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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41296 ***
+
+     ROSE À CHARLITTE
+
+[Illustration: "ROSE À CHARLITTE STOOD CONFRONTING THE NEWCOMER."
+                                                 (_See page 58_.)]
+
+
+
+
+     ROSE À CHARLITTE
+
+     +An Acadien Romance+
+
+     BY
+     MARSHALL SAUNDERS
+
+     AUTHOR OF "BEAUTIFUL JOE," "THE HOUSE OF ARMOUR," ETC.
+
+     +Illustrated by+
+     H. DE M. YOUNG
+
+     [Illustration]
+
+     BOSTON
+     L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
+
+     (INCORPORATED)
+
+     _Copyright, 1898_
+
+     BY L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
+
+     (INCORPORATED)
+
+     _Entered at Stationers' Hall, London_
+
+     +Colonial Press+:
+
+     Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
+
+     Boston, U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+                              +Dedication+
+
+I inscribe this story of the Acadiens to one who was their warm friend
+and helper while administering the Public Systems of Education in Nova
+Scotia and in New Brunswick, to a man whose classic verse is rich in
+suggestion caught from the picturesque Evangeline land, and who is a
+valued and lifelong friend of my beloved father,--
+
+                                   TO
+
+                   +Theodore Harding Rand, D. C. L.+
+                         OF McMASTER UNIVERSITY
+                                TORONTO
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                BOOK I.
+
+                           ROSE À CHARLITTE.
+
+     CHAPTER                                          PAGE
+
+         I. VESPER L. NIMMO                             11
+
+        II. A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAD                     21
+
+       III. FROM BOSTON TO ACADIE                       28
+
+        IV. THE SLEEPING WATER INN                      47
+
+         V. AGAPIT THE ACADIEN                          67
+
+        VI. VESPER SUGGESTS AN EXPLANATION              82
+
+       VII. A DEADLOCK                                  90
+
+      VIII. ON THE SUDDEN SOMETHING ILL                 98
+
+        IX. A TALK ON THE WHARF                        108
+
+         X. BACK TO THE CONCESSION                     122
+
+        XI. NEWS OF THE FIERY FRENCHMAN                138
+
+       XII. AN UNHAPPY RIVER                           154
+
+      XIII. AN ILLUMINATION                            161
+
+       XIV. WITH THE OLD ONES                          178
+
+        XV. THE CAVE OF THE BEARS                      196
+
+       XVI. FOR THE HONOR OF THEIR RACE                210
+
+      XVII. THE SUBLIMEST THING IN THE WORLD           222
+
+     XVIII. NARCISSE GOES IN SEARCH OF THE ENGLISHMAN  236
+
+       XIX. AN INTERRUPTED MASS                        251
+
+        XX. WITH THE WATERCROWS                        262
+
+       XXI. A SUPREME ADIEU                            281
+
+
+                                BOOK II.
+
+                                BIDIANE.
+
+         I. A NEW ARRIVAL AT SLEEPING WATER            303
+
+        II. BIDIANE GOES TO CALL ON ROSE À CHARLITTE   319
+
+       III. TAKEN UNAWARES                             334
+
+        IV. AN UNKNOWN IRRITANT                        353
+
+         V. BIDIANE PLAYS AN OVERTURE                  361
+
+        VI. A SNAKE IN THE GRASS INTERFERES WITH THE
+            EDUCATION OF MIRABELLE MARIE               372
+
+       VII. GHOSTS BY SLEEPING WATER                   386
+
+      VIII. FAIRE BOMBANCE                             404
+
+        IX. LOVE AND POLITICS                          419
+
+         X. A CAMPAIGN BEGUN IN BRIBERY                434
+
+        XI. WHAT ELECTION DAY BROUGHT FORTH            451
+
+       XII. BIDIANE FALLS IN A RIVER                   463
+
+      XIII. CHARLITTE COMES BACK                       474
+
+       XIV. BIDIANE RECEIVES A SHOCK                   483
+
+        XV. THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGER GOES AWAY WITHOUT
+            HER CAPTAIN                                499
+
+       XVI. AN ACADIEN FESTIVAL                        506
+
+
+
+
+                             ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+
+     "ROSE À CHARLITTE STOOD CONFRONTING THE NEWCOMER"  _Frontispiece_
+
+     "THEY WERE FRIENDS"                                            60
+
+     "'AGAPIT,' SHE MURMURED, 'CAN WE NOT TELL HIM?'"              229
+
+     "'MADEMOISELLE, I SALUTE YOUR RETURN'"                        311
+
+     "'EITHER THAT MAN OR I MUST LEAVE THIS HOUSE'"                409
+
+     "THROWING HER ARM AROUND THE NECK OF HER RECOVERED CHILD"     513
+
+
+
+
+                                BOOK I.
+
+                            ROSE À CHARLITTE
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+                            VESPER L. NIMMO.
+
+      "Hast committed a crime, and think'st thou to escape?
+       Alas, my father!"--_Old Play._
+
+
+"Evil deeds do not die," and the handsome young man stretched out in an
+easy chair by the fire raised his curly black head and gazed into the
+farthest corner of the comfortably furnished room as if challenging a
+denial of this statement.
+
+No one contradicted him, for he was alone, and with a slightly satirical
+smile he went on. "One fellow sows the seeds, and another has to reap
+them--no, you don't reap seeds, you reap what springs up. Deadly plants,
+we will say, nightshades and that sort of thing; and the surprised and
+inoffensive descendants of sinful sires have to drop their ordinary
+occupations and seize reaping-hooks to clean out these things that shoot
+up in their paths. Here am I, for example, a comparatively harmless
+product of the nineteenth century, confronted with a upas-tree planted
+by my great-grandfather of the eighteenth,--just one hundred and forty
+years ago. It was certainly very heedless in the old boy," and he smiled
+again and stared indolently at the leaping flames in the grate.
+
+The fire was of wood,--sections of young trees cut small and laid
+crosswise,--and from their slender stems escaping gases choked and
+sputtered angrily.
+
+"I am burning miniature trees," drawled the young man; "by the way, they
+seem to be assisting in my soliloquy. Perhaps they know this little
+secret," and with sudden animation he put out his hand and rang the bell
+beside him.
+
+A colored boy appeared. "Henry," said the young man, "where did you get
+this wood?"
+
+"I got it out of a schooner, sir, down on one of the wharves."
+
+"What port did the schooner hail from?"
+
+"From Novy Scoshy, sir."
+
+"Were the crew Acadiens?"
+
+"What, sir?"
+
+"Were there any French sailors on her?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I guess so. I heard 'em jabbering some queer kind of talk."
+
+"Listen to the wood in that fire,--what does it say to you?"
+
+Henry grinned broadly. "It sounds like as if it was laughing at me,
+sir."
+
+"You think so? That will do."
+
+The boy closed the door softly and went away, and the young man
+murmured, "Just what I thought. They do know. Now, Acadien treelets,
+gasping your last to throw a gleam of brightness into my lazy life, tell
+me, is anything worth while? If there had been a curse laid on your
+ancestors in the forest, would you devote your last five minutes to
+lifting it?"
+
+The angry gasping and sobbing in the fire had died away. Two of the
+topmost billets of wood rolled gently over and emitted a soft muttering.
+
+"You would, eh?" said the young man, with a sweet, subtle smile. "You
+would spend your last breath for the good of your race. You have left
+some saplings behind you in the forest. You hope that they will be
+happy, and should I, a human being, be less disinterested than you?"
+
+"Vesper," said a sudden voice, from the doorway, "are you talking to
+yourself?"
+
+The young man deliberately turned his head. The better to observe the
+action of the sticks of wood, and to catch their last dying murmurs, he
+had leaned forward, and sat with his hands on his knees. Now he got up,
+drew a chair to the fire for his mother, then sank back into his own.
+
+"I do not like to hear you talking to yourself," she went on, in a
+querulous, birdlike voice, "it seems like the habit of an old man or a
+crazy person."
+
+"One likes sometimes to have a little confidential conversation, my
+mother."
+
+"You always were secretive and unlike other people," she said, in acute
+maternal satisfaction and appreciation. "Of all the boys on the hill
+there was none as clever as you in keeping his own counsel."
+
+"So you think, but remember that I happened to be your son," he said,
+protestingly.
+
+"Others have remarked it. Even your teachers said they could never make
+you out," and her caressing glance swept tenderly over his dark curly
+head, his pallid face, and slender figure.
+
+His satirical yet affectionate eyes met hers, then he looked at the
+fire. "Mother, it is getting hot in Boston."
+
+"Hot, Vesper?" and she stretched out one little white hand towards the
+fireplace.
+
+"This is an exceptional day. The wind is easterly and raw, and it is
+raining. Remember what perfect weather we have had. It is the first of
+June; it ought to be getting warm."
+
+"I do not wish to leave Boston until the last of the month," said the
+little lady, decidedly, "unless,--unless," and she wistfully surveyed
+him, "it is better for your health to go away."
+
+"Suppose, before we go to the White Mountains, I take a trial trip by
+myself, just to see if I can get on without coddling?"
+
+"I could not think of allowing you to go away alone," she said, with a
+shake of her white head. "It would seriously endanger your health."
+
+"I should like to go," he said, shortly. "I am better now."
+
+He had made up his mind to leave her, and, after a brief struggle with
+herself, during which she clasped her hands painfully on her lap, the
+little lady yielded with a good grace. "Where do you wish to go?"
+
+"I have not decided. Do you know anything about Nova Scotia?"
+
+"I know where it is, on the map," she said, doubtfully. "I once had a
+housemaid from there. She was a very good girl."
+
+"Perhaps I will take a run over there."
+
+"I have never been to Nova Scotia," she said, gently.
+
+"If it is anything of a place, I will take you some other time. I don't
+know anything about the hotels now."
+
+"But you, Vesper," she said, anxiously, "you will suffer more than I
+would."
+
+"Then I shall not stay."
+
+"How long will you be gone?"
+
+"I do not know,--mother, your expression is that of a concerned hen
+whose chicken is about to have its first run. I have been away from you
+before."
+
+"Not since you have been ill so much," and she sighed, heavily. "Vesper,
+I wish you had a wife to go with you."
+
+"Really,--another woman to run after me with pill-boxes and
+medicine-bottles. No, thank you."
+
+Her face cleared. She did not wish him to get married, and he knew it.
+Slightly moving his dark head back and forth against the cushions of his
+chair, he averted his eyes from the widow's garments that she wore. He
+never looked at them without feeling a shock of sympathy for her,
+although her loss in parting from a kind and tender husband had not been
+equal to his in losing a father who had been an almost perfect being to
+him. His mother still had him,--the son who was the light of her frail
+little life,--and he had her, and he loved her with a kind, indulgent,
+filial affection, and with sympathy for her many frailties; but, when
+his heart cried out for his departed father, he quietly absented himself
+from her. And that father--that good, honorable, level-headed man--had
+ended his life by committing suicide. He had never understood it. It was
+a most bitter and stinging mystery to him even now, and he glanced at
+the box of dusty, faded letters on the floor beside him.
+
+"Vesper," said Mrs. Nimmo, "do you find anything interesting among those
+letters of your father?"
+
+"Not my father's. There is not one of his among them. Indeed, I think he
+never could have opened this box. Did you ever know of his doing so?"
