father. So far as she knew her mother had never been married. She had
been bought and sold like a negro slave in the South. Let any one that
wanted to despise her make the most of all this.

So far as any expression went Tom Morse looked hard as pig iron. He
did not want to blunder, so he said nothing. But the girl would have
been amazed if she could have read his thoughts. She seemed to him a
rare flower that has blossomed in a foul swamp.

"If Angus McRae took you for his daughter, it was because he loved
you," Beresford said gently.

"Yes." The mobile face was suddenly tender with emotion. "What can any
father do more than he has done for me? I learned to read and write at
his knee. He taught me the old songs of Scotland that he's so fond of.
He tried to make me good and true. Afterward he sent me to Winnipeg to
school for two years."

"Good for Angus McRae," the young soldier said.

She smiled, a little wistfully. "He wants me to be Scotch, but of
course I can't be that even though I sing 'Should auld acquaintance'
to him. I'm what I am."

Ever since she had learned to think for herself, she had struggled
against the sense of racial inferiority. Even in the Lone Lands men
of education had crossed her path. There was Father Giguère, tall and
austere and filled with the wisdom of years, a scholar who had left
his dear France to serve on the outposts of civilization. And there
was the old priest's devoted friend Philip Muir, of whom the story ran