tannery."

I smiled, and felt touched.

"Oh, how good of you!" I cried. "But I really couldn't think of it.
Thank you ever so much, though, for your kind thought, all the same.
It's so good and sweet of you. But you don't even know who I am. I
have no introduction."

"You're your own best introduction," Elsie said, with a pretty nod:
I thought of her somehow from the very first moment I heard her name
as Elsie. "And as to your not knowing us, never mind about that. We
know YOU at first sight. It's the Canadian way to entertain Angels
unawares. Out here, you know, hospitality's the rule of the
country."

Well, I demurred for a long time; I fought off their invitation as
well as I could: I couldn't bear thus to quarter myself upon utter
strangers. But they both were so pressing, and brought up so many
cogent arguments why I couldn't go alone to the one village
saloon--a mere whisky-drinking public-house, they said, of very bad
character,--that in the long run I was fain almost to acquiesce in
their kind plan for my temporary housing. Besides, after my horrid
experience at Quebec, it was such a positive relief to me to meet
anybody nice and delicate, that I couldn't find it in my heart to
refuse these dear people. And then, perhaps it was best not to go
quite on to Palmyra at once, for fear of unexpectedly running
against my father's murderer. If I met him in the street, and he
recognised me and spoke to me, what on earth could I do? My head was
all in a whirl, indeed, as to what he might intend or expect: for I