+
+"I cannot tell. They have been up in the attic ever since I was married.
+He examined some of the boxes, then he asked you to do it. He was always
+busy, too busy. He worked himself to death," and a tear fell on her
+black dress.
+
+"I wish now that I had done as he requested," said the young man,
+gravely. "There are some questions that I should have asked him. Do you
+remember ever hearing him say anything about the death of my
+great-grandfather?"
+
+She reflected a minute. "It seems to me that I have. He was the first of
+your father's family to come to this country. There is a faint
+recollection in my mind of having heard that he--well, he died in some
+sudden way," and she stopped in confusion.
+
+"It comes back to me now," said Vesper. "Was he not the old man who got
+out of bed, when his nurse was in the next room, and put a pistol to his
+head?"
+
+"I daresay," said his mother, slowly. "Of course it was temporary
+insanity."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Why do you ask?" she went on, curiously. "Do you find his name among
+the old documents?"
+
+Vesper understood her better than to make too great a mystery of a thing
+that he wished to conceal. "Yes, there is a letter from him."
+
+"I should like to read it," she said, fussily fumbling at her waist for
+her spectacle-case.
+
+Vesper indifferently turned his head towards her. "It is very long."
+
+Her enthusiasm died away, and she sank back in her rocking-chair.
+
+"My great-grandfather shot himself, and my grandfather was lost at sea,"
+pursued the young man, dreamily.
+
+"Yes," she said, reluctantly; then she added, "my people all die in
+bed."
+
+"His ship caught on fire."
+
+She shuddered. "Yes; no one escaped."
+
+"All burnt up, probably; and if they took to their boats they must have
+died of starvation, for they were never heard of."
+
+They were both silent, and the same thought was in their minds. Was this
+very cool and calm young man, sitting staring into the fire, to end his
+days in the violent manner peculiar to the rugged members of his
+father's family, or was he to die according to the sober and methodical
+rule of the peaceful members of his mother's house?
+
+Out of the depths of a quick maternal agony she exclaimed, "You are more
+like me than your father."
+
+Her son gave her an assenting and affectionate glance, though he knew
+that she knew he was not at all like her. He even began to fancy, in a
+curious introspective fashion, whether he should have cared at all for
+this little white-haired lady if he had happened to have had another
+woman for a mother. The thought amused him, then he felt rebuked, and,
+leaning over, he took one of the white hands on her lap and kissed it
+gently.
+
+"We should really investigate our family histories in this country more
+than we do," he said. "I wish that I had questioned my father about his
+ancestors. I know almost nothing of them. Mother," he went on,
+presently, "have you ever heard of the expulsion of the Acadiens?" and
+bending over the sticks of wood neatly laid beside him, he picked up one
+and gazed at a little excrescence in the bark which bore some
+resemblance to a human face.
+
+"Oh, yes," she replied, with gentle rebuke, "do you not remember that I
+used to know Mr. Longfellow?"
+
+Vesper slowly, and almost caressingly, submitted the stick of wood to
+the leaping embrace of the flames that rose up to catch it. "What is
+your opinion of his poem 'Evangeline?'"
+
+"It was a pretty thing,--very pretty and very sad. I remember crying
+over it when it came out."
+
+"You never heard that our family had any connection with the expulsion?"
+
+"No, Vesper, we are not French."
+
+"No, we certainly are not," and he relapsed into silence.
+
+"I think I will run over to Nova Scotia, next week," he said, when she
+presently got up to leave the room. "Will you let Henry find out about
+steamers and trains?"
+
+"Yes, if you think you must go," she said, wistfully. "I daresay the
+steamer would be easier for you."
+
+"The steamer then let it be."
+
+"And if you must go I will have to look over your clothes. It will be
+cool there, like Maine, I fancy. You must take warm things," and she
+glided from the room.
+
+"I wish you would not bother about them," he said; "they are all right."
+But she did not hear him.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+
+                        A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAD.
+
+               "The glossing words of reason and of song,
+                To tell of hate and virtue to defend,
+                May never set the bitter deed aright,
+                Nor satisfy the ages with the wrong."
+
+                                         J. F. HERBIN.
+
+
+"Now let me read this effusion of my thoughtless grandparent once more,"
+said Vesper, and he took the top paper from the box and ran over its
+contents in a murmuring voice.
+
+      I, John Matthew Nimmo, a Scotchman, born in Glasgow, at present a
+      dying man, in the town of Halifax, Nova Scotia, leave this last
+      message for my son Thomas Nimmo, now voyaging on the high seas.
+
+      My son Thomas, by the will of God, you, my only child, are abroad
+      at this time of great disease and distress with me. My eyes will
+      be closed in death ere you return, and I am forced to commit to
+      paper the words I would fain have spoken with living voice to you.
+
+      You, my son, have known me as a hard and stern man. By the grace
+      of God my heart is now humbled and like that of a little child. My
+      son, my son, by the infinite mercies of our Saviour, let me
+      supplicate you not to leave repentance to a dying bed. On the
+      first day of the last week, I, being stricken down with paralysis,
+      lay here on my couch. The room was quiet; I was alone. Suddenly I
+      heard a great noise, and the weeping and wailing of women and
+      children, and the groans of men. Then a heavy bell began to toll,
+      and a light as of a bright fire sprang up against my wall.
+
+      I entered into a great swoon, in which I seemed to be a young man
+      again,--a stout and hearty man, a high liver, a proud swearer. I
+      had on my uniform; there was a sword in my hand. I trod the deck
+      of my stout ship, the _Confidence_. I heard the plash of waves
+      against the sides, and I lifted my haughty eyes to heaven; I was
+      afraid of none, no not the ruler of the universe.
+
+      Down under the planks that my foot pressed were prisoners, to wit,
+      the Acadiens, that we were carrying to the port of Boston. What
+      mattered their sufferings to me? I did not think of them. I called
+      for a bottle of wine, and looked again over the sea, and wished
+      for a fair wind so that we might the sooner enter our prisoners at
+      the port of Boston, and make merry with our friends.
+
+      My son, as I, in my swoon, contemplated my former self, it is not
+      in the power of mortal man to convey to you my awful scorn of what
+      I then was,--my gross desires, my carnal wishes. I was no better
+      than the beasts of the fields.
+
+      After a time, as I trod the deck, a young Acadien was brought
+      before me. My officers said that he had been endeavouring to stir
+      up a mutiny among the prisoners, and had urged them to make
+      themselves masters of the ship and to cast us into the sea.
+
+      I called him a Papist dog. I asked him whether he wished to be
+      thrown to the fishes. I could speak no French, but he knew
+      somewhat of English, and he answered me proudly. He stretched out
+      his hand to the smoking village of Grand Pré that we were
+      leaving. He called to heaven for a judgment to be sent down on the
+      English for their cruelty.
+
+      I struck him to the deck. He could not rise. I thought he would
+      not; but in a brief space of time he was dead, the last words on
+      his lips a curse on me and my children, and a wish that in our
+      dying moments we might suffer some of the torments he was then
+      enduring. I had his body rolled into the sea, and I forgot him, my
+      son. In the unrighteous work to which I had put my hand in the
+      persecution of the French, a death more or less was a circumstance
+      to be forgotten.
+
+      I was then a young man, and in all the years that have intervened
+      I have been oblivious of him. The hand of the Lord has been laid
+      upon me; I have been despoiled of my goods; nothing that I have
+      done has prospered; and yet I give you my solemn word I never,
+      until now, in these days of dying, have reflected that a curse has
+      been upon me and will descend to you, my son, and to your sons
+      after you.
+
+      Therefore, I leave this solemn request. Methinks I shall not lie
+      easy in my narrow bed until that some of my descendants have made
+      restitution to the seed of the Frenchman. I bethink me that he was
+      one Le Noir, called the Fiery Frenchman of Grand Pré, from a
+      birthmark on his face, but of his baptismal name I am ignorant.
+      That he was a married man I well know, for one cause of his
+      complaint was that he had been separated from his wife and child,
+      which thing was not of my doing, but by the orders of Governor
+      Lawrence, who commanded the men and the women to be embarked
+      apart. But seek them not in the city of Boston, my son, nor in
+      that of Philadelphia, where his young wife was carried, but come
+      back to this old Acadien land, whither the refugees are now
+      tending. Ah me! it seems that I am yet a young man, that he is
+      still alive,--the man whom I killed. Alas! I am old and about to
+      die, but, my son, by the love and compassion of God, let me
+      entreat you to carry out the wishes of your father. Seek the
+      family of the Frenchman; make restitution, even to the half of
+      your goods, or you will have no prosperity in this world nor any
+      happiness in the world to come. If you are unable to carry out
+      this, my last wish, let this letter be handed to your children.
+      Eschew riotous living, and fold in your heart my saying, that the
+      forcible dispossession of the Acadien people from their land and
+      properties was an unrighteous and unholy act, brought about
+      chiefly by the lust of hatred and greed on the part of that
+      iniquitous man, Governor Lawrence, of this province, and his
+      counsellors.
+
+      May God have mercy on my soul. Your father, soon to be a clod of
+      clay,
+
+                                                   JOHN MATTHEW NIMMO.
+
+      HALIFAX, May 9, 1800.
+
+With a slight shudder Vesper dropped the letter back in the box and
+wiped the dust from his fingers. "Unhappy old man,--there is not the
+slightest evidence that his callous son Thomas paid any heed to his
+exhortations. I can imagine the contempt with which he would throw this
+letter aside; he would probably remark that his father had lost his
+mind. And yet was it a superstition about altering the fortunes of the
+family that made him shortly after exchange his father's grant of land
+in Nova Scotia for one in this State?" and he picked up another faded
+document, this one of parchment and containing a record of the transfer
+of certain estates in the vicinity of the town of Boston to Thomas
+Nimmo, removing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to the State of
+Massachusetts.
+
+"Then Thomas got burnt for despising the commands of his father; but my
+poor sire,--where does his guilt come in? He did not know of the
+existence of this letter,--that I could swear, for with his kind heart
+and streak of romance he would have looked up this Acadien ghost and
+laid it. If I were also romantic, I should say it killed him. As it is,
+I shall stick to my present opinion that he killed himself by overwork.
+
+"Now, shall I be cynical and let this thing go, or shall I, like a
+knight of the Middle Ages, or an adventurous fool of the present, set
+out in quest of the seed of the Fiery Frenchman? _Ciel!_ I have already
+decided. It is a floating feather to pursue, an occupation just serious
+enough for my convalescent state. _En route_, then, for Acadie," and he
+closed his eyes and sank into a reverie, which was, after the lapse of
+an hour, interrupted by the entrance of the colored boy with a handful
+of papers.
+
+"Good boy, Henry," said his master, approvingly.
+
+"Mis' Nimmo, she tole me to hurry," said the boy, with a flash of his
+resplendent ivories, "'cause she never like you to wait for nothing. So
+I jus' run down to Washington Street."
+
+Vesper smiled, and took up one of the folders. "H'm, Evangeline route.
+The Nova Scotians are smart enough to make capital out of the
+poem--Henry, come rub my left ankle, there is some rheumatism in it.
+What is this? 'The Dominion Atlantic Railway have now completed their
+magnificent system to the Hub of the Universe by placing on the route
+between it and Nova Scotia a steamship named after one of the
+heirs-presumptive of the British throne.' Henry, where is the Hub of the
+Universe?"
