f taste he would have been seen to be, in external
notions, a common little man, but from Zilda's standpoint, even in
matters of outward taste he was an ideal; and Zilda, placed as she was,
quickly perceived, what those who looked down upon him might not have
discovered, that the heart of him was very good. 'Mon Dieu, but he is
good!' she would say to herself, which was simply the fact.

All winter long Gilby came regularly. Zilda was happy in thinking of him
when he was gone, happy in expecting him when he was coming, happy in
making fun of him so that no one ever suspected her affection. All that
long winter, when the snow was deep in the fields, and the engines
carried snow-ploughs, and the loungers about the station wore buffalo
coats, Zilda was very happy. Gilby wore a dogskin cap and collar and
cuffs; Zilda thought them very becoming. Then spring came, and Gilby
wore an Inverness cape, which was the fashion in those days. Zilda
thought that little Gilby looked very fascinating therein, although she
remarked to her father that one could only know he was there because the
cape strutted. Then summer came and Gilby wore light tweed clothes. The
Frenchmen always wore their best black suits when they travelled. Zilda
liked the light clothes best.

Then there came a time when Gilby did not come. No one noticed his
absence at first but Zilda. Two weeks passed and then they all spoke of
it. Then some one in St. Armand ascertained that Gilby had had a rise in
the firm in which he was employed, that he sat in an office all day and
did not travel any more. Zilda heard the story told, and commented upon,
and again talked over, in the way in which such matters of interest are
slowly digested by the country intellect.

Alas! then Zilda knew how far she had travelled along a flowery path
which, as it now seemed to her, led to nowhere. It was not that she had
wanted to marry Gilby; she had not thought of that as possible; it was
only that her whole nature summed itself up in an ardent desire that
things should be as they had been, that he should come there once a
week, and talk politics with her father and other men, and set the boys
jumping, and eat the muffins he had taught her to make for his tea. And
if this might not be, she desired above all else to see him again, to
have one more look at him, one more smile from him of which she could
take in the whole value, knowing it to be the last. How carelessly she
had allowed him t