t is a queer-looking place."

"Mr. Leigh is an Englishman; he came out here many years ago with a
young wife; she is dead and so are all her children except Maurice.
Father and son live there together alone."

"I don't of course pretend to know how you manage such things in Canada,
but it appears to me that a beautiful girl, like Miss Costello, might
expect a better match, at least if one is to judge of the Leighs by
their house."

"I am not sure that we should call Maurice a bad match for any girl.
With a fair amount of brains, and a great capacity for work, he would be
sure to get on in a country like ours, even if he were less thoroughly a
good fellow. He has but two faults; he is too scrupulous about trifles,
and a little too Quixotic in his ideas about women. However, my wife
will never let me say that."

The subject did not interest Mr. Percy; he began to ask questions about
something else, and they soon after reached home. Later in the day Mrs.
Bellairs met him coming in extremely bored from her husband's office.

"I am going to pay some visits," she said, "are you disposed to go with
me?"

"Most thankfully," he answered. "I have been listening to half-a-dozen
cases of trespass, not a single word of which I could understand. It
will be doing me the greatest kindness to take me into civilized
society."

"I thought," she said laughing, "that you came to the backwoods to
escape civilized society."

"If I did," he replied, handing her into the pony-carriage, "it is quite
clear that I made a happy mistake."

"I am going first," she said, as soon as Bob was fairly in motion, "to
the Parsonage. Mr. and Mrs. Bayne were to have been with us yesterday,
but one of the children was ill, and I must inquire after it."

Mr. Percy's politeness just enabled him to suppress a groan. He had seen
Mrs. Bayne once, and not been delighted,--and a sick child! However,
duty before all. They stopped at the gate of the Parsonage. It was a
tolerably large house, standing on a sloping lawn, overlooking the river
on one side and the little town on the other; but the lawn was entered
only by a wicket, so that Bob had to be fastened to the railing, while
the visitors walked up to the house.

The moment they were seen approaching three or four children ran out of
the hall, where they were playing, and fell upon Mrs. Bellairs.

"Don't eat me," she cried, kissing them all in turn. "Which is the
invalid? Where is mamma?"

"It was N