It was the cheery voice of her husband, William Glen Rae, who had stolen up the steps unobserved to the spot where Eloise sat with her unbound hair still rippling on the floor.
"I was thinking," she said, putting her hands in his, "I was thinking what a family reunion 'twill be when the express comes in! We must celebrate this year with a real Canadian Christmas! "
"Yes," answered Rae, the shadow of a cloud flitting over his brow, "yes, for no one can tell where you and I may be a year from now."
It was the governor's joke when he left: "Wait till I get home, Eloise. Then you and Rae shall have a wedding journey."
Rae looked for promotion, but whether to some wild new Caledonian post on the Fraser, to the sage desert on the Snake, or up the Columbia, he could not guess. For six years, now, he had been head book-keeper at Fort Vancouver. Many a document had Rae filed away in the brick archives of the block counting-house. To take up a new role, to control men and manage Indians, might prove less congenial.
The brass bell on its tripod in the centre of the square rang for dinner. The Canadians in the field heard it, and turned out their oxen. The Iroquois choppers heard it, and rested their axes. The clerks heard it, and hurried across the court to brush their coats in Bachelors' Hall. The fur-beaters heard it, and went to their cabins outside the gate. Madame heard it, and disappeared through the door to her own apartments. Unassertive, shy, it was the custom of the traders' wives to live secluded. Visitors at Fort Vancouver saw little of the resident women. Custom forbade their presence at the semi-military table in the
