Acadians -- History -- Juvenile fiction; Nova Scotia -- Description and travel -- Juvenile fiction; Vacations -- Juvenile fiction
Martine's letters with the Pubnico and Shelburne postmarks had given
Priscilla considerable concern. Though not a meddler, she yet saw
Martine's lack of frankness about those letters. Priscilla knew that
neither was in the handwriting of Fritz Tomkins, and she was sure that
they were written by the Freshman with him whom she knew only by the
name of "Taps." She was now quite convinced, also, that it really was
Martine whom Amy had seen wheeling through the streets of Yarmouth with
this same youth. That it was no concern of hers she realized perfectly;
and yet, she wondered if it might not be her duty to tell Mrs. Redmond
what she knew. Priscilla was over-conscientious; she was always more
ready to disclose her own faults than to conceal them,--to disclose, at
least, faults that she herself recognized. She did not altogether
realize that a certain form of censoriousness was growing upon her; that
she was too much inclined to measure all people by her own standard.
Thus many little things that Martine did quite innocently and naturally
seemed to Priscilla bits of affectation. Martine's hand was ever in her
pocket. When it was a question of buying books or fruit or some other
little thing for the traveller, Martine always managed to pay for it,
and Priscilla thought that her readiness to do this came from a desire
to display the size of her allowance. Priscilla herself, on the other
hand, had to be careful about little expenses, and while their present
trip called for no great expenditure, she hated to be obliged so often
to thank Martine for small luxuries. Then, too, Martine had an
extravagant way of talking that disturbed the serious Priscilla. She
could not say that she had ever found Martine in a real untruth. Still,
Martine's way was not her way, and instead of drawing nearer together as
the journey progressed, the two girls were farther apart.
Martine, on her part, thought Priscilla rather old-fashioned, but
accounted for the seriousness of her dress and her manner by the fact
that she was still in mourning for her father, who had died of fever
contracted in Cuba at the beginning of the late war.
Perhaps it was because she realized that her prejudices were a little
unreasonable, that Priscilla hesitated about speaking to Amy or Mrs.
Redmond regarding the suspicious postmarks.
The long "historical disquisition," as Martine called it, that Amy had
given them on their first day at Annapolis, was not immediately followed
by another. Their mornings were spent in sketching in the neighborhood,
and their afternoons in driving. One day they crossed the Grandville
Ferry and went down to the old fort near Goat Island. But though they
all professed to see slight traces of the earthworks, it required
imagination rather than eyesight to discern even a slight trace of
Poutrincourt's fort.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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