He stooped towards her.

“Willy-nilly, your friends must like Canada!” he said, in her ear; “if it makes you so happy.”

He had no art of compliment, but the words were simple and sincere, and Elizabeth grew suddenly rosy, to her own great annoyance.  Before she could reply, however, the Chief Justice had insisted on bringing her back into the general conversation.

“Come and keep the peace, Lady Merton!  Here is my friend Mariette playing the devil’s advocate as usual.  Anderson tells me you are inclined to think well of us; so perhaps you ought to hear it.”

Mariette smiled and bowed a trifle sombrely.  He was plain and gaunt, but he had the air of a grand seigneur, and was in fact a member of one of the old seigneurial families of Quebec.

“I have been enquiring of Sir Michael, madam, whether he is quite happy in his mind as to these Yankees that are now pouring into the new provinces.  He, like everyone else, prophesies great things for Canada; but suppose it is an American Canada?”

“Let them come,” said Anderson, with a touch of scorn.  “Excellent stuff!  We can absorb them.  We are doing it fast.”

“Can you?  They are pouring all over the new districts as fast as the survey is completed and the railways planned.  They bring capital, which your Englishman doesn’t.  They bring knowledge of the prairie and the climate, which your Englishmen haven’t got.  As for capital, America is doing everything; financing the railways, the mines, buying up the lands, and leasing the forests.  British Columbia is only nominally yours; American capital and business have got their grip firm on the very vitals of the province.”

“Perfectly true!”—­put in the lumberman from Vancouver—­“They have three-fourths of the forests in their hands.”

“No matter!” said Anderson, kindling.  “There was a moment of danger—­twenty years ago.  It is gone.  Canada will no more be American than she will be Catholic—­with apologies to Mariette.  These Yankees come in—­they turn Englishmen in six months—­they celebrate Dominion Day on the first of July, and Independence Day, for old sake’s sake, on the fourth; and their children will be as loyal as Toronto.”

“Aye, and as dull!” said Mariette fiercely.

The conversation dissolved in protesting laughter.  The Chief Justice, Anderson, and the lumberman fell upon another subject.  Philip and the pretty English girl were flirting on the platform outside, Mariette dropped into a seat beside Elizabeth.

“You know my friend, Mr. Anderson, madam?”

“I made acquaintance with him on the journey yesterday.  He has been most kind to us.”

“He is a very remarkable man.  When he gets into the House, he will be heard of.  He will perhaps make his mark on Canada.”

“You and he are old friends?”

“Since our student days.  I was of course at the French College—­and he at McGill.  But we saw a great deal of each other.  He used to come home with me in his holidays.”