+
+Henry looked up from the hearth-rug. "I dunno, sir; ain't it heaven?"
+
+"It ought to be," said the young man; and he went on, "'This steamship
+is a dream of beauty, with the lines of an exquisite yacht. Her
+appointments are as perfect as taste and science can suggest, in
+music-room, dining-room, smoking-room, parlor, staterooms, bathrooms,
+and all other apartments. The cabinet work is in solid walnut and oak,
+the softened light falling through domes and panels of stained glass,
+the upholstery is in figured and other velvets, the tapestries are of
+silk. There is a perfect _cuisine_, and a union of comfort and luxury
+throughout.'"
+
+The young man laid down the folder. "How would you like to go to sea in
+that royal craft, Henry?"
+
+"It sounds fine," said the boy, smacking his lips.
+
+"No mention is made of seasickness, nor of going to the bottom. A pity
+it would be to waste all that finery on the fishes--don't rub quite so
+hard. Let me see," and he took up the folder again. "What days does she
+leave? Go to-morrow to the office, Henry, and engage the most
+comfortable stateroom on this bit of magnificence for next Thursday."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+
+                         FROM BOSTON TO ACADIE.
+
+             "For this is in the land of Acadie,
+              The fairest place of all the earth and sea."
+
+                                                J. F. H.
+
+
+It is always amusing to be among a crowd of people on the Lewis Wharf,
+in Boston, when a steamer is about to leave for the neighboring province
+of Nova Scotia. The provincials are so slow, so deliberate, so
+determined not to be hurried. The Americans are so brisk, so
+expeditious, so bewildering in the multitude of things they will
+accomplish in the briefest possible space of time. They surround the
+provincials, they attempt to hurry them, to infuse a little more life
+into their exercises of volition, to convince them that a busy wharf is
+not the place to weigh arguments for or against a proposed course of
+action, yet the provincials will not be hurried; they stop to plan,
+consider, deliberate, and decide, and in the end they arrive at
+satisfactory conclusions without one hundredth part of the worry and
+vexation of soul which shortens the lives of their more nervous cousins,
+the Americans.
+
+At noon, on the Thursday following his decision to go to Nova Scotia,
+Vesper Nimmo stood on the deck of the _Royal Edward_, a smile on his
+handsome face,--a shrewd smile, that deepened and broadened whenever he
+looked towards the place where stood his mother, with a fluffy white
+shawl wrapped around her throat, and the faithful Henry for a bodyguard.
+
+Express wagons, piled high with towers of Babel in the shape of trunks
+that shook and quivered and threatened to fall on unsuspecting heads,
+rattled down and discharged their contents on the already congested
+wharf, where intending passengers, escorting friends, custom officials,
+and wharf men were talking, gesticulating, admonishing, and escaping
+death in varied forms, such as by crushing, falling, squeezing, deaths
+by exhaustion, by kicks from nervous horse legs, or by fright from being
+swept into the convenient black pool of the harbor.
+
+However, scorning the danger, the crowd talked and jabbered on, until,
+finally, the last bit of freight, the last bit of luggage, was on board.
+A signal was given, the ambulance drew back,--the dark and mournful
+wagon from which, alas, at nearly every steamer's trip, a long, light
+box is taken, in which one Canadian is going home quite still and mute.
+
+A swarm of stewards from the steamer descended upon their quarry, the
+passengers, and a separation was made between the sheep and the foolish
+goats, in the company's eyes, who would not be persuaded to seek the
+fair Canadian pastures. Carefully the stewards herded and guarded their
+giddy sheep to the steamer, often turning back to recover one skipping
+behind for a last parley with the goats. At last they were all up the
+gangway, the gorgeous ship swung her princely nose to the stream, and
+Vesper Nimmo felt himself really off for Nova Scotia.
+
+He waved an adieu to his mother, then drew back to avoid an onset of
+stolid, red-cheeked Canadian sheep and lambs, who pressed towards the
+railing, some with damp handkerchiefs at their eyes, others cheerfully
+exhorting the goats to write soon.
+
+His eye fell on a delicate slip of a girl, with consumption written all
+over her shaking form; and, swinging on his heel, he went to stroll
+about the decks, and watch, with proud and passionate concealed emotion,
+the yellow receding dome of the State House. He had been brought up in
+the shadow of that ægis. It was almost as sacred to him as the blue sky
+above, and not until he could no longer see it did he allow his eyes to
+wander over other points of interest of the historic harbor. How many
+times his sturdy New England forefathers had dropped their hoes to man
+the ships that sailed over these blue waters, to hew down the Agag of
+Acadie! What a bloodthirsty set they were in those days! Indians,
+English, French,--how they harried, and worried, and bit, and tore at
+each other!
+
+He thoughtfully smoothed the little silky mustache that adorned his
+upper lip, and murmured, "Thank heaven, I go on a more peaceful errand."
+
+Once out of the harbor, and feeling the white deck beneath his feet
+gracefully dipping to meet the swell of the ocean, he found a seat and
+drew a guide-book from his pocket. Of ancient Acadie he knew something,
+but of this modern Acadie he had, strange to say, felt no curiosity,
+although it lay at his very doors, until he had discovered the letter of
+his great-grandfather.
+
+The day was warm and sunshiny. It was the third of June, and for some
+time he sat quietly reading and bathed in golden light. Then across his
+calm, peaceful state of content, stole a feeling scarcely to be
+described, and so faint that it was barely perceptible. He was not quite
+happy. The balm had gone from the air; the spirit of the writer, who so
+eloquently described the lure of the Acadien land, no longer communed
+with his. He read on, knowing what was coming, yet resolved not to yield
+until he was absolutely forced to do so.
+
+In half an hour he had flung down his book, and was in his stateroom,
+face downward, his window wide open, his body gently swaying to and fro
+with the motion of the steamer, the salt air deliciously lapping his
+ears, the back of his neck, and his hands, but unable to get at his
+face, obstinately buried in the pillow.
+
+"Sick, sir?" inquired a brisk voice, with a delicate note of suggestion.
+
+Vesper uncovered one eye, and growled, "No,--shut that door."
+
+The steward disappeared, and did not return for some hours, while
+Vesper's whole sensitive system passed into a painless agony, the only
+movement he made being to turn himself over on his back, where he lay,
+apparently calm and happy, and serenely staring at the white ceiling of
+his dainty cell.
+
+"Can I do anything for you, sir?" asked the steward's voice once more.
+
+Vesper, who would not have spoken if he had been offered the _Royal
+Edward_ full of gold pieces, did not even roll an eyeball at him, but
+kept on gravely staring upward.
+
+"Your collar's choking you, sir," said the man, coming forward; and he
+deftly slipped a stud from its place and laid it on the wash-stand.
+"Shall I take off your boots?"
+
+Vesper submitted to having his boots withdrawn, and his feet covered,
+with as much indifference as if they belonged to some other man, and
+continued to spend the rest of the day and the night in the same state
+of passivity. Towards morning he had a vague wish to know the time, but
+it did not occur to him, any more than it would have occurred to a stone
+image, to put up his hand to the watch in his breast pocket.
+
+Daylight came, then sunlight streaming into his room, and cheery sounds
+of voices without, but he did not stir. Not until the thrill of contact
+with the land went through the steamer did he spring to his feet, like a
+man restored to consciousness by galvanic action. He was the first
+passenger to reach the wharf, and the steward, who watched him going,
+remarked sarcastically that he was glad to see "that 'ere dead man come
+to life."
+
+Vesper was himself again when his feet touched the shore. He looked
+about him, saw the bright little town of Yarmouth, black rocks, a blue
+harbor, and a glorious sky. His contemplation of the landscape over, he
+reflected that he was faint from hunger. He turned his back on the
+steamer, where his fellow passengers had recently breakfasted at fine
+tables spread under a ceiling of milky white and gold, and hurried to a
+modest eating-house near by from which a savory smell of broiled steak
+and fried potatoes floated out on the morning air.
+
+He entered it, and after a hasty wash and brush-up ate his breakfast
+with frantic appetite. He now felt that he had received a new lease of
+life, and buttoning his collar up around his neck, for the temperature
+was some degrees lower than that of his native city, he hurried back to
+the wharf, where the passengers and the customs men were quarrelling as
+if they had been enemies for life.
+
+With ingratiating and politic calmness he pointed out his trunk and
+bicycle, assured the suspicious official that although he was an
+American he was honest and had nothing to sell and nothing dutiable in
+the former, and that he had not the slightest objection to paying the
+thirty per cent deposit required on the latter; then, a prey to inward
+laughter at the enlivening spectacle of open trunks and red faces, he
+proceeded to the railway station, looking about him for other signs that
+he was in a foreign country.
+
+Nova Scotia was very like Maine so far. Here were the Maine houses, the
+Maine trees and rocks, even the Maine wild flowers by the side of the
+road. He thoughtfully boarded the train, scrutinized the comfortable
+parlor-car, and, after the lapse of half an hour, decided that he was
+not in Maine, for, if he had been, the train would certainly have
+started.
+
+As he was making this reflection, a dapper individual, in light
+trousers, a shiny hat, and with the indescribable air of being a
+travelling salesman, entered the car where Vesper sat in solitary
+grandeur.
+
+Vesper slightly inclined his head, and the stranger, dropping a neat
+leather bag in the seat next him, observed, "We had a good passage."
+
+"Very good," replied Vesper.
+
+"Nobody sick," pursued the dapper individual, taking off his hat,
+brushing it, and carefully replacing it on his head.
+
+"I should think not," returned Vesper; then he consulted his watch. "We
+are late in starting."
+
+"We're always late," observed the newcomer, tartly. "This is your first
+trip down here?"
+
+Vesper, with the reluctance of his countrymen to admit that they have
+done or are doing something for the first time, did not contradict his
+statement.
+
+"I've been coming to this province for ten years," said his companion.
+"I represent Stone and Warrior."
+
+Vesper knew Stone and Warrior's huge dry-goods establishment, and had
+due respect for the opinion of one of their travellers.
+
+"And when we start we don't go," said the dry-goods man. "This train
+doesn't dare show its nose in Halifax before six o'clock, so she's just
+got to put in the time somewhere. Later in the season they'll clap on
+the Flying Bluenose, which makes them think they're flying through the
+air, because she spurts and gets in two hours earlier. How far are you
+going?"
+
+"I don't know; possibly to Grand Pré."
+
+"A pretty country there, but no big farms,--kitchen-gardening compared
+with ours."
+
+"That is where the French used to be."
+
+"Yes, but there ain't one there now. The most of the French in the
+province are down here."
+
+Vesper let his surprised eyes wander out through the car window.
+
+"Pretty soon we'll begin to run through the woods. There'll be a shanty
+or two, a few decent houses and a station here and there, and you'd
+think we were miles from nowhere, but at the same time we're running
+abreast of a village thirty-five miles long."
+
+"That is a good length."
+
+"The houses are strung along the shores of this Bay," continued the
+salesman, leaning over and tapping the map spread on Vesper's knee. "The
+Bay is forty miles long."
+
+"Why didn't they build the railway where the village is?"
