ure to a considerable distance from water, crossing a large field, making its way into a garden, and carrying off several pods of the French bean.

In the winter time, when other food fails, the water-vole, like the hare and rabbit, will eat turnips, mangold-wurzel, the bark of young trees, and similar food. Its natural food, however, is to be found among the various aquatic plants, as I have often seen, and the harm which it does to the crops is so infinitesimally small when compared with the area of cultivated ground, that it is not worthy of notice.

Still, although the harm which it does to civilised man in the aggregate is but small, even its most friendly advocate cannot deny that there are cases where it has been extremely troublesome to the individual cultivator, especially if he be an amateur.

There are many hard men of business, who are obliged to spend the greater part of the day in their London offices, and who find their best relaxation in amateur gardening; those who grow vegetables, regarding their peas, beans, potatoes, and celery with as much affection as is felt by floriculturists for their roses or tulips.

Nothing is more annoying to such men than to find, when the toils of business are over, and they have settled themselves comfortably into their gardening suits, that some marauder has carried off the very vegetables on which they had prided themselves.

The water-vole has been detected in the act of climbing up a ladder which had been left standing against a plum tree, and attacking the fruit. Bunches of grapes on outdoor vines are sometimes nipped off the branches by the teeth of the water-vole, and the animal has been seen to climb beans and peas, split the pods, and devour the contents.

Although not a hibernating animal, it lays up a store of food in the autumn. Mr. Groom Napier has the following description of the contents of a water-rat's storehouse:—

"Early in the spring of 1855, I dug out the burrow of a water-vole, and was surprised to find at the further extremity a cavity of about a foot in diameter, containing a quantity of fragments of carrots and potatoes, sufficient to fill a peck measure. This was undoubtedly a part of its winter store of provisions. This food had been gathered from a large potato and carrot bed in the vicinity.

"On pointing out my discovery to the owner of the garden, he said that his losses had been very serious that winter owing to the ravages of these animals, and said that he had brought both dogs and cats down to the stream to hunt for them; but they were too wary to be often caught."

I do not think that the owner of the garden knew very much about the characters either of the cat or water-vole.

Every one who is practically acquainted with cats knows that it is next to impossible to point out an object to a cat as we can to a dog. She looks at your finger, but can never direct her gaze to the object at which you are pointing. In fact, I believe that pussy's eyes are not made for detecting objects at a distance.

If we throw a piece of biscuit to a dog, and he does not see where it has fallen, we can direct him by means of voice and finger. But, if a piece of meat should fall only a foot or two from a cat, all the pointing in the world will not enable her to discover it, and it is necessary to pick her up and put her nose close to the meat before she can find it.

So, even, if a water-vole should be seen by the master, the attention of the cat could not be directed to it, her instinct teaching her to take prey in quite a different manner.

The dogs, supposing that they happened to be of the right breed, would have a better chance of securing the robber, providing that they intercepted its retreat to the water. But if the water-vole should succeed in gaining its burrow, or in plunging into the stream, I doubt whether any dog would be able to catch it.

Moreover, the water-vole is so clever in tunnelling, that when it drives its burrows into cultivated ground, it almost invariably conceals the entrance under a heap of stones, a wood pile, or some similar object.

How it is enabled to direct the course of its burrow we cannot even conjecture, except by attributing the faculty to that "most excellent gift" which we call by the convenient name of "instinct."

Man has no such power, but when he wishes to drive a tunnel in any given direction he is obliged to avail himself of levels, compasses, plumb-lines, and all the paraphernalia of the engineer. Yet, with nothing to direct it except instinct, the water-vole can, though working in darkness, drive its burrow in any direction and emerge from the ground exactly at the spot which it has selected.

The mole can do the same, and by means equally mysterious.

I may casually mention that the water-vole is one of the aquatic animals which, when zoological knowledge was not so universal as it is at the present day, were reckoned as fish, and might be eaten on fast days. I believe that in some parts of France this idea still prevails.

With all its wariness, the water-vole is a strangely nervous creature, being for a time almost paralysed by a sudden shock. This trait of character I discovered quite unexpectedly.

