ne. By day she thought of him,
at night he filled her dreams. She had learned to pray by praying
for Kalman.

"Aren't you going to open your letter?" said her friend, rejoicing
in her joy.

"Yes," cried the girl, and ran into the little room which she
shared with Paulina and her child.

Once in that retreat, she threw herself on her knees by the bed,
put the letter before her, and pressed her lips hard upon it, her
tears wetting it as she prayed in sheer joy. It was just sixteen
months, one week, three days, and nine hours since she had watched,
through a mist of tears, the train carrying him away to join the
Macmillan outfit at Portage la Prairie. Through Jack French's
letters to his sister she had been kept in close touch with her
brother, but this was his first letter to herself.

How she laughed and wept at the rude construction and the quaint
spelling, for the letter was written in her native tongue.

"My sister, my Irma, my beloved," the letter ran. Irma kissed the
words as she read them. "How shall I ever write this letter, for it
must be in our own beloved tongue? I could have written long ago in
English, but with you I must write as I speak, only in our dear
mother's and father's tongue. It is so hard to remember it, for
everything and every one about me is English, English, English.
The hounds, the horses, the cattle call in English, the very wind
sounds English, and I am beginning not only to speak, but to think
and feel in English, except when I think of you and of our dear
mother and father, and when I speak with old Portnoff, an old
Russian nihilist, in the colony near here, and when I hear him
tell of the bad old days, then I feel and breathe Russian again.
But Russia and all that old Portnoff talks about is far away and
seems like a dream of a year ago. It is old Portnoff who taught
me how to write in Russian.

"I like this place, and oh! I like Jack, that is, Mr. French,
my master. He told me to call him Jack. He is so big and strong,
so kind too, never loses his temper, that is, never loses hold
of himself like me, but even when he is angry, speaks quietly and
always smiles. One day Elluck, the Galician man that works here
sometimes, struck Blucher with a heavy stick and made him howl.
Jack heard him. 'Bring me that stick, Elluck,' he said quietly.
'Now, Elluck, who strikes my dog, strikes me.' He caught him by
the collar and beat him until Elluck howled louder than the dog,
and all the whi