, Gertie? I'm so sorry; I quite forgot it."

"Yes, I took it out a few moments ago."

She still had her face turned toward the window, so Nora did not see the smile that curled her lip. She turned after a moment, and the two women began to set the table for dinner.

Presently the men were heard laughing outside as they cleaned their muddy boots on the scraper. Reggie had apparently achieved something new. His ignorance of everything pertaining to farming furnished the material for most of the amusement that was going. Fortunately, he was always good-natured. Gertie, with unusual good spirits, entered into the joke of the thing at once and even bantered Reggie playfully upon his latest discovery.

Nora did not even hear what it was all about. She was searching for the bread plate which always stood on the dresser.

"Why, Gertie, I——"

"It's all right," said Gertie, without looking up from pouring the tea. "I took it. I'll get it in a minute. Come, sit down."

Nora obeyed.

Hornby was just about to begin his explanation for whatever it was he had done, when Eddie interrupted him:

"Hold on a minute, Reg. I want some bread. I declare you two girls are getting to be as bad as Reggie, here. Setting a table without bread!"

"I was keeping it for a surprise," said Gertie, getting up slowly. "I want you to appreciate the fact that Nora helped me by doing the baking this morning." Nora's face flushed with pleasure as her brother patted her on the shoulder with evident approval. She looked at Gertie with eyes shining with gratitude. At that moment she came nearer liking her sister-in-law than she ever was to again.

Gertie went slowly across the room—she usually moved with nervous quickness—and picking up the missing bread plate from where it was leaning against the wall behind the stove went into the little pantry that gave off the kitchen. Slowly she returned and stood beside her husband's chair. On the plate, burned almost to a cinder, was the loaf of bread that Nora had forgotten.

"Here it is," said Gertie. Her smile was cruel.

"Oh, I say, Gertie, that's too bad of you." It was Frank who spoke.

"Too bad!" Nora sprung to her feet with flashing eyes. "Too bad. It's mean and despicable. There are no words to do it justice. But what could I expect from——"

"Nora!" said her brother sharply.

Nora rushed from the table to her room. And although Eddie knocked repeatedly at her door and begged her to let him speak with her if only for a moment that evening at supper-time, she made no sign nor did anyone see her again that night.

She made a point of not coming down to breakfast the next morning until after the time when the men would be gone. She thought it best to meet Gertie alone. It was time that they came to some sort of understanding. To her surprise and annoyance Taylor was still at the table. Gertie was nowhere to be seen.

"Come down to keep me company? That's real nice of you, I'm sure."

"I supposed, naturally, that you had gone. You usually have at this hour."

"You don't know how it flatters a fellow to have women folks study his habits like that," he said with a grin.

"I knew that my brother had left the house, since I saw him go. I took it for granted that all his employees left when he did. Let me assure you, once and for all, that your habits are of no possible interest to me."

Taylor put on his hat and went to the door. Just as he was about to open it, he changed his mind and came back to the table where Nora had seated herself and stood leaning on the back of his chair looking down at her.

"It's all right for us to row," he said, "but if I were you I'd go a little easy with Gertie. She's all right and a good sort at bottom, you can take it from me. Yesterday, I admit she was downright nasty. I guess you rile her up more than she's used to. But I want to see you two get on."

"It's my turn to feel flattered," said Nora sarcastically.

"Well, so long," he said with undiminished good humor as he went out.

Gertie appeared almost at once from the pantry.

"I heard what he said. I couldn't help it. He was right—about us both. We don't hit it off. But I'm willing to give it another try."

"I have little choice but to agree with you," said Nora bitterly.

"Well, that's hardly the way to begin," retorted Gertie angrily.

There was a certain air of restraint about them ail when they came in to dinner. Eddie looked both worried and anxious. But as he saw that the two women were going about their duties much the same as usual, he argued that the storm had blown over and brightened visibly.

The men had pushed back their chairs and were preparing to light their after-dinner pipes.

"We'll be able to start on the ironing this afternoon," said Gertie, addressing Nora for the first time since breakfast.

"Very well."

"I say," said Trotter, who rarely ventured on a remark while at the table, "it was a rare big wash you done this morning by the look of it on the line."

"When she's been out in this country a bit longer, Nora'll learn not to wear more things than she can help," said Gertie.

As a matter of fact, she had no intention of criticising Nora at the moment. She meant, merely, that she would be more economical with experience. But Nora was in the mood to take fire at once.

"Was there more than my fair share?" she asked sharply.

"You use double the number of stockings than what I do. And everything else is the same."

"I see. Clean but incompetent."

"There's many a true word spoken in jest," said Gertie with angry emphasis.

"Say, Reg," Taylor broke in hastily, "is it true that when you first came out you asked Ed where the bath-room was?"

"That's right," laughed Trotter. "Ed told 'im there was a river a mile and a 'alf from 'ere, an' that was the only bath-room 'e knowed."

"One gets used to that sort of thing, eh, Reg?" said Marsh good-naturedly.

"Ra-ther. If I saw a proper bath-room now, it would only make me feel nervous."

"I knew a couple of Englishmen out in British Columbia," broke in Taylor, "who were bathing, and the only other people around were Indians. The first two years they were there, they wouldn't have anything to do with the Indians because they were so dirty. After that the Indians wouldn't have anything to do with them."

He pointed this delectable anecdote by holding his nose.

"What a disgusting story!" said Nora.

"D'you think so? I rather like it."

"You would."

"Now don't start quarreling, you two. And on Frank's last day."

Nora gave her brother a quick glance. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what he meant by Frank's last day, but seeing that Taylor was watching her with an amused smile, she held her tongue. Getting up, she began clearing away the table.

Hornby, ramming the tobacco into his pipe, went over to the corner by the stove, where Gertie was scalding out her large dishpan, and tried to interest her in the number of logs he had split since breakfast, without conspicuous success.

