I Expect Her In September Again, About The Middle Of The Month Or Later."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE RECKONING

There are times when that which constitutes one's inner self seems to cease. So it was with me at the moment Mr. Ford uttered those last words. My heart should have swelled with emotion, but it did not. I cannot remember any time in my life when I had less feeling.

Mr. Ford was asking me to come with him to the post house, and looking at my feet. Then George was seen to rummage in one of the bags and out came my seal-skin boots which I had worn but once, mainly because the woman at Northwest River post who made them had paid me the undeserved compliment of making them too small. My "larigans," which had long ago ceased to have any waterproof qualities, were now exchanged for the seal-skins, and thus fortified I stepped out into the slippery mud. So with a paddle as staff in one hand and Mr. Ford supporting me by the other, I completed my journey to the post.

At the foot of the hill below the house, Mrs. Ford stood waiting. Her eyes shone like stars as she took my hand and said, "You are very welcome, Mrs. Hubbard. Yours is the first white woman's face I have seen for two years." We went on up the hill to the house. I do not remember what we talked about, I only remember Mrs. Ford's eyes, which were very blue and very beautiful now in her excitement.

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