od which was to be sent down to the
workers. Hephzibah was a woman of generous instincts where the inner
man was concerned. The wages she paid were always board wages, but no
hired man was ever allowed to work for her and pay for his keep. She
invariably insisted that every labourer should be fed from her
kitchen, and she took care that his food was the best she could
provide.

"Alice, girl," the old lady said, as she tore open the first letter,
"go and see if Andy is hitching-up yet. Tell him that the dinner boxes
will be ready in quarter-hour. Maybe you'll find him in the bean
patch, I sent him to gather a peck o' broad beans. Who's this from?"
she went on, turning to the last page of her letter to look at the
signature. "H'm--Winnipeg--the bank. Guess I'll read that later."

Alice ran off to find Andy, and Mrs. Malling picked up another
envelope.

"Prudence, my girl," went on the farm-wife, as soon as Alice's back
was turned, "just open that other," pointing to a blue envelope. "The
postmark reads Ainsley. I take it, it's from young Robb Chillingwood.
Maybe it's to say as he'll be along d'rectly."

Prudence picked the last letter up.

"It is hot in here, mother; I wonder you can stand it."

Her mother looked up over her spectacles.

"Stand it, child? It's a woman's place, is the kitchen. I can't trust
no one at the stove but myself. I've done it for over forty summers,
an' I don't reckon to give it up now. This is from that p'lice feller.
He ain't doing much, I'm thinking. Seems to me he spends most of his
time in making up his bills of expenses. Howsum, you look into it.
What's Master Robb say?"

She put her glasses back into their broad old-fashioned case and
turned back to the stove. She could never allow anything to keep her
long from her cooking. She lifted a lid and stabbed her cooking fork
gently into a great boiler full of potatoes. Then she passed round to
the other side and shook up the fire.

"Oh, what a shame, mother! Won't Al be disappointed? Robb can't come
out here, at least not to stay." Prudence had finished her letter and
now looked disappointedly over at her mother.

"And how be that?" asked the old lady, standing with a shovel of
anthracite coal poised in her hand.

"He says that the rush of emigrants to the district keeps him at work
from daylight to dark. It's too bad. Poor old Al!"

Mrs. Malling dumped the coal into the stove with a clatter and
replaced the circular iron top. Sh