t returned, and Jessie, young, impulsive,
devoted, was living in a fever of apprehension such as her experienced
mother never displayed.

Supper was ready at the house when Murray and Jessie arrived from the
Fort. Ailsa Mowbray was awaiting them. She regarded them smilingly as
they came. Her eyes, twins, in their beauty and coloring, with her
daughter's, were full of that quiet patience which years of struggle
had inspired. For all she was approaching fifty, she was a handsome,
erect woman, taller than the average, with a figure of physical
strength quite unimpaired by the hard wear of that bitter northern
world. Her greeting was the greeting of a mother, whose chief concern
is the bodily welfare of her children, and a due regard for her
domestic arrangements.

"Jessie's young yet, and maybe that accounts for a heap. But you,
Murray, being a man, ought to know when it's food time. I guess it's
been waiting a half hour. Come right in, and we'll get on without
waiting for Alec. The boy went out with his gun, an' I don't think
we'll see him till he's ready."

Jessie's serious eyes had caught her mother's attention. Ailsa Mowbray
possessed all a mother's instinct. Her watch over her pretty daughter,
though unobtrusive, was never for a moment relaxed. Some day she
supposed the child would have to marry. Well, the choice was small
enough. It scarcely seemed a thing to concern herself with. But she
did. And her feelings and opinions were very decided.

Murray smilingly accepted the blame for their tardiness.

"Guess it's up to me," he said. "You see, Jessie was good enough to
let me yarn about the delights of this slice of God's country. Well,
when a feller gets handing out his talk that way to a bright girl, who
doesn't find she's got a previous engagement elsewhere, he's liable to
forget such ordinary things as mere food."

Mrs. Mowbray nodded.

"That's the way of it--sure. Specially when you haven't cooked it,"
she said, with a smile that robbed her words of all reproach.

She turned to pass within the rambling, log-built house. But at that
moment two dogs raced round the angle of the building and fawned up to
her, completely ignoring the others.

"Guess Alec's--ready," was Murray's smiling comment.

There was a shadow of irony in the man's words, which made the mother
glance up quickly from the dogs she was impartially caressing.

"Yes," she said simply, and without warmth. Her regard thou