Mademoiselle Laurentia. You know we Canadians are very patriotic."

"I admire you for your forgiving disposition. If you really want to see
Mademoiselle Laurentia, the only time to catch her in is between five and
six. Good-bye, old fellow, I must be off. Don't forget to-morrow at two
o'clock sharp."

After Jack went, McAllister hesitated for a moment, then glanced at his
watch, hailed a passing hansom, jumped in, and called out to the driver,
"Go to 17, The Grove, Highgate. A sovereign if you get there before six
o'clock."

The cabman shook his head doubtfully and said, "I'll try my best, sir,
but I'm afraid I can't do it. It's a long way off, you know."

He did try his best at any rate, and off they went at break-neck speed,
on! on! on! past rows and rows of houses, past wildernesses of brick and
mortar. Far behind them they left churches, hospitals, buildings
innumerable, the mansions of the rich and the wretched dwellings of the
poor, the squalid habitations of outcast London, on! on! on! Up the great
hill of Highgate, where the tender green foliage of early summer and of
the great oak trees bordered the roadside, and where the almond blossoms
perfumed all the heated air with a subtle delicate fragrance, on! on! on!

Quickly they dashed past many an historic spot, past the house where
Coleridge lived, past the walls of the great cemetery, which contains the
ashes of hundreds of illustrious dead, past the little church, perched on
the summit of the hill, from whose belfry could be heard the chimes for
evensong, coming faintly on the still air; on! on! on!