+
+"That's Nova Scotia," said the salesman, drily. "Because the people were
+there, they put the railroad through the woods. They beat the Dutch."
+
+"Can't they make money?"
+
+"Like the mischief, if they want to," and the salesman settled back in
+his seat and put his hands in his pockets. "It makes me smile to hear
+people talking about these green Nova Scotians. They'll jump ahead of
+you in a bargain as quick as a New Yorker when they give their minds to
+it. But I'll add 'em up in one word,--they don't care."
+
+Vesper did not reply, and, after a minute's pause his companion went on,
+with waxing indignation. "They ought to have been born in the cannibal
+isles, every man Jack of 'em, where they could sit outdoors all day and
+pick up cocoanuts or eat each other. Upon my life, you can stand in the
+middle of Halifax, which is their capital city, and shy a stone at half
+a dozen banks and the post-office, and look down and see grass growing
+between the bricks at your feet."
+
+"Very unprogressive," murmured Vesper.
+
+The salesman relented. "But I've got some good chums there, and I must
+say they've got a lot of soft soap,--more than we have."
+
+"That is, better manners?"
+
+"Exactly; but"--and he once more hardened his heart against the Nova
+Scotians,--"they've got more time than we have. There ain't so many of
+'em. Look at our Boston women at a bargain-counter,--you've got a lot of
+curtains at four dollars a pair. You can't sell 'em. You run 'em up to
+six dollars and advertise, 'Great drop on ten-dollar curtains.' The
+women rush to get 'em. How much time have they to be polite? About as
+much as a pack of wolves."
+
+"What is the population of Halifax?" asked Vesper.
+
+"About forty thousand," said the salesman, lolling his head on the back
+of the seat, and running his sentences as glibly from his lips as if he
+were reciting a lesson, "and a sly, sleepy old place it is, with lots of
+money in it, and people pretending they are poor. Suburbs fine, but the
+city dirty from the soft coal they burn. A board fence around every lot
+you could spread a handkerchief on,--so afraid neighbors will see into
+their back yards. If they'd knock down their fences, pick up a little of
+the trash in the streets, and limit the size of their hotel keys, they'd
+get on."
+
+"Are there any French people there?"
+
+The salesman was not interested in the French. "No," he said, "not that
+I ever heard of. They could make lots of money there," he went on, with
+enthusiasm, "if they'd wake up. You know there's an English garrison,
+and our girls like the military; but these blamed provincials, though
+they've got a big pot of jam, won't do anything to draw our rich flies,
+not even as much as to put up a bathing-house. They don't care a
+continental.
+
+"There's a hotel beyond Halifax where a big excursion from New York used
+to go every year. Last year the manager said, 'If you don't clean up
+your old hotel, and put a decent boat on the lake, you'll never see me
+again.' The hotel proprietor said, 'I guess this house is clean enough
+for us, and we haven't been spilt out of the boat yet, and you and your
+excursion can go to Jericho.' So the excursion goes to Jericho now, and
+the hotel man gets more time for sleep."
+
+"Have you ever been in this French village?" asked Vesper.
+
+"No," and the salesman stifled a yawn. "I only call at the principal
+towns, where the big stores are. Good Lord! I wish those
+stick-in-the-muds would come up from the wharf. If I knew how to run an
+engine I'd be off without 'em," and he strolled to the car door. "It's
+as quiet as death down there. The passengers must have chopped up the
+train-hands and thrown 'em in the water. If my wife made up her mind to
+move to this province, I'd die in ten days, for I'd have so much time to
+think over my sins. Glory hallelujah, here they come!" and he returned
+to his seat. "The whole tribe of 'em, edging along as if they were a
+funeral procession and we were the corpses on ahead. We're off," he
+said, jocularly, to Vesper, and he kicked out his little dapper legs,
+stuck his ticket in the front of his shiny hat, and sank into a seat,
+where he was soon asleep.
+
+Vesper was rather out of his reckoning. It had not occurred to him, in
+spite of Longfellow's assurance about naught but tradition remaining of
+the beautiful village of Grand Pré, that no French were really to be
+found there. Now, according to the salesman, he should look for the
+Acadiens in this part of the province. However, if the French village
+was thirty-five miles long there was no hurry about leaving the train,
+and he settled back and watched his fellow passengers leisurely climbing
+the steps. Among those who entered the parlor-car was a stout,
+gentlemanly man, gesticulating earnestly, although his hands were full
+of parcels, and turning every instant to look with a quick, bright eye
+into the face of his companion, who was a priest.
+
+The priest left him shortly after they entered the car, and the stout
+man sat down and unfolded a newspaper on which the name and place of
+publication--_L'Évangéline, Journal Hebdomadaire, Weymouth_--met
+Vesper's eye with grateful familiarity. The title was, of course, a
+pathetic reminder of the poem. Weymouth, and he glanced at his map, was
+in the line of villages along the bay.
+
+The gentleman for a time read the paper intently. Then his nervous hands
+flung it down, and Vesper, leaning over, politely asked if he would lend
+it to him.
+
+It was handed to him with a bow, and the young American was soon deep in
+its contents. It had been founded in the interests of the Acadiens of
+the Maritime Provinces, he read in fluent modern French, which greatly
+surprised him, as he had expected to be confronted by some curious
+_patois_ concocted by this remnant of a foreign race isolated so long
+among the English. He read every word of the paper,--the cards of
+professional men, the advertisements of shopkeepers, the remarks on
+agriculture, the editorials on Canadian politics, the local news, and
+the story by a Parisian novelist. Finally he returned _L'Évangéline_ to
+its owner, whose quick eyes were looking him all over in mingled
+curiosity and gratification, which at last culminated in the remark that
+it was a fine morning.
+
+Vesper, with slow, quiet emphasis, which always imparted weight and
+importance to his words, assented to this, with the qualification that
+it was chilly.
+
+"It is never very warm here until the end of June," said the stout
+gentleman, with a courteous gesture, "but I find this weather most
+agreeable for wheeling. I am shortly to leave the train and take to my
+bicycle for the remainder of my journey."
+
+Vesper asked him whether there was a good road along the shores of the
+Bay.
+
+"The best in the province, but I regret to say that the roads to it from
+the stations are cut up by heavy teaming."
+
+"And the hotels,--are they good?"
+
+"According to the guide-books there are none in Frenchtown," said the
+gentleman, with lively sarcasm. "I know of one or two where one can be
+comfortable. Here, for instance," and one of his facile hands indicated
+a modest advertisement in _L'Évangéline_.
+
+     Sleeping Water Inn. This inn, well patronized in the past, is still
+     the rendezvous for tourists, bicyclists, etc. The house is airy,
+     and the table is good. A trustworthy teamster is always at the
+     train to carry trunks and valises to the inn. Rose de Forêt,
+     Proprietress.
+
+Vesper looked up, to find his neighbor smiling involuntarily. "Pardon
+me," he said, with contrition, "I am thinking that you would find the
+house satisfactory."
+
+"It is kept by a woman?"
+
+"Yes," said the stranger, with preternatural gravity; "Rose à
+Charlitte."
+
+Vesper said nothing, and his face was rarely an index of his thoughts,
+yet the stranger, knowing in some indefinable way that he wished for
+further information, continued. "On the Bay, the friendly fashion
+prevails of using only the first name. Rose à Charlitte is rarely called
+Madame de Forêt."
+
+Vesper saw that some special interest attached to the proprietress of
+the Acadien inn, yet did not see his way clear to find out what it was.
+His new acquaintance, however, had a relish for his subject of
+conversation, and pursued it with satisfaction. "She is very
+remarkable, and makes money, yet I hope that fate will intervene to
+preserve her from a life which is, perhaps, too public for a woman of
+her stamp. A rich uncle, one Auguste Le Noir, whose beautiful home among
+orange and fig trees on the Bayou Vermillon in Louisiana I visited last
+year, may perhaps rescue her. Not that she does anything at all out of
+the way," he added, hastily, "but she is beautiful and young."
+
+Vesper repressed a slight start at the mention of the name Le Noir, then
+asked calmly if it was a common one among the Acadiens.
+
+The Le Noirs and Le Blancs, the gentleman assured him, were as
+plentiful as blackberries, while as to Melançons, there were eighty
+families of them on the Bay. "This has given rise to the curious
+house-that-Jack-built system of naming," he said. "There is Jean à
+Jacques Melançon, which is Jean, the son of Jacques,--Jean à Basile,
+Jean à David, and sometimes Jean à Martin à Conrade à Benoit Melançon,
+but"--and he checked himself quickly--"I am, perhaps, wearying you with
+all this?" He was as a man anxious, yet hesitating, to impart
+information, and Vesper hastened to assure him that he was deeply
+interested in the Acadiens.
+
+The cloud swept from the face of the vivacious gentleman. "You gratify
+me. The old prejudice against my countrymen still lingers in this
+province in the shape of indifference. I rarely discuss them unless I
+know my listener."
+
+"Have I the pleasure of addressing an Acadien?" asked Vesper.
+
+"I have the honor to be one," said the stout gentleman, and his face
+flushed like that of a girl.
+
+Vesper gave him a quick glance. This was the first Acadien that he had
+ever seen, and he was about as far removed from the typical Acadien that
+he had pictured to himself as a man could be. This man was a gentleman.
+He had expected to find the Acadiens, after all the trials they had gone
+through in their dispossession of property and wanderings by sea and
+land, degenerated into a despoiled and poverty-stricken remnant of
+peasantry. Curiously gratified by the discovery that here was one who
+had not gone under in the stress of war and persecution, he remarked
+that his companion was probably well-informed on the subject of the
+expulsion of his countrymen from this province.
+
+"The expulsion,--ah!" said the gentleman, in a repressed voice. Then,
+unable to proceed, he made a helpless gesture and turned his face
+towards the window.
+
+The younger man thought that there were tears in his eyes, and forbore
+to speak.
+
+"One mentions it so calmly nowadays," said the Acadien, presently,
+looking at him. "There is no passion, no resentment, yet it is a living
+flame in the breast of every true Acadien, and this is the reason,--it
+is a tragedy that is yet championed. It is commonly believed that the
+deportation of the Acadiens was a necessity brought about by their
+stubbornness."
+
+"That is the view I have always taken of it," said Vesper, mildly. "I
+have never looked into the subject exhaustively, but my conclusion from
+desultory reading has been that the Acadiens were an obstinate set of
+people who dictated terms to the English, which, as a conquered race,
+they should not have done, and they got transported for it."
+
+"Then let me beg you, my dear sir, to search into the matter. If you
+happen to visit the Sleeping Water Inn, ask for Agapit Le Noir. He is an
+enthusiast on the subject, and will inform you; and if at any time you
+find yourself in our beautiful city of Halifax, may I not beg the
+pleasure of a call? I shall be happy to lay before you some historical
+records of our race," and he offered Vesper a card on which was
+engraved, Dr. Bernardin Arseneau, Barrington Street, Halifax.
+
+Vesper took the card, thanked him, and said, "Shall I find any of the
+descendants of the settlers of Grand Pré among the Acadiens on this
+Bay?"
+
+"Many, many of them. When the French first came to Nova Scotia, they
+naturally selected the richest portions of the province. At the
+expulsion these farms were seized. When, through incredible hardships,
+they came struggling back to this country that they so much loved, they
+could not believe that their lands would not be restored to them. Many
+of them trudged on foot to fertile Grand Pré, to Port Royal, and other
+places. They looked in amazement at the settlers who had taken their
+homes. You know who they were?"
