Title:  Lady Merton, Colonist

Author:  Mrs. Humphry Ward

Release Date:  October 21, 2004 [EBook #13823]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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[Illustration:  “Elizabeth ...  Could yet find time to walk and climb, plunging spirit and sense in the beauty of the rockies”]

Lady Merton
colonist

BY

MRS. HUMPHRY WARD

Frontispiece
by Albert Sterner

1910

A FOREWORD

Towards the end of this story the readers of it will find an account of an “unknown lake” in the northern Rockies, together with a picture of its broad expanse, its glorious mountains, and of a white explorers’ tent pitched beside it.  Strictly speaking, “Lake Elizabeth” is a lake of dream.  But it has an original on this real earth, which bears another and a real name, and was discovered two years ago by my friend Mrs. Schaeffer, of Philadelphia, to whose enchanting narratives of travel and exploration in these untrodden regions I listened with delight at Field, British Columbia, in June, 1908.  She has given me leave to use her own photograph of the “unknown lake,” and some details from her record of it, for my own purposes; and I can only hope that in the summers to come she may unlock yet other secrets, unravel yet other mysteries, in that noble unvisited country which lies north and northeast of the Bow Valley and the Kicking Horse Pass.

     Mary A. Ward.

LADY MERTON, COLONIST

CHAPTER I

“I call this part of the line beastly depressing.”

The speaker tossed his cigarette-end away as he spoke.  It fell on the railway line, and the tiny smoke from it curled up for a moment against the heavy background of spruce as the train receded.

“All the same, this is going to be one of the most exciting parts of Canada before long,” said Lady Merton, looking up from her guide-book.  “I can tell you all about it.”

“For heaven’s sake, don’t!” said her companion hastily.  “My dear Elizabeth, I really must warn you.  You’re losing your head.”

“I lost it long ago.  To-day I am a bore—­to-morrow I shall be a nuisance.  Make up your mind to it.”