coming down the sidewalks the same way and at about the same pace as the
central group, and Harkness more than suspected that they had diverged
from the proper course of their morning errands out of curiosity. He
took more interest in the scene than seemed consistent with his slight
connection with the principal actor. He made an excited movement toward
his door, and his hand actually trembled as he opened it. Eliza was
usually about the passages at this time of day. He called her name.

She put her head over the upper bannister.

"Come down and see Lazarus Cameron!"

"I'll come in a minute."

He saw through the railing of the bannisters the movement of some linen
she was folding.

"He'll be past in a minute." Harkness's voice betrayed his excitement
more than he desired.

Eliza dropped the linen and came downstairs rather quickly. Harkness
returned to his window; she came up beside him. The inner window was
open, only one pane was between them and the outer air. In yards all
round cocks were crowing, as, on a mild day in the Canadian March, cocks
will crow continually. Light snow of the last downfall lay on the
opposite roofs, and made the hills just seen behind them very white. The
whole winter's piles of snow lay in the ridges between the footpaths and
the road. Had it not been that some few of the buildings were of brick,
and that on one or two of the wooden ones the white paint was worn off,
the wide street would have been a picture painted only in different