+
+"No, I do not," said Vesper.
+
+"They were your own countrymen, my dear sir, if, as I rightly judge, you
+come from the United States. They came to this country, and found
+waiting for them the fertile fields whose owners had been seized,
+imprisoned, tortured, and carried to foreign countries, some years
+before. Such is the justice of the world. For their portion the returned
+Acadiens received this strip of forest on the Bay Saint-Mary. You will
+see what they have made of it," and, with a smile at once friendly and
+sad, the stout gentleman left the train and descended to a little
+station at which they had just pulled up.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+
+                        THE SLEEPING WATER INN.
+
+      "Montrez-moi votre menu et je vous montrerai mon coeur."
+
+
+A few minutes later, the train had again entered the forest, and Vesper,
+who had a passion for trees and ranked them with human beings in his
+affections, allowed the mystery and charm of these foreigners to steal
+over him. In dignified silence and reserve the tall pines seemed to draw
+back from the rude contact of the passing train. The more assertive firs
+and spruces stood still, while the slender hackmatacks, most beautiful
+of all the trees of the wood, writhed and shook with fright, nervously
+tossing their tremulous arms and tasselled heads, and breathing long
+odoriferous sighs that floated after, but did not at all touch the
+sympathies of the roaring monster from the outer world who so often
+desecrated their solitude.
+
+Vesper's delicate nostrils dilated as the spicy odors saluted them, and
+he thought, with tenderness, of the home trees that he loved, the elms
+of the Common and those of the square where he had been born. How many
+times he had encircled them with admiring footsteps, noting the
+individual characteristics of each tree, and giving to each one a
+separate place in his heart. Just for an instant he regretted that for
+to-night he could not lie down in their shadow. Then he turned irritably
+to the salesman, who was stretching and shaking out his legs, and
+performing other calisthenic exploits as accompaniments of waking.
+
+"Haven't we come to Great Scott yet?" he asked, getting up, and
+sauntering to Vesper's window.
+
+Vesper consulted his folder. Among the French names he could discover
+nothing like this, unless it was Grosses Coques, so called, his
+guide-book told him, because the Acadiens had discovered enormous clams
+there.
+
+The salesman settled the question by dabbing at the name with his fat
+forefinger. "Confound these French names, and thank the Lord they're
+beginning to give them up. This Sleeping Water we're coming to used to
+be _L'Eau Dormante_. If I had my way, I'd string up on these pines every
+fellow that spoke a word of this gibberish. That would cure 'em. Why
+can't they have one language, as we do?"
+
+"How would you like to talk French?" asked Vesper, quietly.
+
+The little man laughed shrewdly, and not unkindly. "Every man to his
+liking. I guess it's best not to fight too much."
+
+"I get off here," said Vesper, gathering up his papers.
+
+"Happy you,--you won't have to wait for all of Evangeline's heifers to
+step off the track between here and Halifax."
+
+Vesper nodded to him, and, swinging himself from the car, went to find
+the conductor.
+
+There was ample time to get that gentlemanly official's consent to have
+his wheel and trunk put off at this station, instead of at Grand Pré,
+and ample time for Vesper to give a long look at the names in the line
+of cars, which were, successively, Basil the Blacksmith, Benedict the
+Father, René the Notary, and Gabriel the Lover, before the locomotive
+snuffed its nostrils and, panting and heaving, started off to trail its
+romantic appendages through the country of Evangeline.
+
+When the train had disappeared, Vesper looked about him. He was no
+longer in the heart of the forest. An open country and scattering houses
+appeared in the distance, and here he could distinctly feel a
+mischievous breeze from the Bay that playfully ruffled his hair, and
+tossed back the violets at his feet every time that they bent over to
+look at their own sweet faces in the black, mirror-like pool of water
+set in a mossy bed beside them.
+
+He stooped and picked one of the wistful purple blossoms, then stepped
+up on the platform of the gabled station-house. Inside the kitchen, a
+woman, sitting with her back to the passing trains, was spinning, and at
+the same time rocking a cradle, while near the door stood an individual
+who, to Vesper's secret amusement, might have posed either as a member
+of the human species, or as one of the class _aves_.
+
+He had many times seen the fellows of this white-haired, smooth-faced
+old man, in the Southern States in the shape of cardinal-birds. Those
+resplendent creatures in the male sex are usually clothed in gay red
+jackets. This male's plumage was also red, but, unlike the
+cardinal-birds, it had a trimming of pearl buttons and white lace. The
+bird's high and conical crest was expressed in the man by a pointed red
+cap. The bird is nondescript as to the legs,--so also was the man; and
+the loud and musical note of the Southern songster was reproduced in the
+fife-like tones of the Acadien, when he presently spoke.
+
+He was an official, and carried in his hand a locked bag containing her
+Majesty's mail for her Acadien subjects of the Bay. Vesper had seen the
+mail-carriers along the route, tossing their bags to the passing train,
+and receiving others in return, but none as gorgeous as this one, and he
+was wondering why the gentle-faced septuagenarian made himself so
+peculiar, when he was addressed in a sweet, high voice.
+
+"Sir," said the bird-man, in French,--for was he not Emmanuel Victor De
+la Rive, lineal descendant of a French marquis who had married a queen's
+maid of honor, and had subsequently bequeathed his bones and his large
+family of children to his adored Acadie?--"Sir, is it possible that you
+are a guest for the inn?"
+
+"It is possible," said Vesper, gravely.
+
+"Alas!" said the old man, turning to the dark-eyed woman, who had left
+her cradle and spinning-wheel, "is it not always so? When Rose à
+Charlitte does not send, there are arrivals. When she does, there are
+not. She will be in despair. Sir, shall I have the honor of taking you
+over in my road-cart?"
+
+"I have a wheel," said Vesper, pointing to the bicycle, leaning
+disconsolately against his trunk.
+
+The black-eyed woman immediately put out her hand for his checks.
+
+"Then may I have the honor of showing you the way?" said Monsieur De la
+Rive, bowing before Vesper as if he were a divinity. "There are sides of
+the road which it is well to avoid."
+
+"I shall be most happy to avail myself of your offer."
+
+"I will send the trunk over," said the station woman. "There is a
+constant going that way."
+
+Vesper thanked her, and left the station in the wake of the
+cardinal-bird, who sat perched on his narrow seat as easily as if it
+were a branch of a tree, turning his crested head at frequent intervals
+to look anxiously at the mail-bag which, for reasons best known to
+himself, he carried slung to a nail in the back of his cart.
+
+At frequent intervals, too, he piped shrill and sweet remarks to Vesper.
+"Courage; the road will soon improve. It is the ox-teams that cut it up.
+They load schooners in the Bay. Here at last is a good spot. Monsieur
+can mount now. Beware of the sharp stones. All the bones of the earth
+stick up in places. Does monsieur intend to stay long in Sleeping Water?
+Was it monsieur that Rose à Charlitte expected when she drove through
+the pouring rain to the station, two days since? What did he say in the
+letter that he sent yesterday in explanation of his change of plans? Did
+monsieur come from Halifax, or Boston? Did he know Mrs. de la Rive,
+laundress, of Cambridge Street? Had he samples of candy or tobacco in
+that big box of his? How much did he charge a pound for his best
+peppermints?"
+
+Vesper, fully occupied with keeping his wheel out of the ruts in the
+road, and in maintaining a safe distance from the cart, which pressed
+him sore if he went ahead and waited for him if he dallied behind,
+answered "yes" and "no" at random, until at length he had involved
+himself in such a maze of contradictions that Monsieur de la Rive felt
+himself forced to pull up his brown pony and remonstrate.
+
+"But it is impossible, monsieur, that you should have seen Mrs. de la
+Rive, who has been dying for weeks, dancing at the wedding of the
+daughter of her step-uncle, the baker, and yet you say 'yes' when I
+remark that she was not there."
+
+The stop and the remonstrance were so birdlike and so quick, that
+Vesper, taken aback, fell off his wheel and broke his cyclometer.
+
+He picked himself out of the dust, swearing under his breath, and
+Monsieur de la Rive, being a gentleman, and seeing that this quiet young
+stranger was disinclined for conversation, suddenly whipped up his pony
+and sped madly on ahead, the tails of his red coat streaming out behind
+him, the tip of his pointed cap fluttering and nodding over his thick
+white locks of hair.
+
+After the lapse of a few minutes, Vesper had recovered his composure,
+and was looking calmly about him. The road was better now, and they were
+nearing the Bay, that lay shimmering and shining like a great
+sea-serpent coiled between purple hills. He did not know what Grand Pré
+was like, and was therefore unaware of the extent of the Acadiens' loss
+in being driven from it; but this was by no means a barren country. On
+either side of him were fairly prosperous farms, each one with a light
+painted wooden house, around which clustered usually a group of
+children, presided over by a mother, who, as the mail-driver dashed by,
+would appear in the doorway, thrusting forth her matronly face, often
+partly shrouded by a black handkerchief.
+
+These black handkerchiefs, _la cape Normande_ of old France, were almost
+universal on the heads of women and girls. He could see them in the
+fields and up and down the roads. They and the vivacious sound of the
+French tongue gave the foreign touch to his surroundings, which he
+found, but for these reminders, might once again have been those of an
+out-of-the-way district in some New England State.
+
+He noticed, with regret, that the forest had all been swept away. The
+Acadiens, in their zeal for farming, had wielded their axes so
+successfully that scarcely a tree had been left between the station and
+the Bay. Here and there stood a lonely guardian angel, in the shape of a
+solitary pine, hovering over some Acadien roof-tree, and turning a
+melancholy face towards its brothers of the forest,--rugged giants
+primeval, now prostrate and forlorn, and being trailed slowly along
+towards the waiting schooners in the Bay.
+
+The most of these fallen giants were loaded on rough carts drawn by
+pairs of sleek and well-kept oxen who were yoked by the horns. The carts
+were covered with mud from the bad roads of the forest, and muddy also
+were the boots of the stalwart Acadien drivers, who walked beside the
+oxen, whip in hand, and turned frankly curious faces towards the
+stranger who flashed by their slow-moving teams on his shining wheel.
+
+The road was now better, and Vesper quickly attained to the top of the
+last hill between the station and the Bay.
+
+Ah! now the fields did not appear bare, the houses naked, the whole
+country wind-swept and cold, for the wide, regal, magnificent Bay lay
+spread out before him. It was no longer a thread of light, a sea-serpent
+shining in the distance, but a great, broad, beautiful basin, on whose
+placid bosom all the Acadien, New England, and Nova Scotian fleets might
+float with never a jostle between any of their ships.
+
+A fire of admiration kindled in his calm eyes, and he allowed himself to
+glide rapidly down the hill towards this brilliant blue sweep of water,
+along whose nearer shores stretched, as far as his gaze could reach, the
+curious dotted line of the French village.
+
+The country had become flat, as flat as Holland, and the fields rolled
+down into the water in the softest, most exquisite shades of green,
+according to the different kinds of grass or grain flourishing along the
+shores. The houses were placed among the fields, some close together,
+some far apart, all, however, but a stone's throw from the water's edge,
+as if the Acadiens, fearful of another expulsion, held themselves always
+in readiness to step into the procession of boats and schooners moored
+almost in their dooryards.
