While the horses were getting ready, we remained chatting in the parlour together, Mrs. Corbet doing all in her power, unconsciously, to stimulate the Captain's mind, believing that she was employing the most dexterous means to turn his curiosity aside. Fortunately I had not told her of the disclosure which the old woman had made of her family the day before, or it would, by the address she was so knowingly exercising, have been brought out by a side wind, while the wish not to say more respecting the Evelyns than was absolutely necessary, made me shy of taking a part in their conversation.

“It was, indeed,” said my wife, “a most unaccountable thing for a woman like Mrs. Paddock, who ought at her time of life to have been prudent and sensible, to think of coming to such a place as Canada. I have, however, my suspicions that Mr. Bogle Corbet was himself partly to blame, for there, where he sits, he is a fanciful man; but, to be sure, there was something in her story most romantic.”

“Indeed!” replied Dungowan thoughtfully, “I greatly thirst to know it—what was her husband?”

“That's a judicious question, Captain,” replied Mrs. Corbet, “but we have never yet heard; we were all so interested about the boys that we never thought of inquiring.”

“Was their case so extraordinary?”