Many, many years ago, when I was a young lad, and consequently of a destructive nature, I possessed a pistol, of which I was rather proud. It certainly was an excellent weapon, and I thought myself tolerably certain of hitting a small apple at twelve yards distance.

One day, while walking along the bank of the Cherwell River, I saw a water-vole on the opposite bank. The animal was sitting on a small stump close to the water's edge. Having, of course, the pistol with me, and wanting to dissect a water-vole, I proceeded to aim at the animal. This was not so easy as it looked. A water-vole crouching upon a stump presents no point at which to aim, the brown fur of the animal and the brown surface of the old weather-beaten stump seeming to form a single object without any distinct outline; moreover, it is very difficult to calculate distances over water. However, I fired, and missed.

I naturally expected the animal to plunge into the river and escape. To my astonishment, it remained in the same position. Finding that it did not stir, I reloaded, and again fired and missed. Four times did I fire at that water-vole, and after the last shot the animal slowly crawled off the stump, slid into the river, and made off.

Now in those days revolvers and breech-loaders did not exist, so that the process of loading a pistol with ball was rather a long and complicated one.

First, the powder had to be carefully measured from the flask; then a circular patch of greased linen had to be laid on the muzzle of the weapon, and a ball laid on it and hammered into the barrel with a leaden or wooden mallet; then it had to be driven into its place with a ramrod (often requiring the aid of the mallet), and, lastly, there was a new cap to be fitted. Yet although so much time was occupied between the shots, the animal remained as motionless as a stuffed figure.

When I crossed the river and examined the stump I found all the four bullets close together just below the spot on which the animal had been sitting, and neither of them two inches from its body. Although the balls had missed the water-vole, they must have sharply jarred the stump.

I was afterwards informed that this semi-paralysis from sudden fear is a known characteristic of the animal. It seems to be shared by others of the same genus, as will be seen when we come to treat of the field mice.

In its mode of eating it much resembles the squirrels, sitting on its haunches and holding the food in its forepaws, as if they were hands. I am not aware that it even eats worms or insects, and it may be absolutely acquitted from any imputation of doing harm to any of the fish tribe.

(To be continued.)

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aid, with a shake of the head. "I guess I wouldn't chance it."

She tried another way. She was sure of her happiness now; she could play with it a little longer.

"You'll write to me now and then, and tell me how you're getting on, won't you?"

"Will you care to know?" he asked quickly.

"Why, yes, of course I shall."

"Well," he said, throwing back his head proudly, "I'll write and tell you if I'm making good. If I ain't, I guess I shan't feel much like writing."

"But you will make good, Frank. I know you well enough for that."

"Do you?" His tone was grateful.

"I have learned to—to respect you during these months we've lived together. You have taught me a great deal. All sorts of qualities which I used to think of great value seem unimportant to me now. I have changed my ideas about many things."

"We have each learned something, I guess," he said generously.

Nora gave him a grateful glance. He stood for a moment at the far end of the room and watched her roll up the socks she had just darned. How neat and deft she was. After all, there was something in being a lady, as Mrs. Sharp had said. Neither she nor Gertie, both capable women, could do things in quite the same way that Nora did.

Oh, why had she come into his life at all! She had given him the taste for knowledge, for better things of all sorts; and now she was going away, going away forever. He had no illusions about her ever returning. Not she, once she had escaped from a life she hated. Had she not just said as much when she said that the shack had seemed like a prison to her?

And now, in place of going on in the old way that had always seemed good enough to him before he knew anything better, mulling about, getting his own meals, with only one thought, one ambition in the world—the success of his crops and the acquisition of more land that he might some day in the dim future have a few thousands laid by—he would always be wanting something he could never get without her: more knowledge of the things that made life fuller and wider and broader, the things that she prized and had known from her childhood.

It was cruel and unfair of her to have awakened the desire in him only to abandon him. To have held the cup of knowledge to his lips for one brief instant and then leave him to go through life with his thirst unslaked! Not that she was intentionally cruel. No, he thought he knew all of her little faults of temper and of pride by this. Her heart was too kindly to let her wound him knowingly, witness her tenderness to poor Mrs. Sharp only this afternoon. But it hurt, none the less. She had said that she had not known he wanted love. How should she have guessed it?

