Fifty years ago, wolves and bears, and buffaloes--twelve years ago even, the great movement had not begun--and now, every week, a new town!--the new nation spreading, spreading over the open land, irresistibly, silently; no one setting bounds to it, no one knowing what will come of it!" She checked herself.

Her voice had been subdued, but there was a tremor in it.

Delaine caught her up, rather helplessly.
"Ah! isn't that the point?
What will come of it?
Numbers and size aren't everything.

Where is it all tending ?" She looked up at him, still exalted, still flushed, and said softly, as though she could not help it, "'On to the bound of the waste--on to the City of God!'" He gazed at her in discomfort.

Here was an Elizabeth Merton he had yet to know.