good deal, but I have only left out two, the boys who
came between Abby and Stella. In their names the
contemporary observer need not be too acute to discover
both an avowal and to some extent an enforcement of Mr
Murchison's political views; neither an Alexander Mackenzie
nor an Oliver Mowat could very well grow up into anything
but a sound Liberal in that part of the world without
feeling himself an unendurable paradox. To christen a
baby like that was, in a manner, a challenge to public
attention; the faint relaxation about the lips of Dr
Drummond--the best of the Liberals himself, though he
made a great show of keeping it out of the pulpit--
recognized this, and the just perceptible stir of the
congregation proved it. Sonorously he said it. "Oliver
Mowat, I baptize thee in the Name of the Father--" The
compliment should have all the impressiveness the rite
could give it, while the Murchison brothers and sisters,
a-row in the family pew, stood on one foot with excitement
as to how Oliver Mowat would take the drops that defined
him. The verdict was, on the way home, that he behaved
splendidly. Alexander Mackenzie, the year before, had
roared.

He was weeping now, at the age of seven, silently, but
very copiously, behind the woodpile. His father had
finally cuffed him for importunity; and the world was no
place for a just boy, who asked nothing but his rights.
Only the woodpile, friendly mossy logs unsplit, stood
inconscient and irresponsible for any share in his black
circumstances; and his tears fell among the lichens of