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“How fearfully matter-of-fact you are,” answered Fanny. “I tell you I do not like matter-of-fact people. If you had been a soldier or sailor, and had fought the battles of your country, and got wounded, and obtained a number of medals for your gallantry, I might possibly have felt differently towards you.”

“But I have had no opportunity of doing anything of the sort,” urged Frank Carlton. “I came out here to form an estate, and I have succeeded in what I undertook, while a number of other persons with similar opportunities have failed. I do not say this for the sake of boasting, but simply as a fact which is certainly not discreditable.”

“Humdrum,” answered the young lady, half to herself. “Numbers have done as well.”

“So they have,” said Frank Carlton, “and are married and settled, and have every reason to be thankful that they came to the country.”

“Well, Mr Carlton, there is no use carrying on the conversation further,” exclaimed Fanny: “You ask me to give you my heart and hand; I frankly confess I have no inclination to do so.”

“But, surely, you have led me to suppose you would,” said Frank, in a tone of reproach.

“That was when I did not think you in earnest,” said Fanny. “If you had said this before, I should have given you an answer which might then have satisfied you.”

“Nothing will satisfy me but `yes,'” said Frank, “for I believe that you have more sense than you pretend to have.”

“That is to say, you think I have sense enough to love you,” said Fanny, still in a tone of banter. “We part as friends, however, and if you insist on coming to call upon my sister, Mrs Barton, of course I cannot help it, only do not for a moment suppose that I give you any encouragement.”

Frank Carlton, having graduated at Oxford, had come out a few years before to set up as a farmer in Canada. He had enjoyed the advantage of studying under a Scotch farmer for a year, and this gave him more knowledge of agricultural affairs than is possessed by many of the young men who go out to settle. He had also given his mind to the work, and what was of great importance, had withstood the temptations to idleness into which so many fall. He was also a man of refined tastes and habits, which he did not allow the rough life of a settler to make him abandon. Captain and Mrs Barton were among his nearest neighbours. He had been for some time a constant visitor at the house, and two little boys, the children of Mrs Barton, were his especial favourites.

Fanny Aveling had, the year before, come out from England, and not long after her arrival Frank Carlton began to reflect that his house would be in a far better condition than it was at the present, if he could place a mistress at its head. He had had no reason to suppose that Miss Aveling was indifferent towards him, until the day on which the conversation which has been described took place. He was still, it must be owned, somewhat in doubt about the matter. He did not suppose that she cared for anybody else; indeed he knew of no visitor at the house likely to have won her affections. He therefore, as most men would have done under similar circumstances, lived on in the hope of ultimately winning her. Still, week after week passed, and though he made frequent visits to Captain Barton’s, Miss Aveling’s manner towards him remained totally unchanged. At length, sanguine as he was, he began to fear that he had misplaced his affections. He also grew distant in his manner towards her, and he seldom paid a visit to the house of his former friends.