By the Good Sainte Anne

The novel opens with the heroine, 19 year old Nancy Howard, reading a letter from a friend from New York, and feeling homesick. Her father is a doctor (her mother is dead), and they are spending a few weeks in Quebec, as Dr. Howard studies the evidence of miraculous cures at the Cathedral of Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré. They are currently in the town of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, on the St. Lawrence some 20 or so miles from Quebec City. The Cathedral is in fact a real cathedral, dedicated to Sainte Anne (the mother of Mary, and the patron Saint of Quebec), and it is famous for miraculous cures, and to this day there are pilgrimages to it. 

Nancy, on a whim, goes into town to see the current pilgrimage, though as a Protestant, she doesn't believe in miracles. At the same time, a young Englishman, Cecil Barth, has come from Quebec City to the cathedral, likewise as more of a tourist than a pilgrim. By mischance, on leaving the cathedral he falls and severely sprains his ankle, losing his eyeglasses in the process. Nancy jumps to help, and ends up volunteering her father's services to treat the ankle. And when no nurse can be found, Nancy spends the next week or so nursing Mr. Barth -- who proceeds to gravely insult her by tipping her! When he is well enough, he returns to the big city, where he is staying temporarily before moving to the West of Canada to become a rancher. Cecil is a shy young man, and his manners are very English and very stiff, and so he has not managed to make any friends, in particular antagonizing two other young men, an English Canadian named Reginald Brock and a French Canadian named Adolphe St. Jacques. 

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