The progress of Mrs Kilbannon and Miss Christie Cameron up the river to Montreal, and so west to Elgin, was one series of surprises, most of them pleasant and instructive to such a pair of intelligent Scotchwomen, if we leave out the number of Roman Catholic churches that lift their special symbol along the banks of the St Lawrence and the fact that Hugh Finlay was not in Elgin to meet them upon their arrival.  Dr Drummond, of course, was there at the station to explain.  Finlay had been obliged to leave for Winnipeg only the day before, to attend a mission conference in place of a delegate who had been suddenly laid aside by serious illness.  Finlay, he said, had been very loath to go, but there were many reasons why it was imperative that he should; Dr Drummond explained them all.  “I insisted on it,” he assured them, frankly.  “I told him I would take the responsibility.”

He seemed very capable of taking it, both the ladies must have thought, with his quick orders about the luggage and his waiting cab.  Mrs Kilbannon said so.  “I’m sure,” she told him, “we are better off with you than with Hugh.  He was always a daft dependence at a railway station.”

They both—­Mrs Kilbannon and Dr Drummond—­looked out of the corners of their eyes, so to speak, at Christie, the only one who might be expected to show any sensitiveness; but Miss Cameron accepted the explanation with readiness.  Indeed, she said, she would have been real vexed if Mr Finlay had stayed behind on her account—­she showed herself well aware of the importance of a nomination, and the desirability of responding to it.

“It will just give me an opportunity of seeing the town,” she said, looking at it through the cab windows as they drove; and Dr Drummond had to admit that she seemed a sensible creature.  Other things being equal, Finlay might be doing very well for himself.  As they talked of Scotland—­it transpired that Dr Drummond knew all the braes about Bross as a boy—­he found himself more than ever annoyed with Finlay about the inequality of other things; and when they passed Knox Church and Miss Cameron told him she hadn’t realized it was so imposing an edifice, he felt downright sorry for the woman.

Dr Drummond had persuaded Finlay to go to Winnipeg with a vague hope that something. in the fortnight’s grace thus provided, might be induced to happen.  The form it oftenest took to his imagination was Miss Christie’s announcement, when she set foot upon the station platform, that she had become engaged, on the way over, to somebody else, some fellow-traveller.  Such things, Dr Drummond knew, did come about, usually bringing distress and discomfiture in their train.  Why, then, should they not happen when all the consequences would be rejoiceful?