"Looks very stupid," commented Mrs. Rexford, hastily pulling in her head
and speaking within the room. "But still, one must not lose a chance."
Then with head again outside, she continued, "Do you understand me, my
good girl? What is your name?"

"Eliza White."

"That is a very good name"--encouragingly. "Where do you live?"

"I used to live a good bit over there, in the French country." She
pointed with her arm in a certain direction, but as the points of the
compass had no existence for Mrs. Rexford's newly immigrated
intelligence, and as all parts of Canada, near and remote, seemed very
much in the same place in her nebulous vision of geography, the little
information the girl had given was of no interest to her and she took
little note of it.

"Did you come from Quebec just now?"

"Yes," replied the girl, after a moment's pause.

Then, in answer to further questions, she told a succinct tale. She said
that her father had a farm; that he had died the week before; that she
had no relatives in the place; that, having seen her father buried, she
thought it best to come to an English-speaking locality, and wait there
until she had time to write to her father's brother in Scotland.

"Sad, sad story! Lonely fate! Brave girl!" said Mrs. Rexford, shaking
her head for a minute inside the waiting-room and rapidly repeating the