I hadn’t yet learned to join the wisdom of the serpent to the innocence of the dove, I’m afraid.  Remember, though in some ways I was a woman full grown, in others I was little more than a four-year-old baby.

“Do you know a Dr. Ivor there?” I asked eagerly, leaning forward.

“Oh, yes, quite well,” the lady answered, arranging my footstool more comfortably as she spoke.  “He’s got a farm out there now, and hardly practises at all.  How queer it is!  One always finds one knows people in common.  Is Dr. Ivor a friend of yours?”

I recoiled at the stray question almost as if I’d been shot.

“Oh, no!” I cried, horrified at the bare idea of such treason.  “He’s anything but a friend...  I—­I only wanted to know about him.”

The lady looked at Jack, and Jack looked at the lady.  Were they telegraphing signs?  I fancied somehow they gave one another very meaning glances.  Jack was the first to speak, breaking an awkward silence.

“You can’t expect everyone to know your own friends, or to like them either, Elsie,” he said slowly, with his eyes fixed hard on her, as if he expected her to flare up.

My heart misgave me.  A hateful idea arose in it.  Could my sweet travelling companion be engaged—­to my father’s murderer?

“But he’s a dear good fellow, for all that, Jack,” Elsie said stoutly; and strange as it sounds to say so, I admired her for sticking up for her friend Dr. Ivor, if she really liked him.  “I won’t hear him run down by anybody, not even by you.  If this lady knew him better, I’m sure she’d like him, as we all do.”

Jack turned the conversation abruptly.

“But if you’re going to Palmyra,” he asked, “where do you mean to stop?  Have you thought about lodgings?  You mustn’t imagine it’s a place like an English town, with an inn or hotel or good private apartments.  There’s nowhere you can put up at in these brand-new villages.  Are you going to friends, or did you expect to find quarters as easily as in England?”

This was a difficulty which, indeed, had never even occurred to me till that moment.  I stammered and hesitated.

“Well,” I said slowly, “to tell you the truth, I haven’t thought about that.  The landing at Quebec was such a dreadful surprise to me, and”—­tears came into my eyes again—­“I had a great shock there—­and I had to come on so quick, I didn’t ask about anything but catching the train.  I meant to stop a night or two either at Quebec or in Montreal, and to make all inquiries:  but circumstances, you see, have prevented that.  So I really don’t know what I’d better do when I get to Palmyra.”

“I do,” my new friend answered quickly, her soft sweet voice having quite a decisive ring in it.  “You’d better not go on to Palmyra at all.  There’s no sort of accommodation there, except a horrid drinking-saloon.  You’d better stop short at Adolphus Town and spend the night with us; and then you can look about you next day, if you like, and see what chance there may be of finding decent quarters.  Old Mrs. Wilkins might take her in, Jack, or the Blacks at the tannery.”