"I don't know what we should have done had they kept you in Montreal altogether." Maud Barrington smiled, though there was a brightness in her eyes and a faint warmth in her cheek, for the sincerity of her uncle's welcome was evident.
"Yes," she said, "I have come back.

It was very pleasant in the city, and they were all kind to me, but I think, henceforward, I would sooner stay with you on the prairie." Colonel Barrington patted the hand he drew through his arm, and there was a very kindly smile in his eyes as they left the station and crossed the track towards a little, and by no means very comfortable, wooden hotel.

He stopped outside it.
"I want to see the horses put in and get our mail," he said.

"Mrs.
Jasper expects you and will have tea ready." He disappeared behind the wooden building, and his niece standing a moment on the veranda watched the long train roll away down the faint blur of track that ran west to the farthest verge of the great white wilderness.

Then with a little impatient gesture she went into the hotel.
"That is another leaf turned down, and there is no use looking back, but I wonder what is written on the rest," she said.
Twenty minutes later she watched Colonel Barrington cross the street with a bundle of letters in his hand.