Trotter stood looking out of the window, while Marsh stretched himself lazily in one of the rocking chairs with a sigh of content. Things were beginning to shake down a little better. There had been a time yesterday when he feared that everything was off. He knew Nora's temper of old and he knew his wife's jealous fear of her criticism. It would take some rubbing to wear off the sharp corners. But things were coming out all right, after all. They'd soon be working together like a well-broken team. Gertie had been nasty about the bread. But apparently everything was patched up. And with Frank once gone, and the new chap—a man of the Trotter type, who would never obtrude himself—he foresaw that everything would run on wheels, an idea dear to his peace-loving soul.

Not that he was not sorry to lose Frank. In the first place, he liked him, and then he was a good, steady, hard-working fellow, one of the kind you didn't have to stand over. But, naturally, he wanted to get back to his own place, now that he had saved up a bit. Every man liked being his own master.

Taylor alone had remained at his place at the table. Nora had cleared away everything except the dishes at his place. She never went near him if she could avoid it.

"I guess I'm in your way," he said, rising.

"Not more than usual, thank you."

Taylor gave a little laugh.

"I guess you'll not be sorry to see the last of me."

Nora paused in her work, and leaning on the table with both hands, looked him steadily in the face.

"I can't honestly say that it makes the least difference to me whether you go or stay," she said coldly.

"When does your train go, Frank?" asked Hornby from his corner.

"Half-past three; I'll be starting from here in about an hour."

"Reg can go over with you and drive the rig back again," said Marsh.

"All right. I'll go and dress myself in a bit."

"I guess you'll be glad to get back to your own place," said Gertie warmly.

She had always liked Frank Taylor—a man who worked hard and earned his money. She did not begrudge him a cent of it, nor the pleasure he had in the thought of getting back to his own place. He was the kind of man who should set up for himself.

"Well, I guess I'll not be sorry." He sat looking out of the window with a sort of dreamy air, as if seeing far to the westward his own land.

So that was the reason for his going. He had a place of his own. He was only a hired man for the moment. Eddie had told her that a man frequently had to hire out after a succession of bad seasons. What of it? His keeping it to himself was the crowning impertinence!



CHAPTER VIII

"I'll do the washing, Nora, and you can dry," said Gertie in that peculiar tone which Nora had learned to recognize as the preface to something disagreeable.

"All right."

"I've noticed the things aren't half clean when I leave them to you to do."

"I'm sorry; why didn't you tell me?"

"I suppose yon never did the washing-up in England. Too grand?"

But Nora was not to be ruffled just now. Her resentment against Taylor, who was sitting watching her as if he read her thoughts—she often wondered how much of them he did read—made anything Gertie said seem momentarily unimportant.

"I don't suppose anyone would wash up if they could help it. It's not very amusing."

"You always want to be amused?"

"No, but I want to be happy."

"Well," said Gertie sharply, "you've got a roof over your head and a comfortable bed to sleep in, three good meals a day and plenty to do. That's all anybody wants to make them happy, I guess."

"Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Reggie from his corner.

"Well," said Gertie, turning sharply on him, "if you don't like Canada, why did you come out?"

"You don't suppose," said Hornby, rising slowly to his feet, "I'd have let them send me if I'd have known what I was in for, do you? Not much. Up at five in the morning and working about the place like a navvy till your back feels as if it 'ud break, and then back again in the afternoon. And the same thing day after day. What was the good of sending me to Harrow and Oxford if that's what I've got to do all my life?"

There was a tragic dignity in his tone which for the moment held even Gertie silent. It was her husband who answered him, and Gertie's jealous ear detected a certain wistfulness in his voice.

"You'll get used to it soon enough, Reg. It is a bit hard at first, I'll admit. But when you get your foot in, you wouldn't change it for any other life."

"This isn't a country for a man to go to sleep in and wait for something to turn up," said Gertie aggressively.

"I wouldn't go back to England now, not for nothing," said Trotter, stung to an unusual burst of eloquence. "England! Eighteen bob a week, that's what I earned. And no prospects. Out of work five months in the year."

"What did you do in England!" asked Nora curiously.

"Bricklayer, Miss."

"You needn't call her Miss," said Gertie heatedly. "You call me Gertie, don't you? Well, her name's Nora."

"What with strikes and bad times," went on Trotter unheeding, "you never knew where you was. And the foreman always bullying you. I don't know what all. I 'ad about enough of it, I can tell you. I've never been out of work since the day I landed. I've 'ad as much to eat as I wanted and I'm saving money. In this country everybody's as good as everybody else."

"If not better," said Nora dryly.

"In two years I shall be able to set up for myself. Why, there's old man Thompson, up at Pratt. He started as a bricklayer, same as I. Come from Yorkshire, he did. He's got seven thousand dollars in the bank now."

"Believe me, you fellows who come out now have a much softer thing of it than I did when I first came. In those days they wouldn't have an Englishman, they'd have a Galician rather. In Winnipeg, when they advertised in the paper for labor, you'd see often as not: 'No English need apply.'"

"Well, it was their own fault," stormed Gertie. "They wouldn't work or anything. They just soaked."

"It was their own fault, right enough. This was the dumping ground for all the idlers, drunkards and scallywags in England. They had the delusion over there that if a man was too big a rotter to do anything at all at home, he'd only got to be sent out here and he'd make a fortune."

"I guess things ain't as bad as that now," spoke up Taylor. "They send us a different class. It takes an Englishman two years longer than anybody else to get the hang of things, but when once he tumbles to it, he's better than any of them."

"Ah, well!" said Marsh, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, "I guess nowadays everyone's glad to see the Englishman make good. When I nearly smashed up three years ago, I had no end of offers of help."

"How did you nearly smash up?" asked Hornby interestedly.

