She was unconventional enough
to sit on the side-walk with a half-dozen children round her blowing
bubbles, or to romp in any garden, or in the street, playing Puss-in-the-
ring; yet this only made her more popular. Jansen's admiration was at
its highest, however, when she rode in the annual steeplechase with the
best horsemen of the province. She had the gift of doing as well as of
being.
"'Tis the light heart she has, and slippin' in and out of things like a
humming-bird, no easier to ketch, and no longer to stay," said Finden,
the rich Irish landbroker, suggestively to Father Bourassa, the huge
French-Canadian priest who had worked with her through all the dark weeks
of the smallpox epidemic, and who knew what lay beneath the outer gaiety.
She had been buoyant of spirit beside the beds of the sick, and her words
were full of raillery and humour, yet there was ever a gentle note behind
all; and the priest had seen her eyes shining with tears, as she bent
over some stricken sufferer bound upon an interminable journey.
"Bedad! as bright a little spark as ever struck off the steel," added
Finden to the priest, with a sidelong, inquisitive look, "but a heart no
bigger than a marrowfat pea-selfishness, all self.
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