Bessie Marchant
A Countess from Canada
A Story of Life in the Backwoods
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664602602
Table of Contents
CHAP.
I. BEYOND THE SECOND PORTAGE II. A CURIOUS ACCIDENT III. OUTWITTING THE ENEMY IV. A NIGHT OF ROUGH WORK V. A SACRED CONFIDENCE VI. BUSINESS BOTHERS VII. ANOTHER CLUE VIII. THE FIRST RAIN IX. THE FLOOD X. THE STRANGER PROVES A FRIEND IN NEED XI. A WOMAN OF BUSINESS XII. THE FIRST OF THE FISHING XIII. MARY XIV. WOULD THEY BE FRIENDS? XV. MR. SELINCOURT IS INDISCREET XVI. "WE MUST BE FRIENDS!" XVII. 'DUKE RADFORD'S NEW FRIEND XVIII. STANDING ASIDE XIX. AN AWKWARD FIX XX. KATHERINE MAKES A DISCOVERY XXI. MATTER FOR HEARTACHE XXII. A BUSINESS XXIII. THE MAJORITY DECIDES XXIV. MR. SELINCOURT IS CONFIDENTIAL XXV. THE RIFT IN THE CLOUDS XXVI. FIGHTING THE STORM XXVII. A BEARER OF EVIL TIDINGS XXVIII. THE GLADNESS XXIX. WINTER AGAIN XXX. PREPARATIONS XXXI. THE WEDDING
Illustrations
The Rescue of Jarvis Ferrars
'Duke Radford Meets with an Accident
Katherine and Miles Spearing for Fish
"With all her strength Katherine hauled at the rope"
Bartering with the Indians
Drifting Down the River
CHAPTER I
Beyond the Second Portage
"Oh dear, how I should love to go out!"
Katherine Radford stretched her arms wearily above her head as she spoke. There had been five days of persistent snowfall; but this morning the clouds had broken, showing strips and patches of blue sky, and there was bright sunshine flooding the world again, with hard and sparkling frost.
"Why don't you go?" demanded Phil, who was the youngest. "Miles and me don't mind having a holiday at all."
"Speak for yourself if you like," growled Miles, who was thirteen; "but I want to get this schooling business over and done with, so that I can start doing something useful."
"And speak grammatically, please, or else keep silent. You should have said, 'Miles and I'," remarked Katherine with quite crushing dignity, as she turned from the window to take her place at the table once more. Phil thrust his tongue in his cheek, after the manner beloved of small boys, and subsided into silence and an abstracted study of his spelling book.
The schoolroom was a small chamber, partitioned off from the store by a wall of boards so thin that all conversation about buying and selling, with the gossip of the countryside thrown in, was plainly audible to the pupils, whose studies suffered in consequence. The stovepipe from the store went through this room, keeping it comfortably warm, and in winter 'Duke Radford and the boys slept there, because it was so terribly cold in the loft.
Katherine had come home from college in July, determined to teach school all winter, and to make a success of it, too, in a most unpromising part of the world. But even the most enthusiastic teacher must fail to get on if there are no scholars to teach, and at present she had only Miles and Phil, her two brothers, as pupils. This was most trying to Katherine's patience, for, of course, if there had only been pupils enough, she could have had a properly constituted school, and a salary also. She might even have had a regular