"It was rather tedious waiting in the hotel," she explained. "There
was nobody I could talk to; my father is busy with a grain broker."

"Then he is a farmer?"

"Yes," said the girl, "he has a farm."

"And you live out in the West with him?"

"Of course," she said, smiling. "Still, I have been in Montreal, and
England." Then she turned and glanced at the jaded immigrants. "One
feels sorry for them; they have so much to bear."

George felt that she wished to change the subject, and he followed her
lead.

"I feel inclined to wonder where they all go to and how you employ
them. Your people still seem anxious to bring them in."

"Yes," she replied thoughtfully, "It's rather a difficult question. Of
course, we pay high wages--people who say they must dispense with help
and can't carry out useful projects would like to see them lower--but
there's the long winter when, out West at least, very few men can work.
Then what the others have earned in summer rapidly melts."

"But what do the Canadian farm-hands and mechanics think? It wouldn't
suit them to have wages broken down."

West had come up a few moments earlier.