but she was away much with an aunt in the West, and she was sent to
boarding-school, and they saw each other only at intervals. She liked
him and showed it, but he was not ready to go farther. As yet his art
was everything to him, and he did not think of marriage. He was care-
free. He had a little money of his own, left by an uncle of his mother,
and he had also an allowance from his mother--none from his father--and
he was satisfied with life.

His brother, Fabian, being the elder, by five years, had gone into his
father's business as a partner, and had remained there. Fabian had at
last married an elder sister of Junia Shale and settled down in a house
on the hill, and the lumber-king, John Grier, went on building up his
splendid business.

At last, Carnac, feeling he was making small headway with his painting,
determined to go again to New York and Paris. He had already spent a
year in each place and it had benefited him greatly. So, with that
sudden decision which marked his life, he started for New York. It was
immediately after the New Year and the ground was covered with snow. He
looked out of the window of the train, and there was only the long line
of white country broken by the leafless trees and rail-fences and the
mansard-roofs and low cottages with their stoops, built up with earth to
keep them warm; and the sheds full of cattle; and here and there a
sawmill going hard, and factories pounding away and men in fur coats
driving the small Indian ponies; and the sharp calls of the men with the
sleigh bringing wood, or meat, or vegetables to market. He was by nature
a queer compound of Radical and Conservative, a victim of vision and
temperament. He was full of pride, yet fuller of humility of a real
kind. As he left Montreal he thought of Junia Shale, and he recalled the
day eleven years before when he had worn brass-toed boots, and he had