room another and smaller room, while the room most retired in the
collection of shacks constituting the Stopping Place was known in
the neighborhood as the "snake room," a room devoted to those unhappy
wretches who, under the influence of prolonged indulgence in Hell's bad
whisky, were reduced to such a mental and nervous condition that the
landscape of their dreams became alive with snakes of various sizes,
shapes and hues.

To Mandy familiarity had hardened her sensibilities to endurance of all
the grimy uncleanness of the place, but to Moira the appearance of
the house and especially of the dining-room filled her with loathing
unspeakable.

"Oh, Mandy," she groaned, "can we not eat outside somewhere? This is
terrible."

Mandy thought for a moment.

"No," she cried, "but we will do better. I know Mrs. Macintyre in the
manse. I nursed her once last spring. We will go and see her."

"Oh, that would not do," said Moira, her Scotch shy independence
shrinking from such an intrusion.

"And why not?"

"She doesn't know me--and there are four of us."

"Oh, nonsense, you don't know this country. You don't know what our
visit will mean to the little woman, what a joy it will be to her to see
a new face, and I declare when she hears you are new out from Scotland
she will simply revel in you. We are about to confer a great favor upon
Mrs. Macintyre."

If Moira had any lingering doubts as to the soundness of her
sister-in-law's opinion they vanished before the welcome she had from
the minister's wife.

"Mr. Cameron's sister?" she cried, with both hands extended, "and just
out from Scotland? And where from? From near Braemar? And our folk came
from near Inverness. Mhail Gaelic heaibh?"

"Go dearbh ha."

And on they went for some minutes in what Mrs. Macintyre called "the
dear old speech," till Mrs. Macintyre, remembering herself, said to
Mandy:

"But you do not understand the Gaelic? Well, well, you will forgive us.
And to think that in this far land I should find a young lady like this
to speak it to me! Do you know, I am forgetting it out here." All the
while she was speaking she was laying the cloth and setting the table.
"And you have come all the way from Calgary this morning? What a drive
for the young lady! You must be tired out. Would you lie down upon the
bed for an hour? Then come away in to the bedroom and fresh yourselves
up a bit. Come away in. I'll get Mr. Cameron over."

"We are a big party," said