The cousins were thoroughly disturbed in their minds thereafter and talked much of travel, to the neglect of the Royal Family. And even while the subject was absorbing them there had come to Margaret her brother William's letter from far-off Canada inviting her to visit him. The bare thought that Margaret might go, set the cousins into a flutter of excitement. To be sure, Margaret argued, Canada was a very wild and frost-bound country, scarcely the place one would choose to travel over in search of further refinement. But Griselda declared that surely, no matter where dear William's lot might be cast, being a Gordon, he would be surrounded by an atmosphere of gentility. And so, little by little, the preposterous idea grew into a reality, and by the time the cousins had discussed the matter for a year, it was finally decided that Margaret should go. All through the twenty years of his absence, William's letters had been just as beautifully written and as nicely phrased, as they had in his student days in Edinburgh. The paper was not always what true refinement called for, but one could overlook that, when one remembered that it probably came to him on dog-sleds over mountains of snow. One had to surmise much, of course, regarding William's experience in Canada. His letters were all of his inner life. He said much regarding his spiritual condition, of his grievous lapses of faith, of his days on the Delectable Mountains and of his descents into the Slough of Despond, but very little of the hills and valleys of his adopted country. Once, shortly after his arrival, he had stated that he was living in a shanty where the bush came right up to the door. Margaret had had some misgivings, but Cousin Griselda had explained that a shanty was in all probability a dear little cottage, and the bush might be an American rose bush, or more likely a thorn, which in springtime would be covered with May. But now William lived in a comfortable stone house, had married, and had a family growing up around him, who were all anxious to see their Old Country aunt. And so the unbelievable at last came to pass and his sister sailed for Quebec.