“Then I heard somebody laugh. It was the Judge. He was laughing at Auntie Lu; he always is and she at him. When she asked him ‘why,’ he said: ‘I was thinking this was a match game between British and Yankee pluck. It’s the Britisher’s ‘duty’ to play to the end of his program and he’ll do it if he’s melted into a little heap when he’s finished. It seems to be Yankee pluck, or duty, to stand out here in this melancholy drizzle and hold on as long as he does.’
“‘Of course,’ said Mrs. Hungerford, ‘it would be mean of us to desert the poor chaps and leave them without a listener at all.’
“Then he said: ‘Let’s go indoors and sit in the ’seats of the mighty.’’
“She didn’t know what he meant but he soon showed her. The Province Building where their sort of Congress meets was all open wide and they weren’t having any session, it not being session time. So we went in and sat around in leather covered chairs, only Molly and I and the boys climbed up on the window seats and sat there. We could hear beautiful and we got quite dry. Only it isn’t any use getting dry, daytimes, ’cause you’re always going right out and getting wet again.
“Sunday was the wettest yet. It didn’t look so and Auntie Lu let us girls put on white dresses, but she made us take our raincoats and umbrellas and rubbers just the same. We went to the soldiers’ church out of doors, ’cause they’d thought it was clearing off. There were benches fixed in rows like seats in church, and there was a kind of pulpit all covered by a great English flag. Other benches were up at one side. They were for the band. By and by a bugle blew and they came marching, marching over the grass from the big barracks beyond. The field sloped right down the side of a great hill and at the foot, seemed so close one could almost touch it but you couldn’t for there were streets between, was the harbor of water.
“It was an English church service and the minister prayed for all the royal family one by one. The soldier-band played the chants and hymns and they and anybody wanted sang them. After a little while it rained again and we put on our coats and didn’t dare to raise our umbrellas, ’cause we were in church you know.
“It seemed pretty long but I loved it. I loved the red soldiers and the beautiful place and all. Auntie Lu said it was a good sermon and that the preacher considerately cut it pretty short. But it wasn’t so short but that we got our hats dreadfully wet and Auntie Lu had to buy herself a new one before we came away last Monday morning. In the evening we went to St. Paul’s, which is the oldest church in this oldest city of Markland, as some call Nova Scotia.
“Now we have ridden a good many miles in wagons to this great old farmhouse right on the edge of the woods. Miles and miles of woods, seems if. There are lakes in them and rivers and game of every sort, seems if, to hear them tell. Judge Breckenridge’s friends are here, too, and the Indian guide. He calls them ‘the Boys,’ and they do act like boys just after school’s let out. They laugh and joke and carry on till Molly and I just stare.
“Judge has hired a river to fish in. Isn’t that funny? To pay for a place to fish, and the Farmer Grimm we’re to live with is going to haul all their camp things out there to-morrow morning before sun-up. Monty and Melvin are to go, too, and I expect we women folks’ll feel pretty lonesome.
“One lovely thing the Judge did for me. He hired a violin for me to practice on here. He said he thought it would pass the time for all of us. There’s a piano, too, already in the house, and Molly can play real nice on that. Her Auntie Lu plays mag-nifi-cently. I wrote that out in syllables so as to get it right and to make it more—more impressiver. I’m dreadful tired and have been finishing this letter sitting on the floor beside a great big fire on the hearth. It isn’t a bit too warm, either, even though the sun has shone again to-day.