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 house. The living rooms looked no untidier than when under Phœbe's care. Buckskin's face was often clean. She cooked for Derek simple, yet quite eatable meals, and together they made a steamed pudding from a recipe in the Brancepeth Era, that turned out so well that they made themselves sick eating it. Mrs. Orde came from Mistwell twice a week to wash and scrub.

As the winter drew in and there was less to do, Derek left the work to the Peeks and lay in bed in the mornings till he felt like rising. Fawnie had learned to cook his bacon without burning it, and he would sit comfortably at his breakfast, the morning paper which Peek had brought propped up before him. But he read it with little interest. He was degenerating into a healthy animal with no horizon beyond the borders of its pasture. Now that Reciprocity had been defeated, he gave no further thought to the affairs of the country nor was interested to know what the new government was doing. He heard, unmoved, stories of Chard's success and of Hobbs' aggressive administering of the Durras estate. He had dismissed half of the labourers and was getting an equal amount of work from the remaining half, so Peek said, and so Hobbs himself confirmed when he came to call one wild November night, and sat by the open fire with them while the waves thundered on the shore and the gale drove the flames down the chimney.

Derek sat in the middle in the full firelight, the flames brightening to clear ruddiness his full fair face; Hobbs, on the right, his features sharpened by the darting shadows, his muddy legginged legs stretched on the hearth, his light eyes feasting on the beauty of Fawnie's face, as she sat opposite. Her eyes, glowing beneath the folds of dark hair, carefully encircled about her brow, were bent on the two blond men with a look of pensive, yet triumphant, ex-