University of Virginia Library

14. XIV.
AFTERWARDS.

MRS. ELLISON had Kitty's whole story,
and so has the reader, but for a little
thing that happened next day, and which
is perhaps scarcely worthy of being set down.

Mr. Arbuton's valise was sent for at night from
the Hotel St. Louis, and they did not see him
again. When Kitty woke next morning, a fine
cold rain was falling upon the drooping hollyhocks
in the Ursulines' Garden, which seemed stricken
through every leaf and flower with sudden autumn.
All the forenoon the garden-paths remained empty,
but under the porch by the poplars sat the slender
nun and the stout nun side by side, and held each
other's hands. They did not move, they did not
appear to speak.

The fine cold rain was still falling as Kitty and
Fanny drove down Mountain Street toward the
Railway Station, whither Dick and the baggage
had preceded them, for they were going away from
Quebec. Midway, their carriage was stopped by a
mass of ascending vehicles, and their driver drew

rein till the press was over. At the same time
Kitty saw advancing up the sidewalk a figure
grotesquely resembling Mr. Arbuton. It was he,
but shorter, and smaller, and meaner. Then it
was not he, but only a light overcoat like his covcring
a very common little man about whom it
hung loosely, — a burlesque of Mr. Arbuton's self-respectful
overcoat, or the garment itself in a state
of miserable yet comical collapse.

“What is that ridiculous little wretch staring at
you for, Kitty?” asked Fanny.

“I don't know,” answered Kitty, absently.

The man was now smiling and gesturing violently.
Kitty remembered having seen him before,
and then recognized the cooper who had released
Mr. Arbuton from the dog in the Sault an Matelot,
and to whom he had given his lacerated overcoat.

The little creature awkwardly unbuttoned the
garment, and took from the breast-pocket a few
letters, which he handed to Kitty, talking eagerly
in French all the time.

“What is he doing, Kitty?”

“What is he saying, Fanny?”

“Something about a ferocious dog that was
going to spring upon you, and the young gentleman
being brave as a lion and rushing forward, and
saving your life.” Mrs. Ellison was not a woman

to let her translation lack color, even though the
original wanted it.

“Make him tell it again.”

When the man had done so, “Yes,” sighed
Kitty, “it all happened that day of the Montgomery
expedition; but I never knew, before, of
what he had done for me. Fanny,” she cried, with
a great sob, “may be I 'm the one who has been
cruel? But what happened yesterday makes his
having saved my life seem such a very little matter.”

“Nothing at all!” answered Fanny, “less than
nothing!” But her heart failed her.

The little cooper had bowed himself away, and
was climbing the hill, Mr. Arbuton's coat-skirts
striking his heels as he walked.

“What letters are those?” asked Fanny.

“O, old letters to Mr. Arbuton, which he found
in the pocket. I suppose he thought I would give
them to him.”

“But how are you going to do it?”

“I ought to send them to him,” answered
Kitty. Then, after a silence that lasted till they
reached the boat, she handed the letters to Fanny.
“Dick may send them,” she said.