"O, you--you sickly sentimentalist!" "That's what they used to call us in the good old abolition days," laughed the colonel; and the two being quite alone, they made their peace with a kiss, and were as happy for the moment as if they had thereby assuaged Kitty's grief and mortification. "Besides, Fanny," continued the colonel, "though I'm not much on religion, I believe these things are ordered." "Don't be blasphemous, Colonel Ellison!" cried his wife, who represented the church if not religion in her family. "As if Providence had anything to do with love-affairs!" "Well, I won't; but I will say that if Kitty turned her back on Mr. Arbuton and the social advantages he could offer her, it's a sign she wasn't fit for them. And, poor thing, if she doesn't know how much she's lost, why she has the less to grieve over. If she thinks she couldn't be happy with a husband who would keep her snubbed and frightened after he lifted her from her lowly sphere, and would tremble whenever she met any of his own sort, of course it may be a sad mistake, but it can't be helped. She must go back to Eriecreek, and try to worry along without him. Perhaps she'll work out her destiny some other way." XIV. AFTERWARDS. Mrs. Ellison had Kitty's whole story, and so has the reader, but for a little thing that happened next day, and which is perhaps scarcely worthy of being set down. Mr. Arbuton's valise was sent for at night from the Hotel St. Louis, and they did not see him again. When Kitty woke next morning, a fine cold rain was falling upon the drooping hollyhocks in the Ursulines' Garden, which seemed stricken through every leaf and flower with sudden autumn. All the forenoon the garden-paths remained empty, but under the porch by the poplars sat the slender nun and the stout nun side by side, and held each other's hands. They did not move, they did not appear to speak. The fine cold rain was still falling as Kitty and Fanny drove down Mountain Street toward the Railway Station, whither Dick and the baggage had preceded them, for they were going away from Quebec. Midway, their carriage was stopped by a mass of ascending vehicles, and their driver drew rein till the press was over. At the same time Kitty saw advancing up the sidewalk a figure grotesquely resembling Mr. Arbuton. It was he, but shorter, and smaller, and meaner. Then it was not he, but only a light overcoat like his covering a very common little man about whom it hung loosely,--a burlesque of Mr. Arbuton's self-respectful overcoat, or the garment itself in a state of miserable yet comical collapse. "What is that ridiculous little wretch staring at you for, Kitty?" asked Fanny. "I don't know," answered Kitty, absently. The man was now smiling and gesturing violently. Kitty remembered having seen him before, and then recognized the cooper who had released Mr. Arbuton from the dog in the Sault au Matelot, and to whom he had given his lacerated overcoat.