CHAPTER XVII.
"I will arise, and go to my father."-- _New Testament_.
It is the hour of sunset; the sonorous sound of the cattle bells is heard, as they slowly emerge from the steep hill path that leads to Maxwell and Louis Perron's little clearing; the dark shadows are lengthening that those wood-crowned hills cast over that sunny spot, an oasis in the vast forest desert that man, adventurous, courageous man, has hewed for himself in the wilderness.

The little flock are feeding among the blackened stumps of the uncleared chopping; those timbers have lain thus untouched for two long years; the hand was wanting that should have given help in logging and burning them up.

The wheat is ripe for the sickle, and the silken beard of the corn is waving like a fair girl's tresses in the evening breeze.

The tinkling fall of the cold spring in yonder bank falls soothingly on the ear.

Who comes from that low-roofed log cabin to bring in the pitcher of water, that pale, careworn, shadowy figure that slowly moves along the green pasture, as one without hope or joy; her black hair is shared with silver, her cheek is pale as wax, and her hand is so thin, it looks as though the light might be seen through if she held it towards the sun?
It is the heart-broken mother of Catharine and Hector Maxwell.