But the real thing that tortured him most was the fact that he wanted her, her, her. She had been his, his woman. No other woman in this broad earth could take her place.

A little sound like a groan escaped him.

"You'll think of me sometimes, my girl, won't you?" he said huskily.

"I don't suppose I shall be able to help it." She smiled at him over her shoulder, as she crossed the room to restore her basket to its place.

"I was an ignorant, uneducated man. I didn't know how to treat you properly. I wanted to make you happy, but I didn't seem to know just how to do it."

"You've never been unkind to me, Frank. You've been very patient with me!"

"I guess you'll be happier away from me, though. And I'll be able to think that you're warm and comfortable and at home, and that you've plenty to eat."

"Do you think that's all I want?" she suddenly flashed at him.

He gave her a quick glance and looked away immediately.

"I couldn't expect you to stay on here, not when you've got a chance of going back to the old country. This life is all new to you. You know that one."

"Oh, yes, I know it: I should think I did!" She gave a little mirthless laugh, and went over to her chair again.

"At eight o'clock every morning a maid will bring me tea and hot water. And I shall get up, and I shall have breakfast. And, presently, I shall interview the cook, and I shall order luncheon and dinner. And I shall brush the coats of Mrs. Hubbard's little dogs and take them for a walk on the common. All the paths on the common are asphalted, so that elderly gentlemen and lady's companions shan't get their feet wet."

"Gee, what a life!"

She hardly gave him time for his exclamation. As she went on, mirth, scorn, hatred and dismay came into her voice, but she was unconscious of it. For the moment, everything else was forgotten but the vivid picture which memory conjured up for her and which she so graphically described.

"And then, I shall come in and lunch, and after luncheon I shall go for a drive: one day we will turn to the right and one day we will turn to the left. And then I shall have tea. And then I shall go out again on the neat asphalt paths to give the dogs another walk. And then I shall change my dress and come down to dinner. And after dinner I shall play bezique with my employer; only I must take care not to beat her, because she doesn't like being beaten. And at ten o'clock I shall go to bed."

A wave of stifling recollection choked her for a moment so that she could not go on. Presently she had herself once more in hand.

"At eight o'clock next morning a maid will bring in my tea and hot water, and the day will begin again. Each day will be like every other day. And, can you believe it, there are hundreds of women in England, strong and capable, with red blood in their veins, who would be eager to get this place which is offered to me. Almost a lady—and thirty-five pounds a year!"

She did not look toward him, or she would have seen a look of wonder, of comprehension and of hope pass in turn over his face.

"It seems a bit different from the life you've had here," he said, looking out through the open doorway as if to point his meaning.

"And you," she said, turning her eyes upon him, "you will be clearing the scrub, cutting down trees, plowing the land, sowing and reaping. Every day you will be fighting something, frost, hail or weed. You will be fighting and I will know that you must conquer in the end. Where was wilderness will be cultivated land. And who knows what starving child may eat the bread that has been made from the wheat that you have grown! My life will be ineffectual and utterly useless, while yours——"

"What do you mean? Nora, Nora!" he said more to himself than to her.

"While I was talking to Mrs. Sharp just now, I didn't know what I was saying. I was just trying to comfort her when she was crying. And it seemed to me as if someone else was speaking. And I listened to myself. I thought I hated the prairie through the long winter months, and yet, somehow, it has taken hold of me. It was dreary and monotonous, and yet, I can't tear it out of my heart. There's beauty and a romance about it which fills my very soul with longing."

"I guess we all hate the prairie sometimes. But when you've once lived on it, it ain't easy to live anywhere else."

"I know the life now. It's not adventurous and exciting, as they think back home. For men and women alike, it's the same hard work from morning till night, and I know it's the women who bear the greater burden."

