As they were introduced George Morrison and Chrissy looked at each other and bowed formally and composedly, and an awkward, embarrassing silence followed. For the first time in his life the presence of a fair and lovely girl cast a spell over him so extraordinary that, as he sat opposite to her at the dinner-table and watched her frank, bright, expressive face, his own responded to her every expression. It would not be difficult to say which had made the most profound impression upon the mind of the honest young Scotchman, his distant kinsman, the Colonel, with his handsome, kindly face and his sturdy English character, or the tall, slight form before him, with sloping shoulders, tapering arms, and a face lovely in its spiritual contour. George Morrison thought he had never met such a man as the Colonel, nor was the admiration unreciprocated, for his host took a great fancy to George. "He is one of those men," he remarked to his wife, "whom porridge and the Shorter Catechism have endowed with grit and backbone--just the sort of fellow for the Hudson's Bay Company's service. In dealing with traders and trappers men of nerve are needed, men of brain, men of muscle. George Morrison is not a man to be imposed upon. He can take his place at the head of a crowd of dare-devils and keep them under perfect control." It is hardly possible in a way for a young man to live in the same house with a young and lovely woman like Chrissy without running more or less risk of entanglement. More especially is this so where the two have had little or no outside society to divert their attention from each other. George and Chrissy soon found it pleasant to be a good deal together. Before she had been a week in the house he had come to the conclusion that Chrissy was one of the most attractive women he had ever met, and one of the strangest. That she was clever and good he soon discovered from remarks she made from time to time; but that she had something that he did not possess was evident, and it puzzled him. So curious was he to fathom the mystery that he took every opportunity of associating with her in the hope of drawing from her the secret of her joyous, triumphant life.