“How!” responded the creature, “I hope you don’t take me for a help.  I’d have you to know that I’m as good a lady as yourself.  No; I just stepped over to see what was going on.  I seed the teams pass our’n about noon, and I says to father, ’Them strangers are cum; I’ll go and look arter them.’  ‘Yes,’ says he, ’do—­and take the decanter along.  May be they’ll want one to put their whiskey in.’  ’I’m goin to,’ says I; so I cum across with it, an’ here it is.  But, mind—­don’t break it—­’tis the only one we have to hum; and father says ’tis so mean to drink out of green glass.”

My surprise increased every minute.  It seemed such an act of disinterested generosity thus to anticipate wants we had never thought of.  I was regularly taken in.

“My good girl,” I began, “this is really very kind—­but—­”

“Now, don’t go to call me ’gall’—­and pass off your English airs on us.  We are genuine Yankees, and think ourselves as good—­yes, a great deal better than you.  I am a young lady.”

“Indeed!” said I, striving to repress my astonishment.  “I am a stranger in the country, and my acquaintance with Canadian ladies and gentlemen is very small.  I did not mean to offend you by using the term girl; I was going to assure you that we had no need of the decanter.  We have bottles of our own—­and we don’t drink whiskey.”

“How!  Not drink whiskey?  Why, you don’t say!  How ignorant you must be! may be they have no whiskey in the old country?”

“Yes, we have; but it is not like the Canadian whiskey.  But, pray take the decanter home again—­I am afraid that it will get broken in this confusion.”

“No, no; father told me to leave it—­and there it is;” and she planted it resolutely down on the trunk.  “You will find a use for it till you have unpacked your own.”

Seeing that she was determined to leave the bottle, I said no more about it, but asked her to tell me where the well was to be found.

“The well!” she repeated after me, with a sneer.  “Who thinks of digging wells when they can get plenty of water from the creek?  There is a fine water privilege not a stone’s-throw from the door,” and, jumping off the box, she disappeared as abruptly as she had entered.  We all looked at each other; Tom Wilson was highly amused, and laughed until he held his sides.

“What tempted her to bring this empty bottle here?” said Moodie.  “It is all an excuse; the visit, Tom, was meant for you.”

“You’ll know more about it in a few days,” said James, looking up from his work.  “That bottle is not brought here for nought.”

I could not unravel the mystery, and thought no more about it, until it was again brought to my recollection by the damsel herself.