Daisy presently ceased from play and, under the sway of a wave of recollection, leaned back and looked about her. The sundance of her spirits, that in the old days had made summer of every season, had not been able to thaw the frost of surliness about the Nixon home. Not then; but now, it seemed, things were different. Ever since that understanding which had been arrived at in the Ware library, between Sir William and John Nixon, the farmer seemed to have opened out, changed--ratchetted back, as it were, to play over again his tune of life with a merrier lilt. The young wife had often sensed vaguely the power which proceeded from this friendly philosophy which was at the root of, and gave point and purpose to, all her husband's thoughts, words and actions; but the change in her fosterfather gave her the first striking and definite illustration of its effect. "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity." CHAPTER XXIV. A WESTERN WILD MAN. "Now, what do you suppose that is?" Sir William Ware remarked, cocking his head a little as, stepping alongside John Nixon up Toddburn's main street, he approached the hotel door. The two had come into town with a load of wheat, which had been duly hoppered and weighed at the elevator. The team had been put in the livery stable, and the bell of the Toddburn House had just given intimation that dinner was "on". "Oh, nothin'," replied John Nixon, although he smiled a little, "nothin' at all, Eng--Bill." "Quite so," Ware commented, glancing at something long which moved and vociferated inside the hotel window, "but don't you think, Nixon, that it's a bit loud for nothing at all?" "Well," conceded Nixon, as they went up the steps, "when I say 'nothin' at all', Bill, I mean it's something special. You ain't got used to us Canadians yet, I see. In other words, the occasion of yon rumpus is Long Tom Mewha. He's gittin' tanked up." "Yeow-e-wow-e-yippyhoo!" Mr. Mewha was remarking, his arm rib-crackingly about a less tall friend, as Nixon and Ware entered the hall of the Toddburn House, "Rip, slam, razzaberry jam! We don't care--do we, Joe. Whoa, you son of a moose, whoa!" This last as Joe coyly but vigorously endeavored to twist himself loose from the sociable arm. "I'll turn you over my knee, an' spank you, Joe," Mr. Mewha reproved, pointing his words with a mighty slap that lifted Joe off his feet, "if you don't set still. We-e-ell--look who's with us!" Long Tom--flinging away the unsteady Joe, who fetched up against the wall, eight feet away, with a window-rattling bang--turned to face Ware, who had just come through the hall door into the room. "English!" he half-sung, "English, frum his scalp-lock to his moccasin-toes. Come here to me, English!"