+
+At the point where Vesper found himself threatened with precipitation
+into the Bay, they struck the village line. Here, at the corner, was the
+general shop and post-office of Sleeping Water. The cardinal-bird
+fluttered his mail-bag in among the loafers at the door, saw the
+shopkeeper catch it, then, swelling out his vermilion breast with
+importance, he nimbly took the corner with one wheel in the air and
+pulled up before the largest, whitest house on the street, and
+flourished a flaming wing in the direction of a swinging sign,--"The
+Sleeping Water Inn."
+
+Vesper, biting his lip to restrain a smile, rounded the corner after
+him, and leisurely stepped from his wheel in front of the house.
+
+"Ring, sir, and enter," piped the bird, then, wishing him _bonne chance_
+(good luck), he flew away.
+
+Vesper pulled the bell, and, as no one answered his summons, he
+sauntered through the open door into the hall.
+
+So this was an Acadien house,--and he had expected a log hut. He could
+command a view from where he stood of a staircase, a smoking-room, and a
+parlor,--all clean, cool, and comfortably furnished, and having easy
+chairs, muslin curtains, books, and pictures.
+
+He smiled to himself, murmured "I wonder where the dining-room is? These
+flies will probably know," and followed a prosperous-looking swarm
+sailing through the hall to a distant doorway.
+
+A table, covered by a snowy cloth and set ready for a meal, stood before
+him. He walked around it, rapped on a door, behind which he heard a
+murmur of voices, and was immediately favored with a sight of an Acadien
+kitchen.
+
+This one happened to be large, lofty, and of a grateful irregularity in
+shape. The ceiling was as white as snow, and a delicate blue and cream
+paper adorned the walls. The floor was of hard wood and partly covered
+with brightly colored mats, made by the skilful fingers of Acadien
+women. There were several windows and doors, and two pantries, but no
+fireplace. An enormous Boston cooking range took its place. Every cover
+on it glistened with blacking, every bit of nickel plating was polished
+to the last degree, and, as if to show that this model stove could not
+possibly be malevolent enough to throw out impurities in the way of soot
+and ashes, there stood beside it a tall clothes-horse full of white
+ironed clothes hung up to air.
+
+But the most remarkable thing in this exquisitely clean kitchen was the
+mistress of the inn,--tall, willowy Mrs. Rose à Charlitte, who stood
+confronting the newcomer with a dish-cover in one hand and a clean
+napkin in the other, her pretty oval face flushed from some sacrifice
+she had been offering up on her huge Moloch of a stove.
+
+[Illustration: "ROSE À CHARLITTE STOOD CONFRONTING THE NEWCOMER."]
+
+"Can you give me some lunch?" asked Vesper, and he wondered whether he
+should find a descendant of the Fiery Frenchman in this placid beauty,
+whose limpid blue eyes, girlish, innocent gaze, and thick braid of hair,
+with the little confusion of curls on the forehead, reminded him rather
+of a Gretchen or a Marguerite of the stage.
+
+"But yes," said Mrs. Rose à Charlitte, in uncertain yet pretty English,
+and her gentle and demure glance scrutinized him with some shrewdness
+and accurate guessing as to his attainments and station in life.
+
+"Can you give it to me soon?" he asked.
+
+"I can give it soon," she replied, and as she spoke she made an almost
+imperceptible motion of her head in the direction of the neat
+maid-servant behind her, who at once flew out to the garden for fresh
+vegetables, while, with her foot, which was almost as slender as her
+hand, Mrs. Rose à Charlitte pulled out a damper in the stove that at
+once caused a still more urgent draft to animate the glowing wood
+inside.
+
+"Can you let me have a room?" pursued Vesper.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Mrs. Rose, and she turned to the third occupant of the
+kitchen, a pale child with a flowerlike face and large, serious eyes,
+who sat with folded hands in a little chair. "Narcisse," she said, in
+French, "wilt thou go and show the judge's room?"
+
+The child, without taking his fascinated gaze from Vesper, responded, in
+a sweet, drawling voice, "_Ou-a-a-y, ma ma-r-re_" (yes, my mother).
+Then, rising, he trotted slowly through the dining-room and up the
+staircase to a hall above, where he gravely threw open the door of a
+good-sized chamber, whose chief ornament was a huge white bed.
+
+"Why do you call this the judge's room?" asked Vesper, in French.
+
+The child answered him in unintelligible childish speech, that made the
+young man observe him intently. "I believe you look like me, you black
+lily," he said, at last.
+
+There was, indeed, a resemblance between their two heads. Both had pale,
+inscrutable faces, dark eyes, and curls like midnight clustering over
+their white foreheads. Both were serious, grave, and reserved in
+expression. The child stared up at Vesper, then, seizing one of his
+hands, he patted it gently with his tiny fingers. They were friends.
+
+[Illustration: "THEY WERE FRIENDS."]
+
+Vesper allowed the child to hold his hand until he plunged his head into
+a basin of cold water. Then, with water dripping from his face, he
+paused to examine a towel before he would press it against his sensitive
+skin. It was fine and perfectly clean, and, with a satisfied air, he
+murmured: "So far, Doctor Arseneau has not led me astray."
+
+The child waited patiently until the stranger had smoothed down his
+black curls, then, stretching out a hand, he mutely invited him to
+descend to the parlor.
+
+Upon arriving there, he modestly withdrew to a corner, after pointing
+out a collection of photographs on the table. Vesper made a pretence of
+examining them until the entrance of his landlady with the announcement
+that his lunch was served.
+
+She shyly set before him a plate of soup, and a dish which she called a
+little _ragoût_, "not as good as the _ragoûts_ of Boston, and yet
+eatable."
+
+"How do you know that I am from Boston?" asked Vesper.
+
+"I do not know," she murmured, with a quick blush. "Monsieur is from
+Halifax, I thought. He seems English. I speak of Boston because it was
+there that I learned to cook."
+
+Vesper said nothing, but his silence seemed to invite a further
+explanation, and she went on, modestly: "When I received news that my
+husband had died of yellow fever in the West Indies, neighbors said,
+'What will you do?' My stepmother said, 'Come home;' but I answered,
+'No; a child that has left its father's roof does not return. I will
+keep hotel. My house is of size. I will go to Boston and learn to cook
+better than I know.' So I went, and stayed one week."
+
+"That was a short time to learn cooking," observed Vesper, politely.
+
+"I did not study. I bought _cuisine_ books. I went to grand hotels and
+regarded the tables and tasted the dishes. If I now had more money, I
+would do similar," and she anxiously surveyed her modest table and the
+aristocratic young man seated at it; "but not many people come, and the
+money lacks. However, our Lord knows that I wish to educate my child.
+Strangers will come when he is older.
+
+"And," she went on, after a time, with mingled reluctance and honesty,
+"I must not hide from you that I have already in the bank two hundred
+dollars. It is not much; not so much as the Gautreaus, who have six
+hundred, and Agapit, who has four, yet it is a starting."
+
+Vesper slightly wrinkled his forehead, and Mrs. Rose, fearful that her
+cooking displeased him, for he had scarcely tasted the _ragoût_ and had
+put aside a roast chicken, hastened to exclaim, "That pudding is but
+overheated, and I did wrong to place it before you. Despise it if you
+care, and it will please the hens."
+
+"It is a very good pudding," said Vesper, composedly, and he proceeded
+to finish it.
+
+"Here is a custard which is quite fresh," said his landlady, feverishly,
+"and bananas, and oranges, and some coffee."
+
+"Thank you. No cream--may I ask why you call that room you put me in the
+judge's room?"
+
+"Because we have court near by, every year. The judge who comes exists
+in that room. It is a most stirabout time, for many witnesses and
+lawyers come. Perhaps monsieur passed the court-house and saw a lady
+looking through the bars?"
+
+"No, I did not. Who is the lady?"
+
+"A naughty one, who sold liquor. She had no license, she could not pay
+her fine, therefore she must look through those iron bars," and Mrs.
+Rose à Charlitte shuddered.
+
+Vesper looked interested, and presently she went on: "But Clothilde
+Dubois has some mercies,--one rocking-chair, her own feather bed, some
+dainties to eat, and many friends to visit and talk through the bars."
+
+"Is there much drinking among the Acadiens on this Bay?" asked Vesper.
+
+"They do not drink at all," she said, stoutly.
+
+"Really,--then you never see a drunken man?"
+
+"I never see a drunken man," rejoined his pretty hostess.
+
+"Then I suppose there are no fights."
+
+"There are no fights among Acadiens. They are good people. They go to
+mass and vespers on Sunday. They listen to their good priests. In the
+evening one amuses oneself, and on Monday we rise early to work. There
+are no dances, no fights."
+
+Vesper's meditative glance wandered through the window to a square of
+grass outside, where some little girls in pink cotton dresses were
+playing croquet. He was drinking his coffee and watching their graceful
+behavior, when his attention was recalled to the room by hearing Mrs.
+Rose à Charlitte say to her child, "There, Narcisse, is a morsel for thy
+trees."
+
+The little boy had come from the corner where he had sat like a patient
+mouse, and, with some excitement, was heaping a plate with the food that
+Vesper had rejected.
+
+"Not so fast, little one," said his mother, with an apologetic glance at
+the stranger. "Take these plates to the pantry, it will be better."
+
+"Ah, but they will have a good dinner to-day," said the child. "I will
+give most to the French willows, my mother. In the morning it will all
+be gone."
+
+"But, my treasure, it is the dogs that get it, not the trees."
+
+"No, my mother," he drawled, "you do not know. In the night the long
+branches stretch out their arms; they sweep it up," and he clasped his
+tiny hands in ecstasy.
+
+Vesper's curiosity was aroused, although he had not understood half that
+the child had said. "Does he like trees?" he asked.
+
+Rose à Charlitte made a puzzled gesture. "Sir, to him the trees, the
+flowers, the grass, are quite alive. He will not play croquet with those
+dear little girls lest his shoes hurt the grass. If I would allow, he
+would take all the food from the house and lay under the trees and the
+flowers. He often cries at night, for he says the hollyhocks and
+sunflowers are hungry, because they are tall and lean. He suffers
+terribly to see the big spruces and pines cut down and dragged to the
+shore. The doctor says he should go away for awhile, but it is a puzzle,
+for I cannot endure to have him leave me."
+
+Vesper gave more attention than he yet had done to the perusal of the
+child's sensitive yet strangely composed face. Then he glanced at the
+mother. Did she understand him?
+
+She did. In her deep blue eyes he could readily perceive the quick flash
+of maternal love and sympathy whenever her boy spoke to her. She was
+young, too, extremely young, to have the care of rearing a child. She
+must have been married in her cradle, and with that thought in mind he
+said, "Do Acadien women marry at an early age?"
+
+"Not more so than the English," said Mrs. Rose, with a shrug of her
+graceful, sloping shoulders, "though I was but young,--but seventeen.
+But my husband wished it so. He had built this house. He had been long
+ready for marriage," and she glanced at the wall behind Vesper.
+
+The young man turned around. Just behind him hung the enlarged
+photograph of a man of middle age,--a man who must have been many years
+older than his young wife, and whose death had, evidently, not left a
+permanent blank in her affections.
