Daily Book Excerpt: YA/Children’s books:
At the Altar 
This is one of Lucy Maud’s stories that takes place out in the wild west of the Canadian prairies. Even though her main childhood was in PEI – she did spend a number of years out in the prairies with her father (before he decided: “You know what? I’m not really into being a father. At least not to THIS child.”) … and I think she writes about it quite eloquently. Civilization is thin out there. The Indians are a problem. It’s hard to get to. The whites cluster together in small communities. ‘The Touch of Fate’ takes place in the Canadian northwest. Violet Thayer, a beautiful coquettish young woman (kind of vain, if the truth must be told) comes out to this particular town to visit an old friend who is a schoolteacher there. There is a huge battalion of MPs there, and Mrs. Hill (wife of the head of the MPs) is thrilled at the advent of Violet – she wants to set her up with at least ONE of the eligible men in town. She gets to work. Violet, being a coquette, slays pretty much everybody. It’s a tiny town, with no new faces. Mrs. Hill throws a party to welcome her to town – and Violet finds herself surrounded by men at all times. She loves it. She loves the attention. However … there’s one man who somehow does not fall under her spell. And naturally, he’s the one who eventually gets her attention.
I really like the dialogue in their first conversation.
Excerpt from At the Altar
Violet was talking to Madison and watching John Spencer out of the tail of her eye. Spencer was not an M.P. He had some government post at Dufferin Bluff and this was his first call at Lone Poplar Villa since Miss Thayer’s arrival. He did not seem to be dazzled by her at all, and after his introduction had promptly retired to a corner with Major Hill, where they talked the whole evening about the trouble on the Indian reservation at Loon Lake.
Possibly this indifference piqued Miss Thayer. Possibly she considered it refreshing after the servile adulation of the M.P.s. At any rate, when all the latter were gathered about the piano singing a chorus with gusto, she shook Madison off and went over to the corner where Spencer, deserted by the Major, whose bass was wanted, was sitting in solitary state.
He looked up indifferently as Violet shimmered down on the divan beside him. Sergeant Robinson, who was watching them jealously from the corner beyond the palms, and would have given his eyes, or at least one of them, for such a favour, mentally vowed that Spencer was the dullest fellow he had ever put those useful members on.
“Don’t you sing, Mr. Spencer?” asked Violet by way of beginning a conversation, as she turned her splendid eyes full upon him. Robinson would have lost his head under them, but Spencer kept his heroically.
“No,” was his calmly brief reply, given without any bluntness, but with no evident intention of saying anything more.
In spite of her social experience Violet felt disconcerted.
“If he doesn’t want to talk to me I won’t try to make him,” she thought crossly. No man had ever snubbed her so before.
Spencer listened immovably to the music for a time. Then he turned to his companion witih a palpable effort to be civilly sociable.
“How do you like the west, Miss Thayer?” he said.
Violet smiled – the smile most men found dangerous.
“Very much, so far as I have seen it. There is a flavour about the life here that I like, but I dare say it would soon pall. It must be horribly lonesome here most of the time, especially in winter.”
“The M.P.s are always growling that it is,” returned Spencer with a slight smile. “For my own part I never feel it so.”
Violet decided that his smile was ver becoming to him, and that she liked the way his dark hair grew over his forehead.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you at Lone Poplar Villa before?” she said.
“No. I haven’t been here for some time. I came up tonight to see the Major about the Loon Lake trouble.”
“Otherwise you wouldn’t have come,” thought Violet. “Flattering – very!” Aloud she said, “Is it serious?”
“Oh, no. A mere squabble among the Indians. Have you ever visited the Reservation, Miss Thayer? No? Well, you should get some of your M.P. friends to take you out. It would be worth while.”
“Why don’t you ask me to go yourself?” said Violet audaciously.
Spencer smiled again. “Have I failed in politeness by not doing so? I fear you would find me an insufferably dull companion.”
So he was not going to ask her after all. Violet felt piqued. She was also conscious of a sensation very near akin to disappointment. She looked across at Madison. How trim and dapper he was!
“I hate a bandbox man,” she said to herself.
Spencer meanwhile had picked up one of Mrs. Hill’s novels from the stand beside him.
“Fools of Habit,” he said, glancing at the cover. “I see it is making quite a sensation down east. I suppose you’ve read it?”
“Yes. It is very frivolous and clever – all froth but delightful froth. Did you like it?”
Spencer balanced the novel reflectively on his slender brown hand.
“Well, yes, rather. But I don’t care for novels as a rule. I don’t understand them. The hero of this book, now – do you believe that a man in love would act as he did?”
“I don’t know,” said Violet amusedly. “You ought to be a better judge than I. You are a man.”
“I have never loved anybody, so I am no position to decide,” said Spencer.
There was as little self-consciousness in his voice as if he were telling her a fact concerning the Loon Lake trouble. Violet rose to the occasion.
“You have an interesting experience to look forward to,” she said.
Spencer turned his deep-set grey eyes squarely upon her.
“I don’t know that. When I said I had never loved, I meant more than the love of a man for some particular woman. I meant love in every sense. I do not know what it is to have an affection for any human being. My parents died before I can remember. My only living relative was a penurious old uncle who brought me up for shame’s sake and kicked me out on the world as soon as he could. I don’t make friends easily. I have a few acquaintances whom I like, but there is not a soul on earth for whom I care, or who cares for me.”
“What a revelation love will be to you when it comes,” said Violet softly. Again he looked into her eyes.
“Do you think it will come?” he asked.
Before she could reply Mrs. Hill pounced upon them. Violet was wanted to sing. Mr. Spencer would excuse her, wouldn’t he? Moreover, he got up and bade his hostess good night. Violet gave him her hand.
“You will call again?” she asked.
Spencer looked across at Madison – perhaps it was accidental.
“I think not,” he said. “If, as you say, love will come sometime, it would be a very unpleasant revelation if it came in hopeless guise, and one never knows what may happen.”
Actually, Maud spent one year as a teenager in Saskatchewan with her father and his new family, and she didn’t leave because of her father – they always had a good relationship and her journals and biographers generally agree that he loved her and vice versa. It was her stepmother she couldn’t stand. Her father’s wife treated her like a servant and made her miss school whenever some childcare or household chore needed doing, and we know Maud was hell-bent on getting an education (good for her) so she returned to PEI so that her schooling wouldn’t be permanently interrupted.