hite
man's disease," consumption--but McDonald was pathetically in love,
and thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his
life.

There had not been much of a wedding ceremony. The priest had
cantered through the service in Latin, pronounced the benediction
in English, and congratulated the "happy couple" in Indian, as a
compliment to the assembled tribe in the little amateur structure
that did service at the post as a sanctuary.

But the knot was tied as firmly and indissolubly as if all Charlie
McDonald's swell city friends had crushed themselves up against the
chancel to congratulate him, and in his heart he was deeply thankful
to escape the flower-pelting, white gloves, rice-throwing, and
ponderous stupidity of a breakfast, and indeed all the regulation
gimcracks of the usual marriage celebrations, and it was with a
hand trembling with absolute happiness that he assisted his little
Indian wife into the old muddy buckboard that, hitched to an
underbred-looking pony, was to convey them over the first stages of
their journey. Then came more adieus, some hand-clasping, old Jimmy
Robinson looking very serious just at the last, Mrs. Jimmy, stout,
stolid, betraying nothing of visible emotion, and then the pony,
rough-shod and shaggy, trudged on, while mutual hand-waves were
kept up until the old Hudson Bay Post dropped out of sight, and
the buckboard with its lightsome load of hearts deliriously happy,
jogged on over the uneven trail.

* * * * *

She was "all the rage" that winter at the provincial capital. The
men called her a "deuced fine little woman." The ladies said she
was "just the sweetest wildflower." Whereas she was really but an
ordinary, pale, dark girl who spoke slowly and with a strong accent,
who danced fairly well, sang acceptably, and never stirred outside
the door without her husband.

Charlie was proud of her; he was proud that she had "taken" so well
among his friend, proud that she bore herself so complacently in
the drawing-rooms of the wives of pompous Government officials, but
doubly proud of her almost abject devotion to him. If ever human
being was worshipped that being was Charlie McDonald; it could
scarcely have been otherwise, for the almost godlike strength of his
passion for that little wife of his would have mastered and melted
a far more invincible citadel than an already affectionate woman's
heart.

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