er blue
eyes flashed fire and her usually timid voice vibrated with an intense
feeling. Larry gazed at her in astonishment.

"You may look at me, Larry," she cried. "I am German but I do not like
the German ways. I like the Canadian ways. The Germans treat their
women like their cows. They feed them well, they keep them warm
because--because--they have calves--I mean the cows--and the women have
kids. I hate the German ways. Look at my mother. What is she in that
house? Day and night she has worked, day and night, saving money--and
what for? For Ernest. Running to wait on him and on Father and they
never know it. It's women's work with us to wait on men, and that is the
way in the Settlement up there. Look at your mother and you. Mein Gott!
I could kill them, those men!"

"Why, Dorothea, you amaze me. What's up with you? I never heard you talk
like this. I never knew that you felt like this."

"No, how could you know? Who would tell you? Not Ernest," she replied
bitterly.

"But, Dorothea, you are happy, are you not?"

"Happy, I was until I knew better, till two years ago when I saw your
mother and you with her. Then Ernest came back thinking himself a German
officer--he is an officer, you know--and the way he treated our mother
and me!"

"Treated your mother! Surely he is not unkind to your mother?" Larry
had a vision of a meek, round-faced, kindly, contented woman, who was
obviously proud of her only son.

"Kind, kind," cried Dorothea, "he is kind as German sons are kind. But
you cannot understand. Why did I speak to you of this? Yes, I will
tell you why," she added, apparently taking a sudden resolve. "Let's go
slowly. Ernest is gone anyway. I will tell you why. Before Ernest went
away he was more like a Canadian boy. He was good to his mother. He is
good enough still but--oh, it is so hard to show you. I have seen you
and your mother. You would not let your mother brush your boots for you,
you would not sit smoking and let her carry in wood in the winter time,
you would not stand leaning over the fence and watch your mother milk
the cow. Mein Gott! Ernest, since he came back--the women are only good
for waiting on him, for working in the house or on the farm. His wife,
she will not work in the fields; Ernest is too rich for that. But she
will not be like"--here the girl paused abruptly, a vivid colour dyeing
her fair skin--"like your wife. I would die sooner than marry a German
man."

"But Ernest is not li