Mrs Urquhart and Mrs Pennycuick, plain, brave, working women of the rough old times, wives of high-born husbands, incapable of companioning them as they companioned each other, had been great friends.  On them had devolved the drudgery of the pioneer home-making without its romance; they had had, year in, year out, the task of ‘shepherding’ two headstrong and unthrifty men, who neither owned their help nor thanked them for it—­the inglorious life-work of so many obscure women—­and had strengthened each other’s hands and hearts that had had so little other support.

“Mrs. Pennycuick—­she is not living, I presume?” Guthrie enticed the garrulous lady to proceed.

“Dear, no.  She died when Francie was a baby,” and Mrs Urquhart gave the details of her friend’s last illness in full.  “Deb was just a little trot of a thing—­her father’s idol; he wouldn’t allow her mother to correct her the least bit, though she was a wilful puss, with a temper of her own; ruled the house, she did, just as she does now.  If she hadn’t had such a good heart, she’d have grown up unbearable.  There never was a child in this world so spoiled.  But spoiling’s good for her, she says.  It’s to be hoped so, for spoiling she’ll have to the end of the chapter.  She’s born to get the best of everything, is Debbie Pennycuick.  Fortunately, her father’s rich, though not so rich as he used to be; and when she leaves her beautiful home, it’ll be to go to another as good, or better.  She’s got to marry well, that girl; she’d never get along as a poor woman, with her extravagant ways.  It’d never do”—­Mrs Urquhart’s voice had, subtly changed, and something in it made the blood rise to the cheeks of the listeners “it’d never do to put her into an ordinary bush-house, where often she couldn’t get servants for love or money, because of the dull life, and might have to cook for station hands herself, and even do the washing at a pinch—­”

Jim wheeled round suddenly, and strode back to the house—­the house, as he was quite aware, which his mother alluded to.  She, agitated by the movement, and without completing her sentence, turned and trotted after him.  Alice was left leaning over the gate, at Guthrie Carey’s side.

“You will enjoy this visit,” she remarked calmly, ignoring the little scene.  “Redford is a beautiful place—­quite one of the show-places of the district—­and they do things very well there.  Mary is ostensibly the housekeeper; she really does all the hard work, but it is Deb who makes the house what it is.  After she came home from school she got her father to build the new part.  Since then they have had much more company than they used to have.  Mary, who had been out for some years, didn’t care for gaieties.  She is a dear girl—­we are all awfully fond of her—­but she has a most curious complexion—­quite bright red, as if her skin had something the matter with it, although it hasn’t.  Of course, that goes against her.”