"Oh, I had a run of bad luck. One year the crop was frosted and the next year I was hailed out. It wants a good deal of capital to stand up against that."

"That's what happened to me," said Taylor. "I was hailed out and I hadn't got any capital, so I just had to hire out." He turned suddenly to Nora. "If it hadn't been for that hail storm you wouldn't have had the pleasure of makin' my acquaintance."

"How hollow and empty life would have been without that!" she said ironically.

"I wonder you didn't just quit and start out Calgary way," put in Gertie.

"Well," said Taylor slowly, "it was this way: I'd put in two years on my homestead and done a lot of clearing. It seemed kind of silly to lose my rights after all that. Then, too, when you've been hailed out once, the chances are it won't happen again, for some years that is, and by that time I ought to have a bit put by."

"What sort of house have you got?" asked Nora.

"Well, it ain't what you might call a palace, but it's large enough for two."

"Thinking of marrying, Frank?" asked Marsh.

"Well, I guess it's kind of lonesome on a farm without a woman. But it's not so easy to find a wife when you're just starting on your own. Canadian girls think twice before taking a farmer."

"They know something, I guess," said Gertie grimly.

"You took me, Gertie," laughed her husband.

"Not because I wanted to, you can be sure of that. I don't know how you got round me."

"I wonder."

"I guess it was because you was kind of helpless, and I didn't know what you'd do without me."

"I guess it was love, and you couldn't help yourself." Gertie stopped her work long enough to make a little grimacing protest.

"I'm thinking of going to one of them employment agencies when I get to Winnipeg," said Taylor, moving his chair so that he could watch Nora's face, "and looking the girls over."

"Like sheep," said Nora scornfully.

"I don't know anything about sheep. I've never had to do with sheep."

"And may I ask, do you think that you know anything about women?"

"I guess I can tell if they're strong and willing. And so long as they ain't cock-eyed, I don't mind taking the rest on trust."

"And what inducement is there for a girl to have you?"

"That's why he wants to catch 'em young, when they're just landed and don't know much," laughed Trotter uproariously.

"I've got my quarter-section," went on the imperturbable Frank, quite undisturbed by the laughter caused by Trotter's sally, "a good hundred and sixty acres with seventy of it cleared. And I've got a shack that I built myself. That's something, ain't it?"

"You've got a home to offer and enough to eat and drink. A girl can get that anywhere. Why, I'm told they're simply begging for service."

"Y-e-e-s. But you see some girls like getting married. There's something in the word that appeals to them."

"You seem to think that a girl would jump at the chance of marrying you!" said Nora with rising temper.

"She might do worse."

"I must say I think you flatter yourself."

"Oh, I don't know. I know my job, and there ain't too many as can say that. I've got brains."

"What makes you think so?"

"Well, I can see you're no fool."

Gertie chuckled with amusement. "He certainly put one over on you then, Nora."

"Because you've got no use for me, there's no saying but what others may have."

"I forgot that there's no accounting for tastes."

"I can try, can't I?"

Wishing to escape any further conversation with the object of her detestation, and seeing her opportunity now that the dishes were washed, Nora started to empty the dishpan in the sink in the pantry. But Gertie, who divined her motive and wished the sport to continue, forestalled her.

"I'll do it," she said. "You finish wiping the dishes."

"It's very wise of you to go to an agency," said Nora in answer to his last question. "A girl's more likely to marry you when she's only seen you once than when she's seen you often."

"It seems to make you quite mad, the thought of me marrying!" with a wink at the others.

"You wouldn't talk about it like that unless you looked down upon women. Oh, how I pity the poor wretched creature who becomes your wife!"

"Oh, I guess she won't have such a bad time—when I've broken her in to my ways."

"And are you under the impression that you can do that?"

"Yep."

"You're not expecting that there'll be much love lost between you and the girl whom you—you honor with your choice?"

"What's love got to do with it?" asked Taylor in affected surprise. "It's a business undertaking."

"What!" Nora's eyes were dark with indignation and anger.

"None at all. I give her board and lodging and the charm of my society. And in return, she's got to cook and bake and wash and keep the shack clean and tidy. And if she can do that, I'll not be particular what she looks like."

"So long as she's not cock-eyed," Reggie reminded him.

"No, I draw the line at that."

"I beg your pardon," said Nora with bitter irony; "I didn't know it was a general servant you wanted. You spend a dollar and a half on a marriage license and then you don't have to pay any wages. It's a good investment."

For the first time she seemed to have pierced the enemy's armor.

"You've got a sharp tongue in your head for a girl, Nora."

"Please don't call me Nora."

"Don't be so silly, Nora," said her brother with a trace of irritation. "It's the custom of the country. Why, they all call me Ed."

"I don't care what the custom of the country is. I'm not going to be called Nora by the hired man!"

"Don't you bother, Ed," said Frank, apparently once more restored to his normal placidity; "I'll call her Miss Marsh if she likes it better."

But Nora was not to be pacified. He wouldn't have dared take such a liberty with her had he not been on the eve of going away for good, she told herself. It was a last shot from a retreating enemy. Well and good. He should hear, if for the last time, what she thought of him!

"I should like to see you married to someone who'd give you what you deserved. I'd like to see your pride humbled. You think yourself very high and mighty, don't you? I'd like to see a woman take you by the heartstrings and wring them till you screamed with pain."

"Oh, Nora, how violent you are!" said Ed.

"You're overbearing, supercilious and egotistic," went on Nora bitingly.

"I'm not sure as I know what them long words means, but I guess they ain't exactly complimentary."

"I guess they ain't," she mimicked.

"I'm sorry for that." Taylor straightened himself a little in his chair. His blue eyes seemed to have caught a little of the light from Nora's.

"I was thinking of offering you the position before I went to the employment agency."

