A Canadian Heroine. Mrs. Harry Coghill

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СКАЧАТЬ in a monotonous tone, "Buy, buy," she stood still, fixing her eyes upon Lucia with a keen look of inquiry. The poor child, terrified, and ashamed of being so, made an uncertain movement towards the door, when the squaw suddenly laid her hand upon her arm.

      "Where live?" she said, in broken English.

      "Go, go!" cried Mrs. Bellairs impatiently. "We have nothing for you;" and taking Lucia's arm, she drew her into their sitting-room, and shut the door.

      "Lie down on the sofa;" she said, "what could the woman mean? You must have an opposite effect on her to what she has on you. But you need not fear any more; she is going down to her canoe."

      By degrees, Lucia's panic subsided, her colour came back, and she regained courage to go out and meet the others. They found that Doctor Morton and Bella had strolled away along the shore, while the other two were occupied in discussing Indian customs and modes of life, their conversation having started from the bark canoe. The two ladies took their work, and remained quiet listeners, until a rough-looking, untidy servant-girl came to tell them dinner was ready.

      Fish caught that morning, and fowls killed since the arrival of the party, were on the table; the untidy servant had been commissioned by her mistress to wait, which she did by sitting down and looking on with great interest while dinner proceeded. It was not a particularly satisfactory meal in its earlier stages, but all deficiencies were atoned for by the appearance of a huge dish of delicious wild raspberries, and a large jug of cream, which formed the second course.

      As soon as dinner was over, the boat was brought out, and they spent an hour or two on the river; but the weather had already begun to change, and, to avoid the approaching storm, they were obliged to leave the farm much earlier than they had intended, and hasten towards home. When they approached the Cottage, Lucia begged to be set down, that her friends might not be hindered by turning out of their way to take her quite home; Mr. Bellairs drew up, therefore, at the end of the lane, and Lucia sprang out. Mr. Percy, however, insisted on going with her. He dismounted and led his horse beside her.

      "I am sure you will be wet," she said; "you forget that I am a Canadian girl, and quite used to running about by myself."

      "That may be very well," he answered, "when you have no one at your disposal for an escort, but at present the case is different."

      She blushed a little and smiled. "In England would people be shocked at my going wherever I please alone?"

      "I don't know; I believe I am forgetting England and everything about it. Do you know that I ought to be there now?"

      "Ought? that is a very serious word. But you are not going yet?"

      "Not just yet. Miss Costello, your mother is an Englishwoman, why don't you persuade her to bring you to England."

      "My mother will never go to England." Lucia repeated the words slowly like a lesson learned by rote; and as she did so, an old question rose again in her mind—why not?

      "Yet you long to go—you have told me so."

      "Yes, oh! I do long to go. It seems to me like Fairyland."

      It was Mr. Percy's turn to smile now. "Not much like Fairyland," he answered; "not half so much like it as your own Canada."

      "Well, perhaps I shall see it some day, but then alone. Without mamma, I should not care half so much."

      "Are you still so much a child? 'Without mamma' would be no great deprivation to most young ladies."

      "I cannot understand that. But then we have always been together; we could hardly live apart."

      "Not even if you had—Doctor Morton for instance, to take care of you?"

      Lucia laughed heartily at the idea, and Mr. Percy laughed too, though his sentence had begun seriously enough. They were now at the gate, he bade her good-bye, and springing on his horse, went away at a pace which was meant to carry off a considerable amount of irritation against himself. "I had nearly made a pretty fool of myself," he soliloquised. "It is quite time I went away from here. But what a sweet little piece of innocence she is, and so lovely! I do not believe anything more perfect ever was created. Pshaw! who would have thought of my turning sentimental?"

      As Lucia turned from the gate, Margery put her head round the corner of the house, and beckoned.

      "Your ma's lying down, Miss Lucia—at least I guess so—and she doesn't expect you yet, and I've something to tell you."

      Lucia went into the kitchen and sat down. She was feeling tired after the heat of the day, and the excitement of her alarm, and expected only to hear some tale of household matters. But to her surprise Margery began, "There've been a squaw here to-day, and, you know, they don't come much about Cacouna, thank goodness, nasty brown things—but this one, she came with her mats and rubbish, in a canoe, to be sure. Your ma, she was out, and I caught sight of something coming up the bank towards the house, so I went out on the verandah to see. As soon as she saw me, she held up her mats and says, 'Buy, buy, buy,' making believe she knew no more English than that, but I told her we wanted none of her goods, and then she said, 'Missis at home?' I told her no, and she said 'Where?' as impudent as possible. I told her that was none of her business, and she'd better go; but instead of that, she took hold of my gown, and she said "Lucia" as plain as possible. I do declare, Miss Lucia, I did not know what to make of her, for how she should come to know your name was queer anyhow; but I just said, Mrs. Costello is not in, nor Miss Lucia neither, so you'd better be off; and she nodded her head a lot of times, and seemed as if she were considering whether to go or not. I asked her what she wanted, but she would not tell me, and after awhile she went off again in her canoe as fast as if she was going express."

      Lucia was thoroughly startled by this story. Mr. Strafford's letter came to her mind, and connected itself with the singular look and manner of the squaw, at the farm. This could not certainly be the mysterious "C." of the letter, for Mr. Strafford said "he is in the neighbourhood," but it might be Mary Wanita, who had apparently given the first friendly warning, and might possibly have come to Cacouna for the purpose of giving a second, and more urgent one.

      "Where was mamma?" she asked.

      "Gone in to see Mr. Leigh," Margery answered; "he is quite sick to-day, and Mr. Maurice came to ask your mamma to go and sit with him awhile."

      "Did you tell her about this squaw?"

      "Well, no, Miss Lucia, I had a kind of guess it was better not. You see she is not very strong, and I thought you could tell her when you came if you thought it was any use."

      "Thank you, Margery, you were quite right."

      Lucia went in slowly, thinking the matter over. It did not, however, appear to her advisable to conceal from her mother the squaw's visit—it might have greater significance than she, knowing so little, could imagine—but she wished extremely that she possessed some gauge by which to measure beforehand the degree of agitation her news was likely to produce. She had none, however, and could devise no better plan than that of telling Mrs. Costello, quite simply, what she had just heard from Margery.

      As she opened the door of the parlour, Mrs. Costello half rose from the sofa, where she was lying.

      "Is it you, darling," she asked, "so soon?"

      "There is a storm coming on," Lucia answered; "we hurried home to escape it."

      "And you have had a pleasant day?"

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