dvantage of
studying under a Scotch farmer for a year, and this gave him more
knowledge of agricultural affairs than is possessed by many of the young
men who go out to settle. He had also given his mind to the work, and
what was of great importance, had withstood the temptations to idleness
into which so many fall. He was also a man of refined tastes and
habits, which he did not allow the rough life of a settler to make him
abandon. Captain and Mrs Barton were among his nearest neighbours. He
had been for some time a constant visitor at the house, and two little
boys, the children of Mrs Barton, were his especial favourites.

Fanny Aveling had, the year before, come out from England, and not long
after her arrival Frank Carlton began to reflect that his house would be
in a far better condition than it was at the present, if he could place
a mistress at its head. He had had no reason to suppose that Miss
Aveling was indifferent towards him, until the day on which the
conversation which has been described took place. He was still, it must
be owned, somewhat in doubt about the matter. He did not suppose that
she cared for anybody else; indeed he knew of no visitor at the house
likely to have won her affections. He therefore, as most men would have
done under similar circumstances, lived on in the hope of ultimately
winning her. Still, week after week passed, and though he made frequent
visits to Captain Barton's, Miss Aveling's manner towards him remained
totally unchanged. At length, sanguine as he was, he began to fear that
he had misplaced his affections. He also grew distant in his manner
towards her, and he seldom paid a visit to the house of his former
friends.

Mrs Barton could not but suspect the cause, for she, it must be owned,
was favourable to Frank Carlton, and thought that her sister could not
make a more desirable match.

"What more can you require in a man than Frank possesses, Fanny?" she
said one day to her sister.

"Yes," observed Fanny, "he is honest, and he does not smoke, and he does
not drink, and he does not use bad language, that I know of, and he's
very respectable; in fact, in my opinion, he is made up of negatives."

"Oh, you foolish girl!" exclaimed Mrs Barton; "you want him to threaten
to leave you for ever, or to jump down the Falls, or to commit some
other outrageous act, and then perhaps your feelings would be worked up,
and you would be ready to entreat him to remain and b