Winning slowly, holding grimly, they were
moving on, while secure in its patrician tranquillity; Silverdale stood
still, and Maud Barrington smiled curiously as she glanced down at the
long white robe that clung very daintily about her and then towards her
companions in the tennis field. Her apparel had cost many dollars in
Montreal, and there was a joyous irresponsibility in the faces of those
she watched.
"It is a little unequal, isn't it, aunt?" she said. "One feels
inclined to wonder what we have done that we should have exemption from
the charge laid upon the first tiller of the soil that we, and the men
who are plodding through the dust there, are descended from."
Miss Barrington laughed a little as she glanced with a nod of
comprehension at the distant toilers, and more gravely towards the net.
Merry voices came up to her through the shadows of the trees as English
lad and English maiden, lissom and picturesque in many-hued jackets and
light dresses, flitted across the little square of velvet green. The
men had followed the harrow and seeder a while that morning. Some of
them, indeed, had for a few hours driven a team, and then left the rest
to the hired hands, for the stress and sweat of effort that was to turn
the wilderness into a granary was not for such as they.
"Don't you think it is all made up to those others?" she asked.
"In one sense--yes," said the girl. "Of course, one can see that all
effort must have its idealistic aspect, and there may be men who find
their compensation in the thrill of the fight, and the knowledge of
work well done when they rest at night.
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