Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Dell, who occasionally came up to the island during the summer for a few days of rest, lived in the lower-lake town where Anne's long railway journey began. They were not pastors, but rectors, and the misuse of the terms grated on the chaplain's Anglican ear. But he was a patient man, and accustomed now to the heterogeneous phrasing of the Western border. "And besides," added Miss Lois, triumphantly, "there is the bishop!" Now the bishop lived five miles farther. It was not evident, therefore, to the ordinary mind what aid these reverend gentlemen could give to Anne, all living, as they did, at the western beginning of her railway journey; but Miss Lois, who, like others of her sex, possessed the power (unattainable by man) of rising above mere logical sequence, felt that she had conquered. "I have no bishops to offer," said Père Michaux, with mock humility; "only ordinary priests. I will therefore leave Anne to your care, Miss Lois--yours and Dr. Gaston's." So the discussion ended, and Miss Lois came off with Protestant colors flying. None the less Père Michaux wrote his letters; and Dr. Gaston did not write his. For the two men understood each other. There was no need for the old chaplain to say, plainly, "I have lived out of the world so long that I have not a single clerical friend this side of New York upon whom I can call"; the priest comprehended it without words. And there was no need for Père Michaux to parade the close ties and net-work of communication which prevailed in the ancient Church to which he belonged; the chaplain knew them without the telling. Each understood the other; and being men, they could do without the small teasing comments, like the buzzing of flies, with which women enliven their days. Thus it happened that Anne Douglas travelled from the northern island across to the great city on the ocean border in the charge of the Roman Catholic Church. She arrived in New York worn out and bewildered, and having lost her sense of comparison by the strangeness and fatigue of the long journey, she did not appreciate the city's size, the crowded streets, and roar of traffic, but regarded everything vaguely, like a tired child who has neither surprise nor attention to give. At length the carriage stopped; she went up a broad flight of stone steps; she was entering an open door. Some one was speaking to her; she was in a room where there were chairs, and she sank down. The priest who had brought her from the other side of the river was exchanging a few words with a lady; he was going; he was gone. The lady was coming toward her. "You are very tired, my child;" she said. "Let me take you a moment to Tante, and then you can go to your room." "To Tante?" said Anne. "Yes, to Tante, or Madame Moreau, the principal of the school. She expects you." CHAPTER IX.