inct that had become hers in little less than two years
of hard city life made her feel the lack of genuineness and honesty
pervading those proposals and requests. When she chanced to look at
that far demand from Canada, however, she put the paper down and began
to dream.

Her earlier and blessed years had been spent in a small place. Her
memory went back to wide pastures and lowing cattle, to gorgeously
blossoming orchards whose trees bent under their loads of savory
fruit, long after the petals had fallen. She felt as if she could
again breathe unpolluted air, drink from clear springs and sit by the
edges of fields and watch the waves of grain bending with flashes of
gold before the breezes. Time and again she had longed for these
things; the mere thought of them brought a hunger to her for the open
country, for the glory of distant sunsets, for the sounds of farm and
byre, for the silently flowing little river, bordered with woodlands
that became of gold and crimson in the autumn. She could again see the
nesting swallows, the robins hopping over grasslands, the wild doves
pairing in the poplars, the chirping chickadees whose tiny heads shone
like black diamonds, as they flitted in the bushes. The memory of it
all brought tears to her eyes.

What a wonderful outlook this thing presented, as she read it again. A
home by a beautiful river! A prosperous youth who needed but
kindliness and affection to make him happy! Why had he not found a
suitable mate in that country? She remembered hearing, or reading
somewhere, that women are comparatively few in the lands to which men
rush to settle in wildernesses. And perhaps the women he had met were
not of the education or training he had been accustomed to.

The idea of love, as it had been presented by the men she had been
thrown with, in factory and office, was repugnant to her. But, if this
was true, the outlook was a different one. Not for a moment did she
imagine that it was a place wherein a woman might live in idleness and
comparative luxury. No! Such a man would require a helpmeet, one who
would do the work of his house, one who would take care of the home
while he toiled outside. What a happy life! What a wondrous change
from all that she had experienced! There were happy women in the
world, glorying in maternity, watching eagerly for the home-coming of
their mates, blessed with the love of a good man and happy to return
it in full measure. It seemed too good to be