“Have you too become superstitious?” asked Vivienne. “What did you do with the plant?”
“I sent it to the cellar to be kept cool. I will ring for it.”
“Here is the carriage,” said Judy skipping to the window; “and here comes Uncle Colonel. Let me put on your cloak, Vivienne. Good-bye, Miss Polar Bear from the frozen North, you are all white and glittering. Take good care of her and mamma, Stanton. Valentine and I are going to have a good time practising.”
It was a very gay and excited city that the Pinewood party drove through on their way to the Provincial building. Nowhere is there a more loyal province than Nova Scotia. Any representative of her majesty is duly honored, but on this occasion the citizens had risen with one accord to welcome a man who was popular among them not only on account of his social position, but because he had shown himself to be a true and wise friend to the Nova Scotian people.
Therefore houses were illuminated, decorations were displayed, and troops of citizens and country visitors paraded the streets, or sat at the windows awaiting the arrival of a torchlight procession that was escorting the vice-regal party about the city.
On nearing the Provincial building the Armours’ carriage was obliged to move more slowly on account of the dense throng of sightseers, and upon a sign from a policeman the coachman drew up his horses and they came to a standstill.
Lusty cheering and a salute from a guard of honor explained the cause of the delay to the occupants of the carriage. Their excellencies were arriving, and Mrs. Colonibel, who had participated in several functions of the kind before, drew back to allow Vivienne to see the striking effect of the entrance into the old stone building of the representative of royalty, his wife, and his suite, and their reception by the premier of the province and the members of the government.
As soon as there was a passage made through the crowd, Armour preceded the two ladies up the crimson-decorated stairway to the dressing rooms. Very soon they were with him and Colonel Armour again, and as they stood waiting for the line of people before them to pass on, Armour whispered to Vivienne, “You are not nervous, are you?”
“No, not very,” she replied smilingly.
“Keep behind Flora, and do as she does. The first aide-de-camp will pass up your card.”