CHAPTER II

In the matter of power, Baby, the inquisitive postmaster and keeper of
the bridge, was unlike the new arrival in Bonaventure. The abilities of
the Honourable Tom Ferrol lay in a splendid plausibility, a spontaneous
blarney. He could no more help being spendthrift of his affections and
his morals than of his money, and many a time he had wished that his
money was as inexhaustible as his emotions.

In point of morals, any of the Lavilettes presented a finer average than
their new guest, who had come to give their feasting distinction, and
what more time was to show. Indeed, the Hon. Mr. Ferrol had no morals to
speak of, and very little honour. He was the penniless son of an Irish
peer, who was himself well-nigh penniless; and he and his sister, whose
path of life at home was not easy after her marriageable years had
passed, drew from the consols the small sum of money their mother
had left them, and sailed away for New York.

Six months of life there, with varying fortune in which a well-to-do girl
in society gave him a promise of marriage, and then Ferrol found himself
jilted for a baronet, who owned a line of steamships and could give the
ambitious lady a title. In his sick heart he had spoken profanely of the
future Lady of Title, had bade her good-bye with a smile and an agreeable
piece of wit, and had gone home to his flat and sobbed like a schoolboy;
for, as much as he could love anybody, he loved this girl. He and the
faithful sister vanished from New York and appeared in Quebec, where they
were made welcome in Government House, at the citadel, and among all who