ch two dainty cups and plates were laid out.

"That's a very pretty outfit," he remarked. "Is it English?"

"No; I bought it at a big store in Winnipeg--on Portage Avenue, I think."

"I know the place. So they're selling this kind of thing there! It's
significant. A few years ago they'd have got nobody to buy such truck."
He picked up a cup and held it to the light after examining the chaste
color, design, and stamp. "Anyway, it's English; the genuine article. I
believe the biscuit can't be imitated."

Gertrude had not expected him to understand artistic china.

"I've read about these things," he explained with a good-humored laugh;
"and I've a way of remembering. We have time in winter, and one is glad
to study anything that comes along. Still, I'll allow that I found
five-cent cans quite good enough when I first came out."

This was not a point of much importance, but it fixed Gertrude's
attention. She was in the habit of roughly sorting people into different
groups; there were, for example, those who appreciated beautiful things
and had been endowed with them as a reward of merit, and those of coarser
nature on whom they would be wasted, which was, no doubt, why they had
none. Yet here was a man with artistic taste, who was nevertheless
engaged in hard manual labor and had drunk contentedly out of common
cans. It did not fit in with her theories.

"I suppose this country has its influence on one?" she said, searching
for an explanation.

"That's so; the influence is strong and good, on the whole."

She considered this, quietly studying him. It was the first time she had
entertained at table a man in outdoor working attire; Prescott, out of
deference to his guests, had made some preparation for the meals they
shared. Still, the simple dress became him; he was, as she vaguely
thought of it, admirable, in a way. His hands and wrists were
well-shaped, though scarred and roughened by the rasp of the hot straw.
The warmth of the sun seemed to cling to his brown face; a joyous
vitality emanated from him, and he had mental gifts. She felt lightly
thrilled by his propinquity.

"But everything out here is still very crude," she said.

"That's where our strength lies; we're a new people, raised on virgin
soil out in the rushing winds. We haven't simmered down yet; we're
charged with unexhausted energies, which show themselves in novel ways.
In our cities you'll find semibarbarous rawness side by side with
splendor a