The Lakeside House, substantially built of logs, with "frame"kitchen attached, stood cosily among the clump of trees, poplar and spruce, locally described as a bluff. The bluff ran down to the little lake a hundred yards away, itself an expansion of Wolf Willow Creek. The whitewashed walls gleaming through its festoons of Virginia creeper, a little lawn bordered with beds filled with hollyhocks, larkspur, sweet-william and other old-fashioned flowers and flanked by a heavy border of gorgeous towering sunflowers, gave a general air, not only of comfort and thrift, but of refinement as well, too seldom found in connection with the raw homesteads of the new western country.
At a little distance from the house, at the end of a lane leading through the bluff, were visible the stables, granary and other outhouses, with corral attached.
Within, the house fulfilled the promise of its external appearance and surroundings. There was dignity without stiffness, comfort without luxury, simplicity without any suggestion of the poverty that painfully obtrudes itself.
At the open window whose vine shade at once softened the light and invited the summer airs, sat Mrs. Gwynne, with her basket of mending at her side. Eight years of life on an Alberta ranch had set their mark upon her. The summers' suns and winters' frosts and the eternal summer and winter winds had burned and browned the soft, fair skin of her earlier days. The anxieties inevitable to the struggle with poverty had lined her face and whitened her hair.
But her eyes shone still with the serene light of a soul that carries within it the secret of triumph over the carking cares of life.
Seated beside her was her eldest daughter Kathleen, sewing; and stretched upon the floor lay Nora, frankly idle and half asleep, listening to the talk of the other two. Their talk turned upon the theme never long absent from their thought--that of ways and means.
"Tell you what, Mummie," droned Nora, lazily extending her lithe young body to its utmost limits, "there is a simple way out of our never ending worries, namely, a man, a rich man, if handsome, so much the better, but rich he must be, for Kathleen. They say they are hanging round the Gateway City of the West in bunches. How about it, Kate?""My dear Nora," gently chided her mother, "I wish you would not talk in that way. It is not quite nice. In my young days--""In your young days I know just exactly what happened, Mother.
There was always a long queue of eligible young men dangling after the awfully lovely young Miss Meredith, and before she was well out of her teens the gallant young Gwynne carried her off.""We never talked about those things, my dear," said her mother, shaking her head at her.
"You didn't need to, Mother."
"Well, if it comes to that, Nora," said her sister, "I don't think you need to, very much, either. You have only got to look at--""Halt!" cried Nora, springing to her feet. "But seriously, Mother dear, I think we can weather this winter right enough. Our food supply is practically visible. We have oats enough for man and beast, a couple of pigs to kill, a steer also, not to speak of chickens and ducks. We shall have some cattle to sell, and if our crops are good we ought to be able to pay off those notes. Oh, why will Dad buy machinery?""My dear," said her mother with gentle reproach, "your father says machinery is cheaper than men and we really cannot do without machines.""That's all right, Mother. I'm not criticising father. He is a perfect dear and I am awfully glad he has got that Inspectorship.""Yes," replied her mother, "your father is suited to his new work and likes it. And Larry will be finishing his college this year, I think. And he has earned it too," continued the mother. "When I think of all he has done and how generously he has turned his salary into the family fund, and how often he has been disappointed--" Here her voice trembled a little.
Nora dropped quickly to her knees, taking her mother in her arms.
"Don't we all know, Mother, what he has done? Shall I ever forget those first two awful years, the winter mornings when he had to get up before daylight to get the house warm, and that awful school.
Every day he had to face it, rain, sleet, or forty below. How often I have watched him in the school, always so white and tired.
But he never gave up. He just would not give up. And when those big boys were unruly--I could have killed those boys--he would always keep his temper and joke and jolly them into good order.
And all the time I knew how terribly his head was aching. What are you sniffling about, Kate?""I think it was splendid, just splendid, Nora," cried Kathleen, swiftly wiping away her tears. "But I can't help crying, it was all so terrible. He never thought of himself, and year after year he gave up his money--""Hello!" cried a voice at the door. "Who gave up his money and to whom and is there any more around?" His eye glanced around the group. "What's up, people? Mummie, are these girls behaving badly? Let me catch them at it!" The youth stood smiling down upon them. His years in the West had done much for him. He was still slight, but though his face was pale and his body thin, his movements suggested muscular strength and sound health. He had not grown handsome. His features were irregular, mouth wide, cheek bones prominent, ears large; yet withal there was a singular attractiveness about his appearance and manner. His eyes were good; grey-blue, humorous, straight-looking eyes they were, deep set under overhanging brows, and with a whimsical humour ever lingering about them; over the eyes a fore-head, broad, suggesting intellect, and set off by heavy, waving, dark hair.