"The men go into the towns, they have shooting, now and then, and the changing seasons bring variety in their work; but for the women it's always the same weary round: cooking, washing, sweeping, mending, in regular and ceaseless rotation. And yet it's all got a meaning. We, too, have our part in opening up the country. We are its mothers, and the future is in us. We are building up the greatness of the nation. It needs our courage and strength and hope, and because it needs them, they come to us. Oh, Frank, I can't go back to that petty, narrow life! What have you done to me?"

"I guess if I asked you to stay now, you'd stay," he said hoarsely.

"You said you wanted love."—The lovely color flooded her face.—"Didn't you see? Love has been growing in me slowly, month by month, and I wouldn't confess it. I told myself I hated you. It's only to-day, when I had the chance of leaving you forever, that I knew I couldn't live without you. I'm not ashamed any more. Frank, my husband, I love you."

He made a stride forward as if to take her in his arms, and then stopped short, smitten by a recollection.

"I—I guess I've loved you from the beginning, Nora," he stammered.

She had risen to her feet and stood waiting him with shining eyes.

"But why do you say it as if——What is it, Frank?"

"I can't ask you to stay on now; I guess you'll have to take that job in England, for a while, anyway."

"Why?"

"The inspector's condemned my whole crop; I'm busted."

"Oh, why didn't you tell me!"

"I just guess I couldn't. I made up my mind when I married you that I'd make good. I couldn't expect you to see that it was just bad luck. Anyone may get the weed in his crop. But, I guess a man oughtn't to have bad luck. The odds are that it's his own fault if he has."

"Ah, now I understand about your sending for Eddie."

"I wrote to him when I knew I'd been reported."

"But what are you going to do?"

"It's all right about me; I can hire out again. It's you I'm thinking of. I felt pretty sure you wouldn't go back to Ed's. I don't fancy you taking a position as lady help. I didn't know what was going to become of you, my girl. And when you told me of the job you'd been offered in England, I thought I'd have to let you go."

"Without letting me know you were in trouble!"

"Why, if I wasn't smashed up, d'you think I'd let you go? By God, I wouldn't! I'd have kept you. By God, I'd have kept you!"

"Then you're going to give up the land," she made a sweeping gesture which took in the prospect without.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I guess I can't do that. I've put too much work in it. And I've got my back up, now. I shall hire out for the summer, and next winter I can get work lumbering. The land's my own, now. I'll come back in time for the plowing next year."

He had been gazing sadly out of the door as he spoke. He turned to her now ready to bring her what comfort he could. But in place of the tearful face he had expected to see, he saw a face radiant with joy and the light of love. In her hand was a little slip of colored paper which she held out to him.

"Look!"

"What's that?"

"The nephew of the lady I was with so long—Miss Wickham, you know—has made me a present of it. Five hundred pounds. That's twenty-five hundred dollars, isn't it? You can take the quarter-section you've wanted so long, next to this one. You can get all the machinery you need. And"—she gave a little, happy, mirthful laugh—"you can get some cows! I've learned to do so many things, I guess I can learn to milk, if you'll teach me and be very, very patient about it. Anyway, it's yours to do what you like with. Now, will you keep me?"

"Oh, my girl, how shall I ever be able to repay you!"

"Good Heavens, I don't want thanks! There's nothing in all the world so wonderful as to be able to give to one you love. Frank, won't you kiss me?"

He folded her in his arms.

"I guess it's the first time you ever asked me to do that!"

"I'm sure I'm the happiest woman in all the world!" she said happily.

As they stood in the doorway, he with his arm about her, they saw Eddie coming up the path toward them.

Marsh's honest face, never a good mask for hiding his feelings, wore an expression of bewildered astonishment at their lovelike attitude.

"It's all right, old dear," said Nora with a happy laugh; "don't try to understand it, you're only a man. But I'm not going back to England, to Mrs. Hubbard and her horrid little dogs; I'm going to stay right here. This overgrown baby has worked on my feelings by pretending that he needs me."

"And now, if you'll be good enough to hurry Reggie a little, we'll all have some supper; it's long past the proper time."

And as she bustled about her preparations, her brother heard her singing one of the long-ago songs of their childhood.

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