+
+In a naïve, innocent way she imparted a few more particulars to Vesper
+with regard to her late husband, and, as he rose from the table, she
+followed him to the parlor and said, gently, "Perhaps monsieur will
+register."
+
+Vesper sat down before the visitors' book on the table, and, taking up a
+pen, wrote, "Vesper L. Nimmo, _The Evening News_, Boston."
+
+After he had pressed the blotting-paper on his words, and pushed the
+book from him, his landlady stretched out her hand in childlike
+curiosity. "Vesper," she said,--"that name is beautiful; it is in a
+hymn to the blessed virgin; but _Evening News_,--surely it means not a
+journal?"
+
+Vesper assured her that it did.
+
+The young French widow's face fell. She gazed at him with a sudden and
+inexplicable change of expression, in which there was something of
+regret, something of reproach. "_Il faut que je m'en aille_" (I must go
+away), she murmured, reverting to her native language, and she swiftly
+withdrew.
+
+Vesper lifted his level eyebrows and languidly strolled out to the
+veranda. "The Acadienne evidently entertains some prejudice against
+newspaper men. If my dear father were here he would immediately proceed,
+in his inimitable way, to clear it from her mind. As for me, I am not
+sufficiently interested," and he listlessly stretched himself out on a
+veranda settle.
+
+"Monsieur," said a little voice, in deliberate French, "will you tell me
+a story about a tree?"
+
+Vesper understood Narcisse this time, and, taking him on his knee, he
+pointed to the wooded hills across the Bay and related a wonderful tale
+of a city beyond the sun where the trees were not obliged to stand still
+in the earth from morning till night, but could walk about and visit men
+and women, who were their brothers and sisters, and sometimes the young
+trees would stoop down and play with the children.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+
+                          AGAPIT, THE ACADIEN.
+
+         "The music of our life is keyed
+            To moods that sweep athwart the soul;
+            The strain will oft in gladness roll,
+          Or die in sobs and tears at need;
+            But sad or gay, 'tis ever true
+            That, e'en as flowers from light take hue,
+          The key is of our mood the deed."
+
+                        AMINTA. CORNELIUS O'BRIEN,
+                                _Archbishop of Halifax_.
+
+
+After Mrs. Rose à Charlitte left Vesper she passed through the kitchen,
+and, ascending an open stairway leading to regions above, was soon at
+the door of the highest room in the house.
+
+Away up there, sitting at a large table drawn up to the window which
+commanded an extensive view of the Bay, sat a sturdy, black-haired young
+man. As Mrs. Rose entered the room she glanced about approvingly--for
+she was a model housekeeper--at the neatly arranged books and papers on
+tables and shelves, and then said, regretfully, and in French, "There is
+another of them."
+
+"Of them,--of whom?" said the young man, peevishly, and in the same
+language.
+
+"Of the foolish ones who write," continued Mrs. Rose, with gentle
+mischief; "who waste much time in scribbling."
+
+"There are people whose brains are continually stewing over
+cooking-stoves," said the young man, scornfully; "they are incapable of
+rising higher."
+
+"La, la, Agapit," she said, good-naturedly. "Do not be angry with thy
+cousin. I came to warn thee lest thou shouldst talk freely to him and
+afterward be sorry."
+
+The young man threw his pen on the table, pushed back his chair, and,
+springing to his feet, began to pace excitedly up and down the room,
+gesticulating eagerly as he talked.
+
+"When fine weather comes," he exclaimed, "strangers flock to the Bay. We
+are glad to see them,--all but these abominable idiots. Therefore when
+they arrive let the frost come, let us have hail, wind, and snow to
+drive them home, that we may enjoy peace."
+
+"But unfortunately in June we have fine weather," said Mrs. Rose.
+
+"I will insult him," said her black-haired cousin, wildly. "I will drive
+him from the house," and he stood on tiptoe and glared in her face.
+
+"No, no; thou wilt do nothing of the sort, Agapit."
+
+"I will," he said, distractedly. "I will, I will, I will."
+
+"Agapit," said the young woman, firmly, "if it were not for the
+strangers I should have only crusts for my child, not good bread and
+butter, therefore calm thyself. Thou must be civil to this stranger."
+
+"I will not," he said, sullenly.
+
+Mrs. Rose à Charlitte's temper gave way. "Pack up thy clothes," she
+said, angrily; "there is no living with thee,--thou art so disagreeable.
+Take thy old trash, thy papers so old and dusty, and leave my house.
+Thou wilt make me starve,--my child will not be educated. Go,--I cast
+thee off."
+
+Agapit became calm as he contemplated her wrathful, beautiful face.
+"Thou art like all women," he said, composedly, "a little excitable at
+times. I am a man, therefore I understand thee," and pushing back his
+coat he stuck his thumbs in the armholes and majestically resumed his
+walk about the room.
+
+"Come now, cease thy crying," he went on, uneasily, after a time, when
+Rose, who had thrown herself into a chair and had covered her face with
+her hands, did not look at him. "I shall not leave thee, Rose."
+
+"He is very distinguished," she sobbed, "very polite, and his finger
+nails are as white as thy bedspread. He is quite a gentleman; why does
+he write for those wicked journals?"
+
+"Thou hast been talking to him, Rose," said her cousin, suspiciously,
+stopping short and fixing her with a fiery glance; "with thy usual
+innocence thou hast told him all that thou dost know and ever wilt
+know."
+
+Rose shuddered, and withdrew her hands from her eyes. "I told him
+nothing, not a word."
+
+"Thou didst not tell him of thy wish to educate thy boy, of thy two
+hundred dollars in the bank, of thy husband, who teased thy stepmother
+till she married thee to him, nor of me, for example?" and his voice
+rose excitedly.
+
+His cousin was quite composed now. "I told him nothing," she repeated,
+firmly.
+
+"If thou didst do so," he continued, threateningly, "it will all come
+out in a newspaper,--'Melting Innocence of an Acadien Landlady. She
+Tells a Reporter in Five Minutes the Story of Her Life.'"
+
+"It will not appear," said Mrs. Rose, hastily. "He is a worthy young
+man, and handsome, too. There is not on the Bay a handsomer young man. I
+will ask him to write nothing, and he will listen to me."
+
+"Oh, thou false one," cried the young man, half in vexation, half in
+perplexity. "I wish that thou wert a child,--I would shake thee till thy
+teeth chattered!"
+
+Mrs. Rose ran from the room. "He is a pig, an imbecile, and he terrifies
+me so that I tell what is not true. What will Father Duvair say to me? I
+will rise at six to-morrow, and go to confession."
+
+Vesper went early to bed that night, and slept soundly until early the
+next morning, when he opened his eyes to a vision of hazy green fields,
+a wide sheet of tremulous water, and a quiet, damp road, bordered by
+silent houses. He sprang from his bed, and went to the open window. The
+sun was just coming from behind a bank of clouds. He watched the Bay
+lighting up under its rays, the green fields brightening, the moisture
+evaporating; then hastily throwing on his clothes, he went down-stairs,
+unlatched the front door, and hurried across the road into a hay-field,
+where the newly cut grass, dripping with moisture, wet his slippered but
+stockingless feet.
+
+Down by the rocks he saw a small bathing-house. He slipped off his
+clothes, and, clad only in a thin bathing-suit, stood shivering for an
+instant at the edge of the water. "It will be frightfully cold," he
+muttered. "Dare I--yes, I do," and he plunged boldly into the
+deliciously salt waves, and swam to and fro, until he was glowing from
+head to foot.
+
+As he was hurrying up to the inn, a few minutes later, he saw, coming
+down the road, a small two-wheeled cart, in which was seated Mrs. Rose à
+Charlitte. She was driving a white pony, and she sat demure, charming,
+with an air of penitence about her, and wearing the mourning garb of
+Acadien women,--a plain black dress, a black shawl, and a black silk
+handkerchief, drawn hood-wise over her flaxen mop of hair and tied under
+her chin.
+
+The young man surveyed her approvingly. She seemed to belong naturally
+to the cool, sweet dampness of the morning, and he guessed correctly
+that she had been to early mass in the white church whose steeple he
+could see in the distance. He was amused with the shy, embarrassed "_Bon
+jour_" (good morning) that she gave him as she passed, and murmuring,
+"The shadow of _The Evening News_ is still upon her," he went to his
+room, and made his toilet for breakfast.
+
+An hour later, a loud bell rang through the house, and Vesper, in making
+his way to the dining-room, met a reserved, sulky-faced young man in the
+hall, who bowed coolly and stepped aside for him to pass.
+
+"H'm, Agapit LeNoir," reflected Vesper, darting a critical glance at
+him. "The Acadien who was to unbosom himself to me. He does not look as
+if he would enjoy the process," and he took his seat at the table, where
+Mrs. Rose à Charlitte, grown strangely quiet, served his breakfast in an
+almost unbroken silence.
+
+Vesper thoughtfully poured some of the thick yellow cream on his
+porridge, and enjoyably dallied over it, but when his landlady would
+have set before him a dish of smoking hot potatoes and beefsteak, he
+said, "I do not care for anything further."
+
+Rose à Charlitte drew back in undisguised concern. "But you have eaten
+nothing. Agapit has taken twice as much as this."
+
+"That is the young man I met just now?"
+
+"Yes, he is my cousin; very kind to me. His parents are dead, and he was
+brought up by my stepmother. He is so clever, so clever! It is truly
+strange what he knows. His uncle, who was a priest, left him many
+papers, and all day, when Agapit does not work, he sits and writes or
+reads. Some day he will be a learned man--"
+
+Rose paused abruptly. In her regret at the stranger's want of appetite
+she was forgetting that she had resolved to have no further conversation
+with him, and in sudden confusion she made the excuse that she wished to
+see her child, and melted away like a snowflake, in the direction of the
+kitchen, where Vesper had just heard Narcisse's sweet voice asking
+permission to talk to the Englishman from Boston.
+
+The young American wandered out to the stable. Two Acadiens were there,
+asking Agapit for the loan of a set of harness. At Vesper's approach
+they continued their conversation in French, although he had distinctly
+heard them speaking excellent English before he joined them.
+
+These men were employing an almost new language to him. This was not the
+French of _L'Évangéline_, of Doctor Arseneau, nor of Rose à Charlitte.
+Nor was it _patois_ such as he had heard in France, and which would have
+been unintelligible to him. This must be the true Acadien dialect, and
+he listened with pleasure to the softening and sweetening of some
+syllables and the sharpening and ruining of others. They were saying
+_ung houmme_, for a man. This was not unmusical; neither was
+_persounne_, for nobody; but the _ang_ sound so freely interspersing
+their sentences was detestable; as was also the reckless introduction of
+English phrases, such as "all right," "you bet," "how queer," "too
+proud," "funny," "steam-cars," and many others.
+
+Their conversation for some time left the stable, then it returned along
+the line of discussion of a glossy black horse that stood in one of the
+stalls.
