London. You must consider all this, and, my dear one, I am not a rich
man."

"But I am rich," she said laughing, "very rich, and I never was so glad
of it before. Now, have you any more objections to make, for I am
beginning to think you don't want me to go to Father Point with you after
all."

That night at the opera Mademoiselle Laurentia, the critics said,
surpassed herself, though, strange occurrence for usually one so
punctual, she kept the audience waiting for a quarter of an hour. Never
before had she sung so well.

Great was the indignation of Monsieur Scherzo, her manager, when next day
she told him that after this month she would sing no more in public. He
swore, he stormed, he tore his hair, and finding threats were in vain he
wept in his excitable fashion, but neither threats nor entreaties moved
mademoiselle from her decision. "Bah!" he said, "it is the way with them
all, a woman can never be a true artist. Directly she rises to any height
she goes off and gets married, ten to one to some idiot, who interferes
in all her arrangements, and so her career is spoiled. I did think
Mademoiselle Laurentia was above such frivolity. I imagined that, at
last, I had discovered a true artist, one to whom her art was everything.
No, I am again mistaken, and Mademoiselle Laurentia--why, she is not even
going to marry a duke, there might be some sense in that, but only a
beggarly artist. Bah! what folly!"

Some six weeks later, one sunny afternoon, there came up the Gulf of St.
Lawrence a ship crowded with passengers bound for all quarters of the
great Dominion. It had been a backward season, and even so late as the