"How dare you speak to me like that!"

"Don't fly into a temper, Nora," said Ed. While he didn't blame Frank, he wished he had not made that last speech. Why didn't he go and get ready for town? Here was Nora all upset again just as things had calmed down a bit!

"He's got no right to say impudent things to me!"

"Don't you see he's only having a joke with you?" he said soothingly.

"He shouldn't joke. He's got no sense of humor."

She made a furious gesture, and the cup she was in the act of wiping flew out of her hand, crashing in a thousand pieces on the floor, just as Gertie returned.

"Butter fingers!"

"I'm so sorry," said Nora in a colorless tone. She was raging inwardly at having allowed that beast of a man to put her in such a temper. Why couldn't she control herself? How undignified to bandy words with a person she so despised. It was hardly the moment for Gertie to take her to task for carelessness. But Gertie was not the person to consider other moods than her own.

"You clumsy thing! You're always doing something wrong."

"Oh, don't worry; I'll pay for it."

"Who wants you to pay for it? Do you think I can't afford to pay for a miserable cup! You might say you're sorry: that's all I want you to do."

"I said I was sorry."

"No, you didn't."

"I heard her, Gertie," broke in Ed.

"She said she was sorry as if she was doing me a favor," said Gertie, turning furiously on the would-be peacemaker.

"You don't expect me to go down on my knees to you, do you? The cup's worth twopence."

"It isn't the value I'm thinking about, it's the carelessness."

"It's only the third thing I've broken since I've been here."

If Nora had been in a calmer mood herself she would not have been so stupid as to attempt to palliate her offense. Her offer of replacing the miserable cup only added fuel to the flame of Gertie's resentment.

"You can't do anything!" she stormed. "You're more helpless than a child of six. You're all the same, all of you."

"You're not going to abuse the whole British nation because I've broken a cup worth twopence, are you?"

"And the airs you put on. Condescending isn't the word. It's enough to try the patience of a saint."

"Oh, shut up!" said Marsh. He went over to his wife and laid a hand on her shoulder. She shook him off impatiently.

"You've never done a stroke of work in your life, and you come here and think you can teach me everything."

"I don't know about that," said Nora, in a voice which by comparison with Gertie's seemed low but which was nevertheless perfectly audible to every person in the room. "I don't know about that, but I think I can teach you manners."

If she had lashed the other woman across the face with a whip, she couldn't have cut more deeply. She knew that, and was glad. Gertie's face turned gray.

"How dare you say that! How dare you! You come here, and I give you a home. You sleep in my blankets and you eat my food and then you insult me." She burst into a passion of angry tears.

"Now then, Gertie, don't cry. Don't be so silly," said her husband as he might have spoken to an angry child.

"Oh, leave me alone," she flashed back at him. "Of course you take her part. You would! It's nothing to you that I have made a slave of myself for you for three whole years. As soon as she comes along and plays the lady——"

She rushed from the room. After a moment, Ed followed after her.

There was an awkward pause. Nora stood leaning against the table swinging the dishcloth in her hand, a smile of malicious triumph on her face. Gertie had tried it on once too often. But she had shown her that one could go too far. She would think twice before she attempted to bully her again, especially before other people. She stooped down and began to gather up the broken pieces of earthenware scattered about her feet. Her movement broke the spell which had held the three men paralyzed as men always are in the presence of quarreling women.

"I reckon I might be cleaning myself," said Taylor, rising from his chair. "Time's getting on. You're coming, Ben?"

"Yes, I'm coming. I suppose you'll take the mare?"

"Yep, that's what Ed said this morning."

They went out toward the stables without a word to Nora.

"Well, are you enjoying the land of promise as much as you said that I should?" Hornby asked with a smile.

"We've both made our beds, I suppose we must lie in them," said Nora, shaking the broken pieces out of her apron into a basket that stood in the corner.

"Do you remember that afternoon at Miss Wickham's when I came for the letter to your brother?"

"I hadn't much intention of coming to Canada then myself."

"Well, I don't mind telling you that I mean to get back to England the very first opportunity that comes," he said, pacing up and down the floor. "I'm willing to give away my share of the White Man's Burden with a package of chewing gum."

"You prefer the Effete East?" smiled Nora, putting a couple of irons on the stove.

"Ra-ther. Give me the degrading influence of a decadent civilization every time."

"Your father will be pleased to see you, won't he?"

"I don't think! Of course I was a damned fool ever to leave Winnipeg."

"I understand you didn't until you had to."

"Say," said Hornby, pausing in his walk, "I want to tell you: your brother behaved like a perfect brick. I sent him your letter and told him I was up against it—d'you know I hadn't a bob? I was jolly glad to earn half a dollar digging a pit in a man's garden. Bit thick, you know!"

"I can see you," laughed Nora.

"Your brother sent me the fare to come on here and told me I could do the chores. I didn't know what they were. I soon found it was doing all the jobs it wasn't anybody else's job to do. And they call it God's own country!"

"I think you're falling into the ways of the country very well, however!" retorted Nora as she struggled across to the table with the heavy ironing-board.

"Do you? What makes you think that?"

"You can stand there and smoke your pipe and watch me carry the ironing-board about."

"I beg your pardon. Did you want me to help you?"

"Never mind. It would remind me of home."

"I suppose I shall have to stick it out at least a year, unless I can humbug the mater into sending me enough money to get back home with."

"She won't send you a penny—if she's wise."

"Oh, come now! Wouldn't you chuck it if you could?"

"And acknowledge myself beaten," said Nora, with a flash of spirit. "You don't know," she went on after ironing busily a moment, "what I went through before I came here. I tried to get another position as lady's companion. I hung about the agents' offices. I answered advertisements. Two people offered to take me; one without any salary, the other at ten shillings a week and my lunch. I, if you please, was to find myself in board, lodging and clothes on that magnificent sum! That settled me. I wrote Eddie and said I was coming. When I'd paid my fare, I had eight pounds in the world—after ten years with Miss Wickham. When he met me at the station at Dyer——"

"Depot; you forget."

