George glanced at her as she stood, finely posed, looking out across the waste of grass with gravely steady eyes, and it occurred to him that she resembled her mother in the respects she had mentioned. Nevertheless, he felt inclined to wonder how she had got her grace and refinement. Alan Grant was forceful and rather primitive.
"Have you spent much of your time here?" he asked.
"No," she answered. "My mother was once a school-teacher, and she must have had ambitious views for me. When the farm began to prosper, I was sent to Toronto. After that I went to Montreal, and finally to England."
"You must be fond of traveling."
"Oh," she said, with some reserve, "I had thought of taking up a profession."
"And you have abandoned the idea?"
She looked at him quietly, wondering whether she should answer.
"I had no alternative," she said. "I began to realize it after my mother's death. Then my father was badly hurt in an accident with a team, and I came back. He has nobody else to look after him, and he is getting on in life."
Her words conveyed no hint of the stern struggle between duty and inclination, but George guessed it. This girl, he thought, was one not to give up lightly the career she had chosen.
Then she changed the subject with a smile.