“I don’t know why any of them should be stuck up, I’m sure,” Mattie burst out before she had time to think,--“folks as didn’t make good over here, and thought another country’d likely do the job!” “Why, that’s what Jessie says, Mrs. Kirkby!” Dolly said, looking at her now, and with definite surprise. “Leaving their country for their country’s good, is how _she_ puts it. But I didn’t look to hear you saying the same, and with your folks doing so well an’ all! “Some on ’em,” she continued, before Mattie could find breath to speak again, “make out they were that swell at home you’d likely think as they’d have brought their coronets with them! There’s some Madisons, she says, from over Witham way, as is that full of themselves they can hardly walk. They tell folks they had a big farm over here, with a pedigree herd of the best; whereas everybody knows they had nothing but a milk-round as was more like a water-round, by a deal!” But Mattie had had more than she could bear for the time being of Jessie’s depressing reflections. A fresh picture of Canada was forming before her eyes, blotting out the fine-hued image which she had made for her own enchantment. Already its glamour was blurred beneath Jessie’s touch, as frost-traceries are blurred by the rub of a rough finger. She was appalled, too, by her sudden, contemptuous speech, with its astonishing infidelity to her past beliefs. She had always thought of the Canadian adventurers by the brave title of pioneers, and would have been proud to have made one of their gallant company. It seemed the last treachery of all that she should have nursed that subtle contempt, so that in a moment of idle annoyance it might set a sneer upon her lips. With a brusque movement she put an end both to Mrs. Machell’s monologue and to her final dealings with the dresser. “Let’s get at t’ parlour now, if you don’t mind,” she said, bustling before her into the dismantled room. She was now just as anxious to get the house put back to rights as she had wanted, earlier on, to pull it all to pieces. Subconsciously she was thinking that, when the place was tidy again, the trouble that was growing in her mind might possibly smooth out, too.... The two women had a pleasant hour together arranging the little-used furniture, over which they spent more time than was necessary out of sheer enjoyment. Mattie found Mrs. Machell an entranced auditor as she dwelt upon its merits, pointing out its beauty of shape or gloss or the elegance of its handles. Pictures and vases had their histories related at full length, succeeded by records of clocks and epics of antimacassars. Dolly fingered and valued, praised and exclaimed, wondering to herself all the time how many of the precious objects would come her way at the sale.