For they had a peculiar relation to it.  Their father had been one of its earliest and largest shareholders, might indeed be reckoned among its founders.  He had been one, also, of a small group of very rich men who had stood by the line in one of the many crises of its early history, when there was often not enough money in the coffers of the company to pay the weekly wages of the navvies working on the great iron road.  He was dead now, and his property in the line had been divided among his children.  But his name and services were not forgotten at Montreal, and when his son and widowed daughter let it be known that they desired to cross from Quebec to Vancouver, and inquired what the cost of a private car might be for the journey, the authorities at Montreal insisted on placing one of the official cars at their disposal.  So that they were now travelling as the guests of the C.P.R.; and the good will of one of the most powerful of modern corporations went with them.

They had left Toronto, on a May evening, when the orchards ran, one flush of white and pink, from the great lake to the gorge of Niagara, and all along the line northwards the white trilliums shone on the grassy banks in the shadow of the woods; while the pleasant Ontario farms flitted by, so mellowed and homelike already, midway between the old life of Quebec, and this new, raw West to which they were going.  They had passed, also—­but at night and under the moon—­through the lake country which is the playground of Toronto, as well known, and as plentifully be-named as Westmoreland; and then at North Bay with the sunrise they had plunged into the wilderness,—­into the thousand miles of forest and lake that lie between Old Ontario and Winnipeg.

And here it was that Elizabeth’s enthusiasm had become in her brother’s eyes a folly; that something wild had stirred in her blood, and sitting there in her shady hat at the rear of the train, her eyes pursuing the great track which her father had helped to bring into being, she shook Europe from her, and felt through her pulses the tremor of one who watches at a birth, and looks forward to a life to be—­

“Dinner is ready, my lady.”

“Thank Heaven!” cried Philip Gaddesden, springing up.  “Get some champagne, please, Yerkes.”

“Philip!” said his sister reprovingly, “it is not good for you to have champagne every night.”

Philip threw back his curly head, and grinned.

“I’ll see if I can do without it to-morrow.  Come along, Elizabeth.”

They passed through the outer saloon, with its chintz-covered sofas and chairs, past the two little bedrooms of the car, and the tiny kitchen to the dining-room at the further end.  Here stood a man in steward’s livery ready to serve, while from the door of the kitchen another older man, thin and tanned, in a cook’s white cap and apron, looked benevolently out.

“Smells good, Yerkes!” said Gaddesden as he passed.