nd the Men

I knew quite well why Father sent me to Prince Edward Island to visit
Aunt Philippa that summer. He told me he was sending me there "to
learn some sense"; and my stepmother, of whom I was very fond, told me
she was sure the sea air would do me a world of good. I did not want
to learn sense or be done a world of good; I wanted to stay in
Montreal and go on being foolish--and make up my quarrel with Mark
Fenwick. Father and Mother did not know anything about this quarrel;
they thought I was still on good terms with him--and that is why they
sent me to Prince Edward Island.

I was very miserable. I did not want to go to Aunt Philippa's. It was
not because I feared it would be dull--for without Mark, Montreal was
just as much of a howling wilderness as any other place. But it was so
horribly far away. When the time came for Mark to want to make up--as
come I knew it would--how could he do it if I were seven hundred miles
away?

Nevertheless, I went to Prince Edward Island. In all my eighteen years
I had never once disobeyed Father. He is a very hard man to disobey. I
knew I should have to make a beginning some time if I wanted to marry
Mark, so I saved all my little courage up for that and didn't waste
any of it opposing the visit to Aunt Philippa.

I couldn't understand Father's point of view. Of course, he hated old
John Fenwick, who had once sued him for libel and won the case. Father
had written an indiscreet editorial in the excitement of a red-hot
political contest--and was made to understand that there are some
things you can't say of another man even at election time. But then,
he need not have hated Mark because of that; Mark was not even born
when it happened.

Old John Fenwick was not much better pleased about Mark and me than
Father was, though he didn't go to the length of forbidding it; he
just acted grumpily and disagreeably. Things were unpleasant enough
all round without a quarrel between Mark and me; yet quarrel we
did--and over next to nothing, too, you understand. And now I had to
set out for Prince Edward Island without even seeing him, for he was
away in Toronto on business.

* * * * *

When my train reached Copely the next afternoon, Aunt Philippa was
waiting for me. There was nobody else in sight, but I would have known
her had there been a thousand. Nobody but Aunt Philippa could have
that determined mouth, those piercing grey eyes, and that pron