When the clouds had faded to a low, pale bank of receding vapour behind the forest, the aspect of the night changed. It grew more distinctly dark, less unreal and shadowy, while the stars seemed to shine more brilliantly in consequence. But the faint bird-calls, the elfin pipings, still floated down from the hushed heights of air. The quiet, the calm, the slow stately ascension of the stars were already soothing Dick. A meteor fell with a curious, leisurely slide, from the midst of the heavens to the outermost darkness upon the horizon. He remembered how, when he and Stephanie had been children, they used to watch for the falling stars, so that they might wish their dearest wish upon seeing them. "After all," he said to himself with a sudden rush of tenderness, "my greatest wish is to see her as happy as she deserves to be. Roger's a good fellow, and I should be a selfish brute if I let my moping ways sadden her, God bless her!" Even this little thought showed how great a change had taken place in Dick's character. His thoughts turned to the limitless prairies of richest soil, to the untouched forests, to the wide beauty of lake and river, to all those fair pictures of the wilderness graven upon his heart. He thought of the clear skies, of the stinging cold, of the splendour of summer, of the fulfilment of the fall. He thought, with new insight, of the meaning hidden beneath the round of farmer's toil which now held him, of the results of that labour which he had at first given so grudgingly, of the great purpose, the divine symbolism, which may make agriculture the highest of all occupations, the most far-reaching of all labours. And then as he leant over the little gate, with eyes as dreamy as of old, some vision of a possible future did come to him. Dimly, as dreams must go, he saw towns arising beside those rivers, and chimneys sending the smoke of peaceful hearts across those radiant skies. Not much he saw; but it was enough to make him say in his soul with the man of ancient days: "The lot is fallen unto me in a fairground; yea, I have a goodly heritage." A goodly heritage indeed, O Dick, as we of later generation know. Though you knew it not, the unloved toil you faced so well went to the building of a nation. In a fair ground the lot had fallen unto you, and, standing there in the darkness, you realised the possibilities of that lot for the first time. You realised that the beauty of the wilderness must give way, and rightfully, before the wants of man; that the splendour of freedom is less than the splendour of toil; and that it lay in your hands to do your part towards the building of a future for that fair country, which hitherto you had loved ignorantly. Yet, standing there beneath the still, bright stars, Dick did no more than say to himself, "It 's a fine land! A fine land! And I 'm glad I 'm in a new country, and not in an old one."