We continue our serialisation of Anne by Constance Fenimore Woolson

“They were not pastors, but rectors, and the misuse of the terms grated on the chaplain’s Anglican ear.”

The betrothal seemed to her quite natural; Rast and Anne had always been together in the past, and now they would always be together in the future; she was content that it was so. She knew so little of the outside world that few forebodings as to her own immediate present troubled her. She was on her way to a school where she would study hard, so as soon to be able to teach, and help the children; the boys were to be educated one by one, and after the first year, perhaps, she could send for Tita, since Miss Lois never understood the child aright, failing to comprehend her peculiar nature, and making her, poor little thing, uncomfortable.  It would be a double relief—to Miss Lois as well as Tita. It was a pity that her grandaunt was so hard and ill tempered; but probably she was old and infirm. Perhaps if she could see Tita, she might take a fancy to the child; Tita was so small and so soft-voiced, whereas she, Anne, was so overgrown and awkward. She gave a thought of regret to her own deficiencies, but hardly a sigh. They were matters of fact, which she had long ago accepted. The coast fire had now faded into a line of red dots and a dull light above them; she knelt down and prayed, not without the sadness, which a lonely young traveller might naturally feel on the broad dark lake.

At the lower-lake port she was met by an old French priest, one of Père Michaux’s friends, who took her to the railway station in a carriage, bought her ticket, checked her trunk, gave her a few careful words of instruction as to the journey, and then, business matters over, sat down by her side and talked to her with enchanting politeness and ease until the moment of departure.  Père Michaux had arranged this: although not of their faith, Anne was to travel all the way to New York in the care of the Roman Catholic Church, represented by its priests, handed from one to the next, and met at the entrance of the great city by another, who would cross the river for the purpose, in order that her young island eyes might not be confused by the crowd and turmoil. At first Dr. Gaston had talked of escorting Anne in person; but it was so long since he had travelled anywhere, and he was so absent-minded, that it was evident even to himself that Anne would in reality escort him. Miss Lois had the children, and of course could not leave them.

“I would go myself if there was any necessity for it,” said Père Michaux, “but there is not. Let me arrange it, and I promise you that Anne shall reach her school in safety; I will have competent persons to meet her all along the route—unless, indeed, you have friends of your own upon whom you prefer to rely?”

This was one of the little winds which Père Michaux occasionally sent over the self- esteem of his two Protestant companions:  he could not help it. Dr. Gaston frowned: he had not an acquaintance between New York and the island, and Père Michaux knew it. But Miss Lois, undaunted, rushed into the fray.

“Oh, certainly, it would be quite easy for us to have her met by friends on the way,” she began, making for the moment common and Protestant cause with Dr. Gaston; “it would require only a few letters.  In New England I should have my own family connections to call upon—persons of the highest respectability, descendants, most of them, of the celebrated patriot Israel Putnam.”

“Certainly,” replied Père Michaux. “I understand. Then I will leave Anne to you.”

“But unfortunately, as Anne is going to New York, not Boston, my connections do not live along the route, exactly,” continued Miss Lois, the adverb standing for a small matter of a thousand miles or so; “nor,” she added, again admitting Dr. Gaston to a partnership, “can we make them.”

“There remain, then, the pastors of your church,” said the priest.

“Certainly—the pastors.  It will be the simplest thing in the world for Dr. Gaston to write to them; they will be delighted to take charge of any friend of ours.”

The chaplain pushed his wig back a little, and murmured, “Church Almanac.”

Miss Lois glanced at him angrily. “I am sure I do not know what Dr. Gaston means by mentioning  ‘Church Almanac’ in that way,” she said, sharply.  “We know most of the prominent pastors, of course. Dr. Shepherd, for instance, and Dr. Dell.”

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!”