human
My! she exclaimed.
gpt
This _is_ nice! Makes me feel homesick.
human
It must be a change from Allenwood,
gpt
That's why I like it! I'm quite happy there; but this is the kind of place where I belong. Twice before I met my husband I helped make a new home on the plains, and this spot reminds me of the last time. We fixed camp by Stony Creek in early summer, when the grass was green and all the flowers were out. There were rows of the red prairie lilies. I never saw so many!--and I remember how the new birch leaves used to rustle in the bluff at night. Thinking of it somehow hurts me. She laughed prettily.
human
I'm what Tom calls a sentimentalist.
gpt
So am I, said Hester;
human
Well, I remember everything about the night we put in our stakes--Sally baking bannocks, with the smoke going straight up; the loaded wagons in a row; the tired horses rolling in the grass; and the chunk of the boys' axes, chopping in the bluff. Though we'd been on the trail since sun-up, there was work for hours, bread to bake and clothes to wash; and when we went to sleep, a horse got his foot in a line and brought the tent down on us. It was all hard in those days, a hustle from dawn to dark; but now, when things are different, I sometimes want them back. But I needn't tell you--I guess you know!
gpt
Yes; I know, said Hester.
human
Perhaps it's the work we were born for.
gpt
What are the Allenwood people like?
human
They're much the same as you and I, but they wear more frills, and when you rub against those who use the most starch you find them prickly. Then, they've some quaint notions that Walter Raleigh or Jacques Cartier must have brought over; but, taking them all round, they're a straight, clean crowd. She looked intently at Hester.
gpt
Somehow you make me feel that you belong to them.
human
I don't understand that, she replied.
gpt
Though I think my mother was a woman of unusual character, she came from the Michigan bush. My father was English, but he had only a small farm and didn't bring us up differently from our neighbors. Still, he had different ideas and bought a good many books. Craig and I read them all, and he would talk to us about them.
human
Craig's your brother? I've seen him once or twice. Tell me about him.
gpt
Beatrice Mowbray, Mrs. Broadwood said;