There was in the hotel of the Louis Quinze an English servant from the
west, called Nell Barraway. She had been in a hotel in Montreal, and it
was there Fabian had seen her as she waited at table. She was a
splendid-looking creature--all life and energy, tall, fair-haired, and
with a charm above her kind. She was also an excellent servant, could do
as much as any two women in any house, and was capable of more airy
diablerie than any ten of her sex in Pontiac. When Fabian had said to
her in Montreal that he would come to see her again, he told her where he
lived. She came to see him instead, for she wrote to the landlord of the
Louis Quinze, enclosed fine testimonials, and was at once engaged.
Fabian was stunned when he entered the Louis Quinze and saw her waiting
at table, alert, busy, good to behold. She nodded at him with a quick
smile as he stood bewildered just inside the door, then said in English:
"This way, m'sieu'."

As he sat down he said in English also, with a laugh and with snapping
eyes: "Good Lord, what brings you here, lady-bird?"

As she pushed a chair under him she whispered through his hair: "You!"
and then was gone away to fetch pea-soup for six hungry men.

The Louis Quinze did more business now in three months than it had done
before in six. But it became known among a few in Pontiac that Nell was
notorious. How it had crept up from Montreal no one guessed, and, when
it did come, her name was very intimately associated with Fabian's. No
one could say that she was not the most perfect of servants, and also no
one could say that her life in Pontiac had not been exemplary. Yet wise
people had made up their minds that she was determined to marry Fabian,
and the wisest declared that she would do so in spite of everything--
religion (she was a Protestant), character, race. She was clever, as the