And sometimes they went on little canoe parties with those friends of Kate's at the "Lorne House,"--up the winding Murray River under the bridge, from which Flora took a pretty sketch, and on for some distance farther, picking their way among the brown shallows and stones which narrowed the navigable water of the stream. Or they would drive up the solitary Quebec road, among its aromatic pine woods, and past its little clearings, with their patches of tobacco and maize and little log cabins, and the peculiar exhilarating aroma of the mountain air;--or by another pretty road to the picturesque cascade of "Les Trous" beside which they took their luncheon, and spent the best part of an afternoon. And so the days went quickly by--happily enough, and on Saturday, May found herself realizing that the travellers would very soon be back. Half a dozen other expeditions were still reserved for the last few days, after the party should be reunited, before they should leave for the West. But these plans, like many other human projects, were not destined to be realized. For Monday morning brought May a letter, containing an unexpected summons to return home at once, as her father and mother were called away by the illness of a relative, and her presence as eldest daughter was needed at home. Dearly as May loved her home and ready as she was to comply with and obey the summons, this hastening of her departure from Murray Bay was a great disappointment, in more ways than one. There was, however, no boat before Tuesday night, and as Mrs. Sandford had begun to feel anxious herself to return home, and would not hear of letting May go back alone, it was finally decided in a cabinet council, that they should arrange to take their departure by the Tuesday's boat, and that, in case the young men had not returned by that time, they could follow and overtake them somewhere on the way. May's heart had sunk more than she could have believed, when she contemplated the possibility that Hugh might return and find her gone! She had not in the least made up her mind as to what she should say to him, when he did return, and, even if she herself cared ever so much, she could not see how she could possibly be ever separated from her home, nor indeed, could she as yet bear to think of that aspect of the affair. But she could not help feeling it no small trial to return without seeing him again; apart from the disappointment that she knew it would be to him should he return only after her departure. And as Mrs. Sandford was always reminding them, so many things might happen to detain the _voyageurs_, for they intended to find their way back somehow, by land, through the wilds that lay between Murray Bay and Lake St. John.