Had Pierre exactly understood Amy he might have entered into a discussion with her, but for the moment he had run to the front door to admit Madame Bourque's little daughters, whom he had seen entering the yard. When he was again in the room Madame Bourque once more joined the group.
"How does it happen, Madame Bourque," asked Martine, mischievously, "that your hotel is the Hotel Paris? You should have named it 'Acadia' or 'Evangeline,' or something like that."
"Ah," responded Madame Bourque, "it is that my husband is a Frenchman, from Paris, and I like my children not to forget that. Some day, when they grow up, they shall go to Paris."
"Have Acadians any real love for France?" asked Amy. "It is certainly a long, long time since their ancestors left it."
"Yes, indeed," replied Madame Bourque, "just as the Englishman always loves England, or the Irishman Ireland; they are still strangers in a strange land, though they must call the English Queen their queen," she concluded sentimentally. "Some Acadians go back to France to study, and some French boys come out to the college at Church Point, and one of them—ah, it is so romantic!—married an Acadienne a few years ago."
"Oh, tell us about it," exclaimed Martine; "I love anything romantic."
"Well, then," said Madame Bourque, "there was such a pretty girl at Church Point in the convent, and this youth was sent by his parents to study at the College of St. Anne. He fell in love with the pretty girl and would marry her, and oh, his father and mother they felt so bad, for they thought Acadians were something like Indians; and so they hurried out to Nova Scotia, and when they saw the girl they fell in love with her too, and knew she was no savage, and say their son can marry her. But the girl would not leave her people, and as the son would not give up the girl, the parents decided to come to Acadia to live, for he was an only son and they were rich. So they have bought much land up beyond Weymouth, and they call it New France. They have a great mill where they cut timber, and a railroad of their own twenty miles long, by which they send it to the sea, and good houses and electric lights—all on account of a pretty Acadienne."
"That's just the kind of story I like," cried Martine. "I suppose history is just as true, but someway I have more interest in things that are happening to-day."
Madame Bourque now left the room to make arrangements for the early dinner. She had foretold that the fog would lift before noon, and accordingly Priscilla, looking out the window, was not surprised to catch a fleeting glimpse of the sun through an opening in the veil of mist.
"We'll take your word that the sun will shine," exclaimed Amy, "and I'll run upstairs and ask mamma if she will drive this afternoon. I imagine that the most there is to be seen is at Church Point, and the sooner we go there the better."