of home-seekers crowding round the clerks and counters of the lower
room--English, Americans, Swedes, Dutchmen, Galicians, French Canadians.
Some men, indeed, who were actually hanging over maps, listening to the
directions and information of the officials, were far too busy to talk
to tourists, but there were others who had finished their business, or
were still waiting their turn, and among them, as also among the women,
the little English lady found many willing to talk to her.

And what courage, what vivacity she threw into the business! Delaine,
who had seen her till now as a person whose natural reserve was rather
displayed than concealed by her light agreeable manner, who had often
indeed had cause to wonder where and what might be the real woman,
followed her from group to group in a silent astonishment. Between these
people--belonging to the primitive earth-life--and herself, there seemed
to be some sudden intuitive sympathy which bewildered him; whether she
talked to some Yankee farmer from the Dakotas, long-limbed,
lantern-jawed, all the moisture dried out of him by hot summers, hard
winters, and long toil, who had come over the border with a pocket full
of money, the proceeds of prairie-farming in a republic, to sink it all
joyfully in a new venture under another flag; or to some
broad-shouldered English youth from her own north country; or to some
hunted Russian from the Steppes, in whose eyes had begun to dawn the
first lights of liberty; or to the dark-faced Italians and Frenchmen, to
whom she chattered in their own tongues.

An Indian reserve of good land had just been thrown open to settlers.
The room was thronged. But Elizabeth was afraid of no one; and no one
repulsed her. The high official who took them through, lingered over the
process, busy as the morning was, all for the _beaux yeux_ of Elizabeth;
and they left him pondering by what legerdemain he could possibly so