“My husband is very good, you know. And James is such a little monkey, and so much better with him than with anyone else, so I just let him go, but it does certainly look very selfish, doesn't it?”
“Not at all,” I responded gallantly. “I am sure you need the rest quite as much as he does, particularly if the ba—if the little boy is very young and you—that is—” I was not very clear as to what I was going to say, but she took it up for me.
“Oh, James is the baby. He is just six months' old, you know.”
“That is very young to travel,” said I. I began to enjoy the charming confidences of Mrs. Saskabasquia, in spite of myself.
“Oh, he was only three months old when we left for England, quite a young traveller as you say. But he is very good, and I have so many to help me.”
Here the Bishop returned and sat down once more to his lunch. We had some further conversation, in which I learned that he and his wife had gone out to the North-West just twelve years ago for the first time. All their children had been born there, and they were returning to work again after a brief summer holiday in England. They told me all this with the most delightful frankness, and I began to be grateful for my place at table, as without free and congenial society at meal-time, life on board an ocean steamer narrows down to something vastly uncomfortable. It was a bright and beautiful afternoon on deck, and I soon found myself walking energetically up and down with the Bishop. I commenced by asking him some questions as to his work, place of residence and so on, and once started he talked for a long time about his northern home in the wilds of Canada.
“My wife and I had been only married two months when we went out,” said he, with a smile at the remembrance. “We did not know what we were going to.”
“Would you have gone had you known?” I enquired as we paused in our walk to take in a view of the Mersey we were leaving behind.
“Yes, I think so. Yes, I am quite sure we would. I was an Oxford man, country-bred; my father is still alive, and has a small living in Essex. I was imbued with the idea of doing something in the colonies long after I was comfortably settled in an English living myself, but I had always fancied it would be Africa. However, just at the time of our marriage I was offered this bishopric in Canada, and my wife was so anxious to go that I easily fell in with the plan.”
“Anxious to go out there?” I said in much surprise.