“Is it not a natural thing that a child should be named after its father?” asked Captain Macartney.
“After its own father, yes,” said the girl quickly; “after a stepfather, no. The French owned this province; the English drove them out.”
“They deserved to go,” said Captain Macartney with some show of warmth.
“Ah, yes, they did at last,” said the girl sadly. “But it is a painful subject; do not let us discuss it.”
“May I ask you one question?” he said eagerly. “Do you approve of the expulsion of the Acadians?”
“Yes.”
“Then you are the most fair-minded and impartial Frenchwoman that I ever met.”
“Because I agree with you,” she said. “Ah, Captain Macartney, you are like the rest of your sex. Now let us see if we can find the forts lying cunningly concealed among those hills. This is the most strongly fortified town in Canada, is it not?”
“Yes,” he replied, with an inward malediction on her fervor of patriotism. “On that island is a battery, a military camp, and a rifle range.”
The girl surveyed with a passionate glance the wooded points of an island they were passing. On a narrow spit of land running out from it was a Martello tower lighthouse.