Mault of Fort George, ten days beyond either, all grizzled in the
Company's service. With them came their clerks, mostly English and
Scotch younger sons, with a vast respect for the Company, and a
vaster for their Factor's daughter. Once in two or three years
appeared the inspectors from Winnipeg, true lords of the North, with
their six-fathom canoes, their luxurious furs, their red banners
trailing like gonfalons in the water. Then this post of Conjuror's
House feasted and danced, undertook gay excursions, discussed in
public or private conclave weighty matters, grave and reverend
advices, cautions, and commands. They went. Desolation again crept in.

The girl dreamed. She was trying to remember. Far-off, half-forgotten
visions of brave, courtly men, of gracious, beautiful women, peopled
the clouds of her imaginings. She heard them again, as voices beneath
the roar of rapids, like far-away bells tinkling faintly through a
wind, pitying her, exclaiming over her; she saw them dim and
changing, as wraiths of a fog, as shadow pictures in a mist beneath
the moon, leaning to her with bright, shining eyes full of compassion
for the little girl who was to go so far away into an unknown land;
she felt them, as the touch of a breeze when the night is still,
fondling her, clasping her, tossing her aloft in farewell. One she
felt plainly--a gallant youth who held her up for all to see. One she
saw clearly--a dewy-eyed, lovely woman who murmured loving, broken
words. One she heard distinctly--a gentle voice that said, "God's love
be with you, little one, for you have far to go, and many days to pass
before you see Quebec again." And the girl's eyes suddenly swam
bright, for the northland was very dreary. She threw her palms out in
a gesture of weariness.

Then her arms dropped, her eyes widened, her head bent forward in the