The idea of coming a thousand miles on your first visit to your friends, some of whom you have not seen for eight years and staying three days!""You see Papa is on his way to Banff," explained Jane, "and then he goes to the coast and he only has a short time. So we could plan only for three days here.""We can plan better than that," said Larry confidently, "but never mind just now. We shall settle that to-morrow."The journey home was given to the careful recital of news of Winnipeg, of the 'Varsity, and of mutual friends. It was like listening to the reading of a diary to hear Jane bring up to date the doings and goings and happenings in the lives of their mutual friends for the past year. Gossip it was, but of such kindly nature as left no unpleasant taste in the mouth and gave no unpleasant picture of any living soul it touched.
"Oh, who do you think came to see me two weeks ago? An old friend of yours, Hazel Sleighter. Mrs. Phillips she is now. She has two lovely children. Mr. Phillips is in charge of a department in Eaton's store.""You don't tell me," cried Larry. "How is dear Hazel? How I loved her once! I wonder where her father is and Tom and the little girl. What was her name?""Ethel May. Oh, she is married too, in your old home, to Ben--somebody."
"Ben, big Ben Hopper? Why, think of that kid married.""She is just my age," said Jane soberly, glad of the dusk of the falling night. She would have hated to have Larry see the quick flush that came to her cheek. Why the reference to Ethel May's marriage should have made her blush she hardly knew, and that itself was enough to annoy her, for Jane always knew exactly why she did things.
"And Mr. and Mrs. Sleighter," said Jane, continuing her narrative, "have gone to Toronto. They have become quite wealthy, Hazel says, and Tom is with his father in some sort of financial business.
What is it, Papa?"
Dr. Brown suddenly waked up. "What is what, my dear? You will have to forgive me. This wonderful scenery, these hills here and those mountains are absorbing my whole attention. So wonderful it all is that I hardly feel like apologising to Mrs. Waring-Gaunt for ignoring her.""Don't think of it," said Mrs. Waring-Gaunt.
"Do you know, Jane," continued Dr. Brown, "that at this present moment you are passing through scenery of its kind unsurpassed possibly in the world?""I was talking to Larry, Papa," said Jane, and they all laughed at her.
"I was talking to Jane," said Larry.
"But look at this world about you," continued her father, "and look, do look at the moon coming up behind you away at the prairie rim." They all turned about except Mrs. Waring-Gaunt, whose eyes were glued to the two black ruts before her cutting through the grass. "Oh, wonderful, wonderful," breathed Dr. Brown. "Would it be possible to pause, Mrs. Waring-Gaunt, at the top of this rise?""No," said Mrs. Waring-Gaunt, "but at the top of the rise beyond, where you will get the full sweep of the country in both directions.""Is that where we get your lake, Nora," inquired Jane, "and the valley beyond up to the mountains?""How do you know?" said Nora.
"I remember Larry told me once," she said.
"That's the spot," said Nora. "But don't look around now. Wait until you are told.""Papa," said Jane in a quiet, matter-of-fact voice, "what is it that Tom is doing?" Larry shouted.
"Tom, what Tom? Jane, my dear," said Dr. Brown in a pained voice, "does Tom matter much or any one else in the midst of all this glory?""I think so, Papa," said Jane firmly. "You matter, don't you?
Everybody matters. Besides, we were told not to look until we reached the top.""Well, Jane, you are an incorrigible Philistine," said her father, "and I yield. Tom's father is a broker, and Tom is by way of being a broker too, though I doubt if he is broking very much. May Idismiss Tom for a few minutes now?" Again they all laughed.
"I don't see what you are all laughing at," said Jane, and lapsed into silence.
"Now then," cried Nora, "in three minutes."
At the top of the long, gently rising hill the motor pulled up, purring softly. They all stood up and gazed around about them.
"Look back," commanded Nora. "It is fifty miles to that prairie rim there." From their feet the prairie spread itself in long softly undulating billows to the eastern horizon, the hollows in shadow, the crests tipped with the silver of the rising moon. Here and there wreaths of mist lay just above the shadow lines, giving a ghostly appearance to the hills. "Now look this way," said Nora, and they turned about. Away to the west in a flood of silvery light the prairie climbed by abrupt steps, mounting ever higher over broken rocky points and rocky ledges, over bluffs of poplar and dark masses of pine and spruce, up to the grey, bare sides of the mighty mountains, up to their snow peaks gleaming elusive, translucent, faintly discernible against the blue of the sky. In the valley immediately at their feet the waters of the little lake gleamed like a polished shield set in a frame of ebony. "That's our lake," said Nora, "with our house just behind it in the woods.
And nearer in that little bluff is Mrs. Waring-Gaunts home.""Papa," said Jane softly, "we must not keep Mrs. Waring-Gaunt.""Thank you, Jane," said Mrs. Waring-Gaunt. "I fear I must go on.""Don't you love it?" inquired Larry enthusiastically and with a touch of impatience in his voice.
"Oh, yes, it is lovely," said Jane.
"But, Jane, you will not get wild over it," said Larry.
"Get wild? I love it, really I do. But why should I get wild over it. Oh, I know you think, and Papa thinks, that I am awful. He says I have no poetry in me, and perhaps he is right."In a few minutes the car stopped at the door of Mrs. Waring-Gaunt's house. "I shall just run in for a moment," said Mrs. Waring-Gaunt.
"Kathleen will want to see you, and perhaps will go home with you.
I shall send her out."
