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One further personal episode, and that the most important of his career, remains to be chronicled before surveying the beginnings of his public interests and activities in Montreal and the Townships.

When Wilfrid Laurier first came to Montreal he knew little of the city or its people—his only memory of it a child's awe-struck vision of endless houses and endless people, glimpsed from a crowded seat in a carriole, a dozen winters before. Neighbours in St. Lin reminded him of a close friend of his mother, Mme. Gauthier, whose husband had been the village doctor in Marcelle Laurier's short married life. Dr. Gauthier was now practising in Montreal. The young student went to their home, and lived with them two of his five Montreal years.

Both Dr. and Mme. Gauthier were much interested in music and both were hospitably inclined. They kept open house for a wide circle of young people of like tastes. In this group Wilfrid Laurier took his place, but it was within the house that he found his absorbing interest. Mme. Lafontaine and her daughter Zoë were also living at the Gauthiers'. Not many months had passed before the vivacious charm, the piquant blending of deep kindliness and straight-spoken frankness, the wit and judgment, and the musical gifts of Mlle. Lafontaine had completely captured young Laurier's heart. Nor was it long until Mlle. Lafontaine had come to feel that this quiet young man of reserved but assured power, of strikingly handsome figure, of unfailing courtesy to all about him, who had already an air of distinction and a touch of the grand seigneur which made all eyes follow him, was the centre of her world. But he was as yet only a student at law, and she was earning her living as a teacher of music. Marriage seemed out of the question for long years. Then came the increasing grip of illness on his frail body, and the removal to Arthabaskaville without any definite understanding between them. [8]