"My whole fortune consisted of seven dollars and thirty-five cents; I think it was thirty-five."

"What about that wood you're splitting, Reg?" said a voice from the doorway.

Eddie came in fumbling nervously in his pockets. He detested scenes and had some reason to think that he was having more than his share of them in the last few days.

"Has anyone seen my tobacco! Oh, here it is," he said, taking his pouch from his pocket. "Come, Reg, you'd better be getting on with it."

"Oh, Lord, is there no rest for the wicked?" exclaimed Hornby as he lounged lazily to the door.

"Don't hurry yourself, will you?"

"Brilliant sarcasm is just flying about this house to-day," was his parting shot as he banged the door behind him.



CHAPTER IX

Nora understood perfectly that her brother had been forced to take a stand as a result of this last quarrel with Gertie. Well, she was glad of it. Things certainly could not go on in this way forever. Of course he would have to make a show, at least, of taking his wife's part. But, equally of course, he would understand her position perfectly. However much his new life and his long absence from England might have changed him, at bottom their points of view were still the same. He and she, so to speak, spoke a common language; she and Gertie did not.

Gertie had probably been pouring out her accumulation of grievances to him for the last half hour. Now it was her turn. She would show that she was, as always, more than ready to meet Gertie half-way. It would be his affair to see that her advances were received in better part in future than they had been.

She went on busily with her ironing, waiting for him to begin. But Eddie seemed to experience a certain embarrassment in coming to the subject. While she took article after article from the clothes-basket at her side, he wandered about the room aimlessly, puffing at a pipe which seemed never to stay lighted.



"That's the toughest nut I've ever been set to crack," he said at length, pointing his pipestem after the vanished Hornby. "Why on earth did you give him a letter to me?"

"He asked me to. I couldn't very well say no."

"I can't make out what people are up to in the old country. They think that if a man is too big a rotter to do anything at all in England, they've only got to send him out here and he'll make a fortune."

"He may improve."

"I hope so. Look here, Nora, you've thoroughly upset Gertie."

"She's very easily upset, isn't she?"

"It's only since you came that things haven't gone right. We never used to have scenes."

"So you blame me. I came prepared to like her and help her. She met all my advances with suspicion."

"She thinks yon look down on her. You ought to remember that she never had your opportunities. She's earned her own living from the time she was thirteen. You can't expect in her the refinements of a woman who's led the protected life you have."

"Now, Eddie, I haven't said a word that could be turned into the least suggestion of disapproval of anything she did."

"My dear, your whole manner has expressed disapproval. You won't do things in the way we do them. After all, the way you lived in Tunbridge Wells isn't the only way people can live. Our ways suit us, and when you live amongst us you must adopt them."

"She's never given me a chance to learn them," said Nora obstinately. "She treated me with suspicion and enmity the very first day I came here. When she sneered at me because I talked of a station instead of a depot, of course I went on talking of a station. What do you think I'm made of? Because I prefer to drink water with my meals instead of your strong tea, she says I'm putting on airs."

Marsh made a pleading gesture.

"Why can't you humor her? You see, you've got to take the blame for all the English people who came here in the past and were lazy, worthless and supercilious. They called us Colonials and turned up their noses at us. What do you expect us to do?—say, 'Thank you very much, sir.' 'We know we're not worthy to black your boots.' 'Don't bother to work, it'll be a pleasure for us to give you money'? It's no good blinking the fact. There was a great prejudice against the English. But it's giving way now, and every sensible man and woman who comes out can do something to destroy it."

"All I can say," said Nora, going over to the stove to change her iron, "is if you're tired of having me here, I can go back to Winnipeg. I shan't have any difficulty in finding something to do."

"Good Lord, I don't want you to go. I like having you here. It's—it's company for Gertie. And jobs aren't so easy to find as you think, especially now the winter's coming on; everyone wants a job in the city."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to make the best of things and meet her half-way. You must make allowances for her even if you think her unreasonable. It's Gertie you've got to spend most of your time with."

He was so manifestly distressed and, as he hadn't been so hard on her as she had expected and in her own heart felt that she deserved, Nora softened at once.

"I'll have a try."

"That's a good girl. And I think you ought to apologize to her for what you said just now."

"I?" said Nora, aflame at once. "I've got nothing to apologize for. She drove me to distraction."

There was a moment's pause while Eddie softly damned the pipe he had forgotten to fill, for not keeping lighted.

"She says she won't speak to you again unless you beg her pardon."

"Really! Does she look upon that as a great hardship?"

"My dear! We're twelve miles from the nearest store. We're thrown upon each other for the entire winter. Last year there was a bad blizzard, and we didn't see a soul outside the farm for six weeks. Unless we learn to put up with one another's whims, life becomes a perfect hell."

Nora stopped her work and set down her iron.

"You can go on talking all night, Eddie, I'll never apologize. Time after time when she sneered at me till my blood boiled, I've kept my temper. She deserved ten times more than I said. Do you think I'm going to knuckle under to a woman like that?"

"Remember she's my wife, Nora."

"Why didn't you marry a lady?"

"What the dickens do you think is the use of being a lady out here?"

"You've degenerated since you left England."

"Now look here, my dear, I'll just tell you what Gertie did for me. She was a waitress in Winnipeg at the Minnedosa Hotel, and she was making money. She knew what the life was on a farm—much harder than anything she'd been used to in the city—but she accepted all the hardship of it and the monotony of it, because—because she loved me."

"She thought it a good match. You were a gentleman."

"Fiddledidee! She had the chance of much better men than me. And when——"

"Such men as Frank Taylor, no doubt."

