"And a very good idea," said Mrs. Bryden.
"Certainly, only one can not call that adventures."
"But even such girls come upon adventures sometimes," said Mrs. Cromer.
"Yes, when they have beauty. Their beauty seems often to have an extraordinary power over the most poetical and imaginative men, too, strange as it may appear. But Anne Douglas has none of it."
"How you all misunderstand her!" said a voice from the little dining-room opening into the parlor, its doorway screened by a curtain.
"Ah, doctor, are you there?" said Mrs. Bryden. "We should not have said a word if we had known it."
"Yes, madam, I am here—with the colonel; but it is only this moment that I have lifted my head to listen to your conversation, and I remain filled with astonishment, as usual, at the obtuseness manifested by your sex regarding each other."
"Hear! hear!" said the colonel.
"Anne Douglas," continued the chaplain, clearing his throat, and beginning in a high chanting voice, which they all knew well, having heard it declaiming on various subjects during long snow-bound winter evenings, "is a most unusual girl."
"Oh, come in here, doctor, and take a seat; it will be hard work to say it all through that doorway," called Mrs. Bryden.