grassy banks in the shadow of the woods; while the pleasant Ontario
farms flitted by, so mellowed and homelike already, midway between the
old life of Quebec, and this new, raw West to which they were going.
They had passed, also--but at night and under the moon--through the lake
country which is the playground of Toronto, as well known, and as
plentifully be-named as Westmoreland; and then at North Bay with the
sunrise they had plunged into the wilderness,--into the thousand miles
of forest and lake that lie between Old Ontario and Winnipeg.

And here it was that Elizabeth's enthusiasm had become in her brother's
eyes a folly; that something wild had stirred in her blood, and sitting
there in her shady hat at the rear of the train, her eyes pursuing the
great track which her father had helped to bring into being, she shook
Europe from her, and felt through her pulses the tremor of one who
watches at a birth, and looks forward to a life to be--

"Dinner is ready, my lady."

"Thank Heaven!" cried Philip Gaddesden, springing up. "Get some
champagne, please, Yerkes."

"Philip!" said his sister reprovingly, "it is not good for you to have
champagne every night."

Philip threw back his curly head, and grinned.

"I'll see if I can do without it to-morrow. Come along, Elizabeth."

They passed through the outer saloon, with its chintz-covered sofas and
chairs, past the two little bedrooms of the car, and the tiny kitchen to