lding hampered by lack of capital when she
married its owner and forthwith commenced to live in strict accordance
with her adopted station. We hoped to improve that station, but this
depended on the crops and the weather, and the heavens continued to favor
us that year. Seldom had there been such grass for cattle or such a yield
of wheat. No acre returned less than its twenty bushels, and many nearer
forty; while Grace, who drove the first binder into the tall yellow stems
and worked on through the rush and dust of harvest and thrashing, rejoiced
as she said she had never done when all was safely gathered in.

Then Harry and Aline were married and settled in Hudson's dwelling; and
one evening toward the close of the Indian summer, when our work was done
at last we drove slowly down the long incline away from Fairmead. A maple
flamed red on the bluff, the birch leaves were golden; but the prairie was
lone and empty, save for a breadth of tall stubble, and there was neither
a sack in the granary nor a beast in a stall. Harry had taken the working
cattle, while the stock were traveling eastward across the ocean and the
wheat lay piled in the elevators or had been ground already into finest
flour. But the result of our labors was bearing interest, and would do so
until spring, in the shape of a balance at the Bank of Montreal. Each
venture had succeeded, and evidence was not wanting that at last we were
being carried smoothly forward on the flood-tide of prosperity; and so
with thankful hearts we prepared to enjoy a well-earned holiday in the
older cities of eastern Canada.

The garish light died out as we passed the last of the stubble, which grew
dusky behind us, the stars that shone forth one by one glimmered frostily,
and silence closed down on the prairie, while the jingle of harness and
the groaning of wheels recalled the day I had first driven across it.
Grace, too, seemed lost in reverie, for presently she said:

"Another year's work ended, and the bounteous harvest in. Ralph, why is it
that happiness brings with it a tinge of melancholy, and that out of our
present brightness we look back to the shadows of other days? I have been
thinking all day of curious things and people we knew--our first dance at
Lone Hollow, of Geoffrey Ormond and your cousin. They all played their
part in giving us what we now enjoy."

I cracked the whip, stirring the horses into a quicker pace, and, slipping
one arm around her, I said: "