T he moment went as quickly as it came. Like a lightning flash on a dark night, for one split second giving startling clarity, so the moment came and went, as if it had never been. And indeed, had it?

Apparently she was the only one to have seen it; the others were busy with introductions and comments. Margo looked at the most recent family arrival, Molly, and saw her only as a young woman about her own age; probably older, if memory served her right. A girl with boundless energy, vivid face, and a mass of unruly, blue-black hair. Countless people have unruly, blue-black hair in this world, Margo realized. Molly’s father, Angus, for instance. Though Molly’s excessive curl was like her mother’s and her mother’s mother, the color was her father’s. Angus’s thick thatch, however, was touched with gray now. More than once Margo had heard her mother make reference to Angus Morrison’s “thatch” and Mary’s red “mop.” Margo, a lonely child with no relatives near, had pressed her mother for accounts of the old Scottish home, every phase of life there, the momentous move to Canada, the disastrous sea voyage, her own birth and the birth and death of Mary Morrison’s baby, or “sma’ one,” as Kezzie called her. For Kezzie, too, recounted the story, making it live for Margo until she almost felt that the absent Morrisons, Kezzie’s family, were her family, too.

“And she never had a name?” Margo liked to ask, hearing again that Mary had never even seen her “bairn” but called her “angel.”

“Like you call me,” Margo would say, cuddling close to Kezzie, to have her curls fondled lovingly and a kiss placed on her forehead.

“For such y’are,” Kezzie would declare, and Margo thrived on the assurance in Nanny . . . Granny Kezzie’s tones.

“Mam is so anxious to see you,” Mary was saying now, “so we won’t try to keep you. But Sunday, if Mam feels well enough, you’ll all come over for dinner. Our pastor, Parker Jones, will join us—”

Margo noted Molly’s quickly heightened color and the flash in her blue eyes.

“Dinner,” Molly explained, “is our noon meal, you know. Our evening meal is supper. And bush protocol doesn’t call for dressing for dinner, either.” Molly’s impish smile took any sharpness from her voice; neither did the farm’s simple way of life come across as anything but natural and good. Margo was feeling more and more at ease. She would accept and adjust to rural ways; after all, they would be her way from now on. What would the Morrisons say when they learned that she was to become a resident of Bliss? If she were to suddenly burst forth with “I’m staying on, you know,” what would their reaction be? Unbelieving, most likely, a rich girl’s whim. But if they understood her reduced means and the absolute necessity of making a go of it somewhere other than at Heatherstone, after their first shock would they accept her as plain Margo, as dependent on the land as they were?

Taking the last mile of the trip with Cameron from the Morrison homestead to the Galloway place, Margo tried, hesitantly, to introduce the subject.

“If I stayed . . . would there be room at your . . . that is, the Bliss place, for me?”

Watching the bronzed face intently, Margo saw no telltale emotion, good or bad. But the moment of silence hung heavily between them before Cameron spoke.

“Your father had the Bliss house enlarged; it’s quite roomy. We always kept a room ready for him, though he never came back after that one trip. It’ll be your room now, of course, and for as long as you wish, naturally. But I doubt that you’ll want to stay on into our winter. Bush life, for a sort of a lark, is fine . . . for a holiday. You’ll appreciate civilization all the more for having experienced life in the bush. Sponge baths, for instance, or a dip in a zinc tub; keeping a fire in the cookstove all the time just for the simplest kinds of meals; making bread a couple times a week . . . gathering garden stuff for supper; a path to the . . . ah. . . .” Cameron’s description of life in Bliss faltered.

“I understand,” Margo said quickly.

If only he understood. It didn’t matter how crude the lifestyle; not matter the inconveniences. She had no choice. It was life in the bush on the farm deeded her by her father or the impossible situation at Heatherstone with a groping Wallace and no hope of anything better.

He didn’t understand! He didn’t know that Wallace’s gross insinuations had spoiled forever her Heatherstone home. He didn’t know that the defection of Winfield Craven, upon learning of her penury, had released her from any last tie with the former life.

He didn’t understand that . . . that something unexpected had touched her heart at the moment she laid eyes on him. Something that even now tripled the beat of her heart and shortened her breath. Something that caused Heatherstone to fade into insignificance and Bliss to blossom with happiness and hope.

No, this, in particular, Cameron didn’t understand. And thank goodness! How foolish could one be! Never had she imagined such a scenario: herself, weary and rumpled from the long trip, wrenched from all former things and unsure of the future, coming face-to-face with a man—a stranger in all but name only, but vital and masculine and magnetic—and, in that instant whirled off into depths and heights of emotions such as never for one moment suspected or experienced in her engagement and marriage plans.

“I just thought it well to prepare you,” Cam Morrison was saying now. “I’m sure you’ve never known such primitive ways. Actually, it may end up seeming like a sort of memorable visitation. I hope so, anyway,” he finished lightly.

Unseen by Cameron, Margo frowned. How was she going to explain to him that there would be no going back?

And would Cameron, when he found out, give up his place as resident farmer? If so, who would take his place? The farm must be kept productive; it would be her only source of income. She—Margo Galloway, one-time pampered child of the rich—was as dependent on the land as any poverty-stricken settler in the Territories. The sponge baths, the kitchen range, the bread baking, the garden planting and tending, the path —all were to be as much a part of her life as that of the latest immigrant from the ghettos of Europe.

And when Cameron Morrison learned that this poor little rich girl was to be his employer, and a live-in one at that—

The final leg of the buggy ride was never to be remembered as Margo plunged into a half-frenzy of despair. Having met Cameron and realizing he was no servant such as she’d known but a man who would have goals and aspirations of his own, she saw how futile it would be to expect him to stay on, working for someone else. Especially a woman, especially when that woman had little or no funds to pay wages.

“Here we are . . . and there’s Mam, bless her, waiting on the porch.”

At Cameron’s words Margo’s worries fled for the time being, and she turned eager eyes on the house coming into view. But the sturdiness of the buildings and the beauty of the setting were ignored in favor of her first glimpse of the only grandmother she had known. Nanny, nurse, friend, all wrapped up in the dear, stooped figure awaiting her in the heart of the Canadian bush.

If this isn’t home , cried Margo’s heart, where on earth would I find it?