destined.
With all she learned she did not forget us. We were happy save in her
absence. We are happy now; not because she is mistress of Holwood and
Marchurst--for her grandmother and another is dead--but because such as
she is our daughter, and--"

He said no more. Margaret was beside him, and her fingers were on his
lips.

Gregory came to his feet suddenly, and with a troubled face.

"Mistress of Holwood and Marchurst!" he said; and his mind ran over his
own great deficiencies, and the list of eligible and anxious suitors
that Park Lane could muster. He had never thought of her in the light of
a great heiress.

But he looked down at her as she knelt at her father's knee, her eyes
upturned to his, and the tide of his fear retreated; for he saw in them
the same look she had given him when she leaned her cheek against the
moose's neck that afternoon.

When the clock struck twelve upon a moment's pleasant silence, John
Malbrouck said to Gregory Thorne:

"Yes, you have won your Christmas hazard, my boy."

But a softer voice than his whispered: "Are you--content--Gregory?"

The Spirits of Christmas-tide, whose paths lie north as well as south,
smiled as they wrote his answer on their tablets; for they knew, as the
man said, that he would always be content, and--which is more in the
sight of angels--that the woman would be content also.

A PRAIRIE VAGABOND

Little Hammer was not a success. He was a disappointment to the
missionaries; the officials of the Hudson's Bay Company said he was "no
good;" the Mounted Police kept an eye on him; the Crees and Blackfeet
would have nothing to do with him; and the half-breeds were profane
regarding him. But Little Hammer was oblivious to any depreciation
of his merits, and would not be suppressed. He loved the Hudson's Bay
Company's Post at Yellow Quill with an unwavering love; he ranged the
half-breed hospitality of Red Deer River, regardless of it being thrown
at him as he in turn threw it at his dog; he saluted Sergeant Gellatly
with a familiar How! whenever he saw him; he borrowed tabac of the
half-breed women, and, strange to say, paid it back--with other tabac
got by daily petition, until his prayer was granted, at the H. B. C.
Post. He knew neither shame nor defeat, but where women were concerned
he kept his word, and was singularly humble. It was a woman that induced
him to be baptised. The day after the ceremony he begged "the loan of
a dollar for the love o