me for an hour, merely to gratify their good
neighbour Davidson; but, pressing as was his own farm-work, he found
time to spend another hour at Daisy Burn, doing up some garden beds
under direction of Miss Edith. She had come to look on him as a very
good friend; and he----well, there was some indefinable charm of manner
about the young lady. Those peculiarly set grey eyes were so truthful
and so gentle, that low musical voice so perfect in tone and inflection,
that Robert was pleased to look or listen, as the case might be. But
chiefest reason of all--was she not dear Linda's choicest friend and
intimate? Did they not confide every secret of their hearts to each
other? Ah, sunbeam, Linda knew well that there was a depth of her
friend's nature into which she had never looked, and some reality of
gloom there which she only guessed.

Perhaps it was about Edith's father or brother. That these gentlemen
neglected their farm business, and that therefore affairs could not
prosper, was tolerably evident. Fertile as is Canadian soil, some
measure of toil is requisite to evolve its hidden treasures of
agricultural wealth. Except from a hired Irish labourer named Mickey
Dunne, Daisy Burn farm did not get this requisite. The young man
Reginald now openly proclaimed his abhorrence of bush life. No degree
of self-control or arduous habits had prepared him for the hard work
essential. Most of the autumn he had lounged about the 'Corner,' except
when his father was in Zack's bar, which was pretty often; or he was at
Cedar Creek on one pretext or other, whence he would go on fishing and
shooting excursions with Arthur.

Meanwhile, Robert's farming progressed well. His fall-wheat was all down
by the proper period, fifteenth of September; for it is found that the
earlier the seed is sown, the stronger is the plant by the critical
time of its existence, and the better able to withstand frost and rust.
Complacently he looked over the broad brown space, variegated with
charred stumps, which occupied fully a twelfth of the cleared land;
and stimulated by the pleasures of hope, he calculated on thirty-five
bushels an acre next summer as the probable yield. Davidson had raised
forty per acre in his first season at Daisy Burn, though he acknowledged
that twenty-five was the present average.

The garden stuff planted on Robert's spring-burn ground had flourished;
more than two hundred bushels per acre of potatoes were lodged in the
root-house