hardly fair to blame him for a depression that's your fault,"
said Flora. "You deserve to feel it, since you will go away."

Then Edgar came up with the wagon and George took Flora's hands.

"I shall think of you often," he told her. "It will always be with
pleasure. Now and then you might, perhaps, spare a thought for me."

"I think I can promise that," Flora replied quietly.

Then he shook hands with Grant and got into the wagon. Edgar cracked
the whip and the team plunged forward. With a violent jolting and a
rattle of wheels they left the farm behind and drove out on to the
prairie. Flora stood watching them for a while; and then walked back
to the house in the gathering dusk with her face set hard and a pain at
her heart.

Grant was sitting on the stoop, filling his pipe, but when she joined
him he paused in his occupation and pointed toward the plain. The
wagon was scarcely discernible, but a rhythmic beat of hoofs still came
back through the stillness.

"I like that man, but he's a blamed fool," he remarked.

Strong bitterness was mingled with the regret in his voice, and Flora
started. She was glad that the light was too dim for him to see her
clearly.

"I wonder what makes you say that?"

"For one thing, he might have done well here." Flora suspected that her
father was not expressing all he had meant. "He's the kind of man we
want; and now he's going back to fool his life away, slouching round
playing games and talking to idle people, in the old country. Guess
some girl over there has got a hold on him." Then his indignation
flamed out unchecked. "I never could stand those Percy women, anyway;
saw a bunch of them, all dress and airs, when I was last in Winnipeg.
One was standing outside a ticket-office at Portage, studying the
people through an eyeglass on an ivory stick, as if they were some
strange savages, and making remarks about them to her friends, though I
guess there isn't a young woman in the city with nerve enough to wear
the clothes she had on. It makes a sensible man mighty tired to hear
those creatures talk."

Flora laughed, rather drearily, though she guessed with some uneasiness
the cause of her father's outbreak. It appeared injudicious to offer
him any encouragement.

"After all, one must be fair," she said. "I met some very nice people
in the old country."

He turned to her abruptly.

"Do you know who has taken Lansing back?" he asked.

"I believe, from someth