On a track leading to the river a sledge was running--the bells jingling in the still, light air.

To her left were the great barns of the homestead, and beyond, the long low cowshed, with a group of Shorthorns and Herefords standing beside the open door.

Her eyes delighted in the whiteness of the snow, or the touches of orange and scarlet in the clumps of bush, in a note of crimson here and there, among the withered reeds pushing through the snow, or in the thin background of a few taller trees--the "shelter-belt" of the farm--rising brown and sharp against the blue.
Within the farmhouse sitting-room flamed a great wood fire, which shed its glow on the white walls, on the prints and photographs and books which were still Elizabeth's companions in the heart of the prairies, as they had been at Martindale.

The room was simplicity itself, yet full of charm, with its blue druggetting, its pale green chairs and hangings.

At its further end, a curtain half drawn aside showed another room, a dining-room, also firelit--with a long table spread for tea, a bare floor of polished woodblocks, and a few prints on the walls.
The wagon she had seen on the river approached the homestead.