The Canadian put his great brown hand under May's chin, lifted her face and looked long and earnestly into the depths of her dark-blue eyes. What he saw there brought a very tender expression into his own eyes.
"No," he said gently, "it's not her fault. What's your name, little one?" he asked May.
When she had told him, he remarked that it was a very pretty name. Then he asked for a kiss, and, having received it, went across the bridge and away.
"Nice man!" May exclaimed. "Where's Canada, Harold?"
"Oh, ever so far off," he answered.
"Further away than Exeter?" questioned the little girl.
Her brother nodded, laughing. "It's across the sea," he explained. "To get there you've to go in a ship."
"Oh, how lovely!" cried May, clasping her hands.
"She stayed by the sea once," Harold told Billy. "Mother took her to Teignmouth for a week because she'd been ill; that was two years ago, but she's never forgotten it. Now, what do you say to making a move? I'm getting so hungry that I'm sure it must be nearly dinner-time."
Dinner was being dished when the children reached the post office. Billy, who was quite at his ease with his adopted relations, enjoyed his dinner—a share of a large rabbit-pie, which was the nicest he had ever tasted, he thought. He did not talk much himself, but listened to the conversation of the others. He learnt that on Saturday afternoons Mrs. Varcoe came to "scrub up," and that Aunt Elizabeth took charge of the post office so that her husband might go gardening.