"And when I lost my harvest two years running, do you know what she did? She went back to the hotel in Winnipeg for the winter, so as to carry things on till the next harvest. And at the end of the winter, she gave me every cent she'd earned to pay the interest of my mortgage and the installments on the machinery."

Nora had been more moved by this recital than she would have cared to confess. She turned away her head to hide that her eyes had filled with tears. After all, a woman who could show such devotion as that, and to her brother—— Yes, she would try again.

"Very well: I'll apologize. But leave me alone with her. I—I don't think I could do it even before you, Eddie."

"Fine! That's a good girl. I'll go and tell her."

Nora felt repaid in advance for any sacrifice to her pride as he beamed on her, all the look of worriment gone. She was once more busy at her ironing-board, bending low over her work to hide her confusion, when he returned with Gertie. A glance at her sister-in-law told her that there was to be no unbending in that quarter until she had made proper atonement. There was little conciliatory about that sullen face.

However, she made an effort to speak lightly until, once Eddie had taken his departure, she could make her apology.

"I've been getting on famously with the ironing."

"Have you?"

"This is one of the few things I can do all right."

"Any child can iron."

"Well, I'll be going down to the shed," said her brother uneasily.

"What for?" said Gertie quickly.

"I want to see about mending that door. It hasn't been closing right."

"I thought Nora had something to say to me."

"So she has: that's what I'm going to leaves you alone for."

"I like that. She insults me before everybody and then, when she's going to apologize, it's got to be private. No, thank you."

"What do you mean, Gertie?" asked Nora.

"You sent Ed in to tell me you was goin' to apologize for what you'd said, didn't you?"

"And I'm ready to: for peace and quietness."

"Well, what you said was before the men, and it's before the men you must say you're sorry."

"How can you ask me to do such a thing!" cried Nora indignantly.

"Don't be rough on her, Gertie," pleaded her husband. "No one likes apologizing."

"People who don't like apologizing should keep a better lookout on their tongue."

"It can't do you any good to make her eat humble pie before the men."

"Perhaps it won't do me any good, but it'll do her good!"

"Gertie, don't be cruel. I'm sorry if I lost my temper just now, and said anything that hurt you. But please don't make me humiliate myself before the others."

"I've made up my mind," said Gertie, folding her arms across her breast, "so it's no good talking."

"Don't you see that it's bad enough to have to beg your pardon before Eddie?"

"Good Lord!" said Gertie irritably, "why can't you call him Ed like the rest of us. 'Eddie' sounds so sappy."

"I've called him Eddie all my life: it's what our mother called him," said Nora sadly.

"Oh, it's all of a piece. You do everything you can to make yourself different from all of us."

She stalked over to the window and stood with folded arms looking out toward the wood-pile on which Reggie was seated—it is to be presumed having a moment's respite after his arduous labors.

"No, I don't," pleaded Nora. "At least I don't mean to. Why won't you give me any credit for trying to do my best to please you?"

"That's neither here nor there." She suddenly wheeled about, facing them both. "Go and fetch the men, Ed, and then I'll hear what she's got to say."

"No, I won't, I won't, I won't!" cried Nora furiously. "You drive me too far."

"You won't beg my pardon?" demanded Gertie threateningly. If she wished to drive Nora beside herself, she accomplished her purpose.

"I said I could teach you manners," she gave a hysterical laugh, "I made a mistake. I couldn't teach you manners, for one can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

"Shut up, Nora," said her brother sharply.

"Now you must make her, Ed," said Gertie grimly.

He replied with a despairing gesture.

"I'm sick to death of the pair of you!"

"I'm your wife, and I'm going to be mistress of this house—my house."

"It's horrible to make her eat humble pie before three strange men. You've no right to ask her to do a thing like that."

"Are you taking her part?" demanded Gertie, her voice rising in fury. "What's come over you since she came here. You're not the same to me as you used to be. Why did she come here and get between us?"

"I haven't changed."

"Haven't I been a good wife to you? Have you ever had any complaint to make of me?"

"You know perfectly well I haven't."

"As soon as your precious sister comes along, you let me be insulted. You don't say a word to defend me!"

"Darling," said her husband with grim humor, "you've said a good many to defend yourself."

But Gertie was not to be reached by humor, grim or otherwise.

"I'm sick and tired of being put upon. You must choose between us," she said, with an air of finality.

"What on earth do you mean?"

"If you don't make her apologize right now before the hired men, I'm quit of you."

"I can't make her apologize if she won't."

"Then let her quit."

"Oh, I wish I could! I wish to God I could!" said Nora wildly.

"You know she can't do that," said Marsh roughly. "There's nowhere she can go. I've offered her a home. You were quite willing, when I suggested having her here."

"I was willing because I thought she'd make herself useful. We can't afford to feed folks who don't earn their keep. We have to work for our money, we do."

"I didn't know you grudged me the little I eat," said Nora bitterly. "I wonder if I should begrudge it to you, if I were in your place."

"Look here, it's no good talking. I'm not going to turn her out. As long as she wants a home, the farm's open to her. And she's welcome to everything I've got."

"Then you choose her?" demanded Gertie.

"Choose her? I don't know what you're talking about!" Easy-going as he was, he was beginning to show signs of irritation.

"I said you'd got to choose between us. Very well, let her stay. I earned my own living before, and I can earn it again. I'm going."

"Don't talk such nonsense," said Marsh violently.

"You think I don't mean it? D'you think I'm going to stay here and be put upon? Why should I?"

"Don't you—love me any more?"

"Haven't I shown that I love you? Have you forgotten, Ed?"

"We've gone through so much together, darling," he said huskily.

"Yes, we have that," she said in a softened tone.

"Won't you forgive her, for—for my sake?"

Gertie's face hardened once more.

