t
at those paved streets, and the green, green things. There'll be
months of just snow away up there," and he nodded towards the
north.

"Oh, but father says it won't be lonely at all up there," asserted
the child. "He says I'll grow _terribly_ big in a few years; that
people always grow in the North, and maybe I'll soon be able to
wear buffalo buttons and have stripes on my sleeve like you;" and
the childish fingers traced the outline of the sergeant's chevrons.

"I hope, dear, that you shall do all that, soon," said Mrs. Lysle;
"but first you must _win_ those stripes, my boy, and if you win them
as the sergeant did, mother shall be very proud of you."

At which, the said sergeant hastily set the boy down, and, with
confusion written all over his strong young face, made some excuse
to disappear, for no man in the world is as shy or modest about his
deeds of valor as is a North-West "Mounted."

"Won't you tell me, mother, how Sergeant Black got those stripes on
his sleeve?" begged the boy.

"Perhaps to-night, son, when you are in bed--just before mother
says good-night--we'll see. But look! there is the city, fading,
fading." Then after a short silence: "There, Graham, it has gone."

"But isn't that it 'way over there, mother?" persisted the boy. "I
see the sun shining on the roofs."

Mrs. Lysle shook her head. "No, dearie; that is the snow on the
mountain peaks. The city has--gone."

But far into the twilight she yet stood watching the purple sea,
the dove-gray coast. Her world was with her--the man she had chosen
for her life partner, and the little boy that belonged to them
both--but there are times even in the life of a wife and mother
when her soul rebels at cutting herself off from her womenkind, and
all that environment of social life among women means, even if the
act itself is voluntary on her part. It was a relief, then, from
her rather sombre musing at the ship's rail, when the major lightly
placed both hands on her shoulders and said, "Grahamie has toddled
off to the stateroom. The sea air is weighting down his eyelids."

"Sea air?" laughed Mrs. Lysle. "Don't you believe it, Horace. The
young monkey had been just scampering about the deck with the men
until his little legs are tired out. I'm half afraid our 'Mounted'
boys bid fair to spoil him. I'll go to him, for I promised him a
story to-night."

"Which you would rather perish than not tell him, if you promised,"
smiled the major. "You govern