Sir Robert only waited to write the usual batch of letters, including a
last appeal to the editor of the "Columbia Eagle" to know whether he
intended to apologize for and publicly retract a certain article, and
asking "whether it was possible that any considerable or respectable
portion of the Americans could be so arbitrary, illiberal, and exclusive
as to wish to exclude the English from America." This done, he left for
Canada with his relatives. With his stay there we have nothing to do. It
consumed six weeks of exhaustive travel and study of Canadian conditions
and resources, resulting ultimately in the conclusion that Manitoba was
not the place he was looking for. The ladies, who had been left in
Montreal, were then taken for a short tour through the country, which
they all enjoyed, after which Sir Robert asked Miss Noel whether she
would be willing to take Ethel back to Niagara and wait there a
fortnight, or perhaps a little longer, while he and Mr. Heathcote came
back by way of New England and from there went down into Maryland and
Virginia, where, according to "a member of the Canadian Parliament,"
lands were to be had for a song.

"A fortnight? I could spend a twelve-month there," exclaimed she. "Had
it not been that I was ashamed to insist upon being let off this
journey, I should have stopped there as it was."

To Niagara the aunt and niece and Parsons went, as agreed, and there
they found Mr. Bates wandering languidly about the place in chronic
discontent with everything for not being something else. He had burned a
good deal of incense on Ethel's shrine when she was at Kalsing, and now
hailed their advent with some approach to enthusiasm, and attached
himself to their suite, _vice_ Captain Kendall, retired. He liked to be
seen with them, thought the views from the Canadian side were "deucedly