"No, I can't. You're a man, you don't understand. If she won't apologize, either she must go or I shall."

"I can't lose you, Gertie. What should I do without you?"

"I guess you know me well enough by now. When I say a thing, I do it."

"Eddie!"

Nora had buried her face in her hands. He looked at her a moment without speaking.

"She's my wife. After all, if it weren't for her I should be hiring out now at forty dollars a month."

Nora lifted her face. For a long moment, brother and sister exchange a sad regard.

"Very well," she said huskily, "I'll do what you want."

He made one last appeal:

"You do insist on it, Gertie?"

"Of course I do."

"I'll go and call the men." He looked vacantly about the room, searching for his hat.

"Frank Taylor needn't come, need he?" asked Nora timidly.

"Why not?"

"He's going away almost immediately. It can't matter about him, surely."

"Then why are you so particular about it?"

"The others are English——" She knew she had made an unfortunate speech the moment the words had left her lips and hastened to modify it. "He'll like to see me humiliated. He looks upon women as dirt. He's—— Oh, I don't know, but not before him!"

"It'll do you a world of good to be taken down a peg or two, my lady."

"Oh, how heartless, how cruel!"

"Go on, Ed. I want to get on with my work."

"Why do you humiliate me like this?" asked Nora after the door had closed on her brother. Gertie had seated herself, very erect and judicial, in one of the rocking chairs.

"You came here and thought you knew everything, I guess. But you didn't know who you'd got to deal with."

"I was a stranger and homeless. If you'd had any kindness, you wouldn't have treated me so. I wanted to be fond of you."

"You," scoffed Gertie. "You despised me before you ever saw me."

Nora made a despairing gesture. Even now the men might be on the way, but she had a more unselfish motive for wishing to placate Gertie. Anything rather than bring that look of pain she had seen for the first time that day into her brother's eyes. She staked everything on one last appeal.

"Oh, Gertie, can't we be friends? Can't we let bygones be bygones and start afresh? We both love Eddie—Ed I mean. He's your husband and he's the only relation I have in the world. Won't you let me be a real sister to you?"

"It's rather late to say all that now."

"But it's not too late, is it?" Nora went on eagerly. "I don't know what I do that irritates you so. I can see how competent you are, and I admire you so much. I know how splendid you've been with Eddie. How you've stuck to him through thick and thin. You've done everything for him."

Gertie struck her hands violently together and sprang from her chair.

"Oh, don't go on patronizing me. I shall go crazy!"

"Patronizing you?"

"You talk to me as if I were a naughty child. You might be a school teacher." Nora wrung her hands. "It seems perfectly hopeless!"

"Even when you're begging my pardon," Gertie went on, "you put on airs. You ask me to forgive you as if you was doing me a favor!"

"I must have a most unfortunate manner." Nora laughed hysterically.

"Don't you dare laugh at me," said Gertie furiously.

"Don't make yourself ridiculous, then."

"Did you think I would ever forget what you wrote to Ed before I married him?"

"What I wrote? I don't know what you mean."

"Oh, don't you? You told him it would be a disgrace if he married me. He was a gentleman and I—— Oh, you spread yourself out!"

"And he showed you that letter," said Nora slowly. "Now I understand," she added to herself. "Still," she went on, looking Gertie directly in the face, "I had a perfect right to try and prevent the marriage before it took place. But after it happened, I only wanted to make the best of it. If you had this grudge against me, why did you let me come here!"

"Oh," said Gertie moodily, "Ed wanted it, and it was lonely enough sometimes with the men away all day and no one to say a word to. But I can't bear it," she almost screamed, "when Ed talks to you about the old country and all the people I don't know anything about!"

"Then you are jealous?"

"It's my house and I'm mistress here. I won't be put upon. What did you want to come here for, upsetting everybody? Till you came, I never had a word with Ed. Oh, I hate you, I hate you!" she finished in a sort of ecstasy.

"Gertie!"

"You've given me my chance," said Gertie with set teeth; "I'm going to take it. I'm going to take you down a peg or two, young woman."

"You're doing all you can to drive me away from here."

"You don't think it's any very wonderful thing to have you, do you? You talk of getting a job," she went on scornfully. "You! You couldn't get one. I know something about that, my girl. You! What can you do? Nothing."

Suddenly, from outside, they heard Frank Taylor's laugh. Nora winced as if she had been struck. Gertie's face was distorted with an evil smile. She seated herself once more in the rocking chair and folded her arms across her heaving breast.

"Here they come: now take your punishment," she said harshly.



CHAPTER X

Nora could never after think of what followed with any feeling of reality so far as her personal participation in the scene was concerned. It was like watching a play in which one is interested, without being in any degree emotionally stirred.

She saw Gertie, erect and stern in her big chair; she saw herself, standing behind the ironing-board, as if at a Bar of Justice, her hands resting loosely upon it; and she saw the door open to admit her brother, followed by Taylor and Trotter; noted that the former had discarded the familiar overalls and was wearing a sort of pea-jacket with a fur collar, and that her brother's face was once more sad and a little stern.

She had been obliged to press her handkerchief to her mouth to hide the crooked smile that the thought: 'he is the executioner,' had brought to her lips.

Then the figures which were Gertie and her brother had exchanged some words.

"Where's Hornby?"

"He's just coming."

"Do they know what they're here for!"

"No, I didn't tell them."

Then the figure which was Reggie had come in with some laughing remark about being torn away from his work, but, stopping so suddenly in the midst of his laughter at the sight of Gertie's face that it was comical; once more she had had to press her handkerchief to her lips.

And all the time she knew that this Nora whom she seemed to be watching had flushed a cruel red clear to her temples and that a funny little pulse was beating,—oh, so fast, so fast!—way up by her cheek-bone. It couldn't have been her heart. Her heart had never gone as fast as that.

