He shook his head.
“Oh, do,” she urged. “You ought to see it, as a matter of history. It is worth more than tons of old records, this seeing middle-age miracles happening in these prosy modern days.”
“Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré isn’t Lourdes, Nancy,” he cautioned her.
“No; but the guide-books say it is only second to Lourdes,” she answered undauntedly. “Anyway, I want to see what is happening. Won’t you come, really, daddy?”
His eyes twinkled, as they looked up into her animated face.
“Nancy, I am sixty-five years old, and that trail up the hill is worse than the Matterhorn. If you follow the zigzags, you walk ten miles in order to accomplish one hundred feet; if you strike out across country, you have to wriggle up on all fours. I know, for I have tried it. It isn’t a seemly thing for a man of my years to come crawling home, flat on his stomach.”
She laughed, as she stood drumming idly on the table.
“I am sorry. It is so much more fun to have somebody to play with. Still, I shall go, even if I must go alone.”
She started towards the door; then turned to face him, as he added hastily,—
“And, if you see Père Félicien, ask him when I can examine those last records by Monseigneur Laval. I shall be here, tell him, about ten days longer.”