appeared a matter in which
he had no need to take interest, but the other went on:

"She was brought up in a convent, you know--a country convent somewhere
on the Gaspe coast, and, from what she tells me, the nuns had the good
policy to make her happy. She tells me that where the convent gardens
abutted on the sea, she and her fellows used to be allowed to fish and
row about. You see, her mother had been a Catholic, and the father,
being an old miser, had money, so I suppose the sisters thought they
could make a nun of her; and very likely they would have done, for she
is just that sort, but the father stopped that little game by making her
marry before he died."

"I always had an idea that the people on the coast up there were all
poor and quite uneducated."

"Well, yes, for the most part they are pretty much what you would see on
these islands; but our Bishop tells me that, here and there, there are
excellent private houses, and the priests' houses and the convents are
tolerably well off. But, to tell you the truth, I think this lady's
father had some education, and his going to that part of the country may
be accounted for by what she told me once about her mother. Her mother
was a dancer, a ballet-dancer, a very estimable and pious woman, her
daughter says, and I have no doubt it is true; but an educated man who
makes that sort of marriage, you know, may prefer to live out of the
world."

Caius was becoming interested.

"If she has inherited her mother's strength and lightness, that explains
how she gets on her horse. By Jove! I never saw a woman jump on a horse
without help as she does."

"Just so; she has marvellous strength and endurance, and the best proof
of that, is the work she is doing nowadays. Why, with the exception of
three days that she came to see my wife, and would have died if she
hadn't, she has worked night and day among these sick people for the
last six months. She came to see my wife pretty much half dead, but the
drive on the sand and a short rest pretty well set her up again."

Pembroke drifted off here into discourse about the affairs of his
parish, which comprised all the Protestant inhabitants of the island.
His voice went on in the cheerful, jerky, matter-of-fact tone in which
he always talked. Caius did not pay much heed, except that admiration
for the sweet spirit of the man and for the pluck and hardihood with
which he carried on his work, grew in him in spite of his heedlessnes