Then she had heard Gertie say: "Nora insulted me a while ago before all of you and I guess she wants to apologize."

And then Frank had said: "If you told me it was that, Ed, you wanted me to come here for, I reckon I'd have told you to go to hell."

"Why?"

It must have been she who had asked the question, although she was not conscious that her lips had moved and the voice did not seem like her own. Her own voice was rather deep. This voice was curiously thin and high.

"I've got other things to do besides bothering my head about women's quarrels."

"Oh, I beg your pardon," still in the same high tone. "I thought it might be some kindly feeling in you."

"Go on, Nora, we're waiting," came the voice from the big chair.

Sour-dough! That's what those coats, such as Frank had on, were called. She had been wondering all the time what the name was. It was only the other day that Gertie had used the word in saying that she wished Eddie—no, Ed—could afford a new one. What a ridiculous name for a garment.

"I'm sorry I was rude to you, Gertie. I apologize to you for what I said."

"If there's nothing more to be said, we'd better go back to our work."

While her brother was speaking to his wife, Frank had taken a step forward. Somehow, the smile on his face had lost all of its ordinary mockery.

"You didn't find that very easy to say, I reckon."

"I'm quite satisfied." And then Gertie had dared to add: "Let this be a lesson to you, my girl!"

That was the last straw. The men had turned to go. In a flash she had made up her mind. Her brother's house was no longer possible. Gertie had, in a moment of passion, confessed that she hated her; had always hated her in her secret heart ever since she had read that protesting letter. What daily humiliations would she not have to endure now that she had matched her strength against Gertie and lost! It meant one long crucifixion of all pride and self-respect. No, it was not to be borne!

There was one avenue of escape open, and only one. He had said that he was willing to offer a home to a woman who was willing to assume her share of the burden of making one. It was even possible that he would be both kind and considerate, no matter how many mistakes she made at first, to a woman who tried to learn. Of one thing she was certain, he would know how to see that his wife was treated with respect by all the world. For the moment, her bleeding pride cried to her that that was the only thing in life that was absolutely necessary. Nothing else mattered.

"Frank, will you wait a minute?"

"Sure. What can I do for you?"

"I've understood that I'm not wanted here. I'm in the way. You said just now you wanted a woman to cook and bake for you, wash and mend your clothes, and keep your shack clean and tidy. Will I do?"

"Sure."

"Nora!" Her brother was shaking her by the shoulder.

"I'm afraid you'll have to marry me."

"I guess it would be more respectable."

"Nora, you can't mean it: you're in a temper! See here, Frank, you mustn't pay any attention to her."

"Shameless, that's what I call it." That was Gertie.

"He wants a woman to look after him. He practically proposed to me half an hour ago—didn't you?"

"Practically."

"Nora! You've been like cat and dog with Frank ever since you came. My dear, you don't know what you're in for."

"If he's willing to risk it, I am."

"It ain't an easy life you're coming to. This farm is a palace compared with my shack."

"I'm not wanted here and you say you want me. If you'll take me, I'll come."

For what seemed an interminable moment, he had looked at her with more gravity than she had ever seen in his face.

"I'll take you, all right. When will you be ready? Will an hour do for you?"

"An hour! You're in a great hurry." She had had a funny sensation that her knees were giving way. She had never fainted in her life. Was she going to faint now before them all? Before Gertie? Never! Somehow she must get out of the room and be alone a minute.

"Why, yes. Then we can catch the three-thirty into Winnipeg. You can go to the Y. W. C. A. for the night and we'll be buckled up in the morning. You meant it, didn't you? You weren't just saying it as a bluff?"

"I shall be ready in an hour."

She had pushed Eddie gently aside and, without a glance at anyone had walked steadily from the room.

Once seated on the side of the bed in the room that had been hers, she had been seized with a chill so violent that her teeth had chattered in her head. To prevent anyone who might follow her from hearing them,—and it was probable that her brother might come for a final remonstrance; it was even conceivable that Gertie, herself, might be sorry for what she had done; but no, it was she who had said she was shameless!—she got up and locked her door and then threw herself full length on the little bed and crammed the corner of the pillow into her mouth.

Perhaps she was going to die. She had never really been ill in her life and the violence of the chill frightened her. In her present overwrought state, the thought of death was not disquieting. But supposing she was only going to be very ill, with some long and tedious illness that would make her a care and a burden for weeks? She recalled the unremitting care which she had had to give Miss Wickham, and pictured Gertie's grudging ministrations at her sick-bed. Anything rather than that! She must manage to get to Winnipeg. Once away from the house, nothing mattered.

But after a few moments the violence of the chill, which was of course purely nervous in its origin, subsided perceptibly. Nora rose and began to busy herself with her packing. Fortunately her wardrobe was small. She had no idea how long she had been lying on the bed.

She had just folded the last garment and was about to close the lid of her trunk, when there came a knock at the door.

"Who is it?"

"It's me," said Frank's voice. "The team is at the door. Are you ready?"

For reply, Nora threw open the door and pointed to her box.

"I have only to put on my hat. Will you be good enough to fasten that for me? Here is the key."

While he knelt on the floor, locking and strapping it, she gave a careful look at herself in the mirror, while putting on her hat. She congratulated herself that she had not been crying. Aside from the fact that she looked pale and tired, there was nothing in her face to suggest that she had had a crisis of the nerves: certainly no look of defeat for Gertie to gloat over. Would they all be there to witness her retreat? Well, let them: no one could say that she had not gone out with flying colors. She turned, with a smile to meet Frank's gaze.

"That's right," he said approvingly. "You look fine. Say," he added, "I'm afraid I'll have to have Reggie up to give me a lift with this trunk of yours. I don't know what you can have in it unless it's a stove, and we've got one at home already. It'll be all right once I get it on my back."