Miracles would
not enable her to catch the steamer now, and the hour was fast
approaching when he would benevolently offer her the gift of Wilbraham
Hall.

"Well, lass," he began, "I'm right sorry. What's to be done?"

"There's nothing at all to be done," she replied, smiling sadly. She
might have upbraided him for carelessness in the matter of the luggage.
She might have burst into tears and declared passionately that it was
all _his_ fault. But she did not. "Except, of course, that I must cable
to mother. She's coming to Quebec to meet me."

"That'll do to-morrow," he said. "What's to be done to-night? In th' way
o' supper, as ye might say?"

"We must go to an hotel. I believe the station hotel is the best." She
pointed to a sign and a directing black hand which said: "To the hotel."

In a minute James Ollerenshaw found himself in the largest and most
gorgeous hotel in Scotland.

"Look here, wench," he said. "I don't know as this is much in my line.
Summat a thought less gaudy'll do for my old bones."

"I won't move a step farther this night!" Helen declared. "I'm ready to
drop."

He remembered that she must be soothed.

"Well," he said, "here goes!"

And he strode across the tessellated pavement under the cold,
scrutinizing eye of menials to a large window marked in gold letters:
"Bureau."

"Have ye gotten a couple of bedrooms like?" he asked the clerk.

"Yes, sir," said the clerk (who was a perfect lady). "What do you want?"

"Don't I tell ye as we want a couple o' bedrooms, miss?"

After negotiations she pushed across the counter to him--two discs of
cardboard numbered 324 and 326, each marked 6s. 6d. He regarded the
price as fantastic, but no cheaper rooms were to be had, and Helen's
glance was dangerous.

"Why," he muttered, "I've got a four-roomed cottage empty at Turnhill as
I'd let for a month for thirteen shillings, _and_ paper it!"

"Where is your luggage, sir?" asked a muscular demon with shiny sleeves.

"That's just what we want to know, young feller," said Jimmy. "For the
present, that's all as we can lay our hands on." And he indicated
Helen's satchel.

His experiences in the lift were exciting, and he suggested the laying
of a tramway along the corridor of the fourth floor. The beautiful
starched creature who brought in his hot water (without being asked)
found him in the dark struggling with the electric light, which he had
extinguished from curiosity and had not been able to rek