+
+"_Ce cheval est de bounne harage_" (this horse is well-bred), said one
+of the Acadiens, admiringly, and Vesper's thoughts ran back to a word in
+the Latin grammar of his boyhood. _Hara_, a pen or stable. _De bonne
+race_, a modern Frenchman would be likely to say. Probably these men
+were speaking the language brought by their ancestors to Acadie; without
+doubt they were. On this Bay would be presented to him the curious
+spectacle of the descendants of a number of people lifted bodily out of
+France, and preserving in their adopted country the tongue that had been
+lost to the motherland. In France the language had drifted. Here the
+Acadiens were using the same syllables that had hung on the lips of
+kings, courtiers, poets, and wits of three and four hundred years ago.
+
+With keen interest, for he had a passion for the study of languages, he
+carefully analyzed each sentence that he heard, until, fearing that his
+attitude might seem impertinent to the Acadiens, he strolled away.
+
+His feet naturally turned in the direction of the corner, the most
+lively spot in Sleeping Water. In the blacksmith's shop a short, stout
+young Acadien with light hair, blue eyes, and a dirty face and arms, was
+striking the red-hot tip of a pickax with ringing blows. He nodded
+civilly enough to Vesper when he joined the knot of men who stood about
+the wide door watching him, but no one else spoke to him.
+
+A farmer was waiting to have a pair of cream white oxen shod, a
+stable-keeper, from another part of _la ville française_, was
+impatiently chafing and fretting over the amount of time required to
+mend his sulky wheel, and conversing with him were two well-dressed
+young men, who appeared to be Acadiens from abroad spending their
+holidays at home.
+
+Vesper's arrival had the effect of dispersing the little group. The
+stable-man moved away to his sulky, as if he preferred the vicinity of
+his roan horse, who gazed at him so benevolently, to that of Vesper, who
+surveyed him so indifferently. The farmer entered the shop and sat down
+on a box in a dark corner, while the Acadien young men, after cold
+glances at the newcomer, moved away to the post-office.
+
+After a time Vesper remembered that he must have some Canadian stamps,
+and followed them. Outside the shop five or six teams were lined up.
+They were on their way to the wharf below, and were loaded with more of
+the enormous trees that he had seen the day before. Probably their
+sturdy strength, hoarded through long years in Acadien forests, would be
+devoted to the support of some warehouse or mansion in his native
+Puritan city, whose founders had called so loudly for the destruction of
+the French.
+
+Vesper cast a regretful glance in the direction of the trees, and
+entered the little shop, whose well-stocked shelves were full of rolls
+of cotton and flannel, and boxes of groceries, confectionery, and
+stationery. The drivers of the ox-teams were inside, doing their
+shopping. They were somewhat rougher in appearance than the inhabitants
+of Sleeping Water, and were louder and noisier in their conversation.
+Vesper saw a young Acadien whisper a few words to one of them, and the
+teamster in return scowled fiercely at him, and muttered something about
+"a goddam Yankee."
+
+The young American stared coolly at him, and, going up to the counter,
+purchased his stamps from a fat man in shirt-sleeves, who served him
+with exquisite and distant courtesy. Then, leaving the shop, he shrugged
+his shoulders, and went back the way he had come, murmuring, in amused
+curiosity, "I must solve this mystery of _The Evening News_. My friend
+Agapit is infecting all who come within the circle of his influence."
+
+He walked on past the inn, staring with interest at the houses bordering
+the road. A few were very small, a few very old. He could mark the
+transition of a family in some cases from their larval state in a low,
+gray, caterpillar-like house of one story to a gay-winged butterfly home
+of two or three stories. However, on the whole, the dwellings were
+nearly all of the same size,--there were no sharp distinctions between
+rich and poor. He saw no peasants, no pampered landlords. These Acadiens
+all seemed to be small farmers, and all were on an equality.
+
+The creaking of an approaching team caught his attention. It was drawn
+by a pair of magnificent red oxen, groomed as carefully as if they had
+been horses, and beside them walked an old man, who was holding an
+ejaculatory conversation with them in English; for the Acadiens of the
+Bay Saint-Mary always address their oxen and horses as if they belonged
+to the English race.
+
+"I wonder whether this worthy man in homespun has been informed that I
+am a kind of leper," reflected Vesper, as he uttered a somewhat guarded
+"_Bon jour_."
+
+"_Bon jour_," said the old man, delightedly, and he halted and
+admonished his companions to do the same.
+
+"_Il fait beau_" (it is a fine day), pursued Vesper, cautiously.
+
+"_Oui, mais je crais qu'il va mouiller_" (yes, but I think it is going
+to rain), said the Acadien, with gentle affability; then he went on,
+apologetically, and in English, "I do not speak the good French."
+
+"It is the best of French," said Vesper, "for it is old."
+
+"And you," continued the old man, not to be outdone in courtesy, "you
+speak like the sisters of St. Joseph who once called at my house. Their
+words were like round pebbles dropping from their mouths."
+
+Vesper smoothed his mustache, and glanced kindly at his aged companion,
+who proceeded to ask him whether he was staying at the inn. "Ah, it is a
+good inn," he went on, "and Rose à Charlitte is _très-smart,
+très-smart_. Perhaps you do not understand my English," he added, when
+Vesper did not reply to him.
+
+"On the contrary, I find that you speak admirably."
+
+"You are kind," said the old man, shaking his head, "but my English
+langwidge is spiled since my daughter went to Bostons, for I talk to no
+one. She married an Irish boy; he is a nusser."
+
+"An usher,--in a theatre?"
+
+"No, sir, in a cross-spittal. He nusses sick people, and gets two
+dollars a day."
+
+"Oh, indeed."
+
+"Do you come from Bostons?" asked the old man.
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+"And do you know my daughter?"
+
+"What is her name?"
+
+The Acadien reflected for some time, then said it was MacCraw, whereupon
+Vesper assured him that he had never had the pleasure of meeting her.
+
+"Is your trade an easy one?" asked the old man, wistfully.
+
+"No; very hard."
+
+"You are then a farmer."
+
+"No; I wish I were. My trade is taking care of my health."
+
+The Acadien examined him from head to foot. "Your face is beautifuller
+than a woman's, but you are poorly built."
+
+Vesper drew up his straight and slender figure. He was not surprised
+that it did not come up to the Acadien's standard of manly beauty.
+
+"Let us shake hands lest we never meet again," said the old man, so
+gently, so kindly, and with so much benevolence, that Vesper responded,
+warmly, "I hope to see you some other time."
+
+"Perhaps you will call. We are but poor, yet if it would please you--"
+
+"I shall be most happy. Where do you live?"
+
+"Near the low down brook, way off there. Demand Antoine à Joe Rimbaut,"
+and, smiling and nodding farewell, the old man moved on.
+
+"A good heart," said Vesper, looking after him.
+
+"Caw, caw," said a solemn voice at his elbow.
+
+He turned around. One of the blackest of crows sat on a garden fence
+that surrounded a neat pink cottage. The cottage was itself smothered in
+lilacs, whose fragrant blossoms were in their prime, although the Boston
+lilacs had long since faded and died.
+
+"Do not be afraid, sir," said a woman in the inevitable handkerchief,
+who jumped up from a flower bed that she was weeding, "he is quite
+tame."
+
+"_Un corbeau apprivoisé_" (a tame crow), said Vesper, lifting his cap.
+
+"_Un corbeau privé_, we say," she replied, shyly. "You speak the good
+French, like the priests out of France."
+
+She was not a very young woman, nor was she very pretty, but she was
+delightfully modest and retiring in her manner, and Vesper, leaning
+against the fence, assured her that he feared the Acadiens were lacking
+in a proper appreciation of their ability to speak their own language.
+
+After a time he looked over the fields behind her cottage, and asked the
+name of a church crowning a hill in the distance.
+
+"It is the Saulnierville church," she replied, "but you must not walk so
+far. You will stay to dinner?"
+
+While Vesper was politely declining her invitation, a Frenchman with a
+long, pointed nose, and bright, sharp eyes, came around the corner of
+the house.
+
+"He is my husband," said the woman. "Edouard, this gentleman speaks the
+good French."
+
+The Acadien warmly seconded the invitation of his wife that Vesper
+should stay to dinner, but he escaped from them with smiling thanks and
+a promise to come another day.
+
+"They never saw me before, and they asked me to stay to dinner. That is
+true hospitality,--they have not been infected. I will make my way back
+to the inn, and interview that sulky beggar."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+                    VESPER SUGGESTS AN EXPLANATION.
+
+              "Glad of a quarrel straight I clap the door;
+               Sir, let me see you and your works no more."
+
+                                                   POPE.
+
+
+At twelve o'clock Mrs. Rose à Charlitte was standing in her cold pantry
+deftly putting a cap of icing on a rich rounded loaf of cake, when she
+heard a question asked, in Vesper's smooth neutral tones, "Where is
+madame?"
+
+She stepped into the kitchen, and found that he was interrogating her
+servant Célina.
+
+"I should like to speak to that young man I saw this morning," he said,
+when he saw her.
+
+"He has gone out, monsieur," she replied, after a moment's hesitation.
+
+"Which is his room?"
+
+"The one by the smoking-room," she answered, with a deep blush.
+
+Vesper's white teeth gleamed through his dark mustache, and, seeing that
+he was laughing at her, she grew confused, and hung her head.
+
+"Can I get to it by this staircase?" asked Vesper, exposing her petty
+deceit. "I think I can by going up to the roof, and dropping down."
+
+Mrs. Rose lifted her head long enough to flash him a scrutinizing
+glance. Then, becoming sensible of the determination of purpose under
+his indifference of manner, she said, in scarcely audible tones, "I will
+show you."
+
+"I have only a simple question to ask him," said Vesper, reassuringly,
+as he followed her towards the staircase.
+
+"Agapit is quick like lightning," she said, over her shoulder, "but his
+heart is good. He helps to keep our grandmother, who spends her days in
+bed."
+
+"That is exemplary. I would be the last one to hurt the feelings of the
+prop of an aged person," murmured Vesper.
+
+Rose à Charlitte was not satisfied. She unwillingly mounted the stairs,
+and pointed out the door of her cousin's room, then withdrew to the next
+one, and listened anxiously in case there might be some disturbance
+between the young men. There was none; so, after a time, she went
+down-stairs.
+
+Agapit, at Vesper's entrance, abruptly pushed back his chair from the
+table and, rising, presented a red and angry face to his visitor.
+
+"I have interrupted you, I fear," said Vesper, smoothly. "I will not
+detain you long. I merely wish to ask a question."
+
+"Will you sit down?" said Agapit, sulkily, and he forced himself to
+offer the most comfortable chair in the room to his caller.
+
+Vesper did not seat himself until he saw that Agapit was prepared to
+follow his example. Then he looked into the black eyes of the Acadien,
+which were like two of the deep, dark pools in the forest, and said, "A
+matter of business has brought me to this Bay. I may have some inquiries
+to make, in which I would find myself hampered by any prejudice among
+persons I might choose to question. I fancy that some of the people here
+look on me with suspicion. I am quite unaware of having given offence in
+any way. Possibly you can explain,--I am not bent on an explanation, you
+understand. If you choose to offer one, I shall be glad to listen."
+
+He spoke listlessly, tapping on the table with his fingers, and allowing
+his eyes to wander around the room, rather than to remain fixed on
+Agapit's face.
+
+The young Acadien could scarcely restrain a torrent of words until
+Vesper had finished speaking.
+
+"Since you ask, I will explain,--yes, I will not be silent. We are not
+rude here,--oh, no. We are too kind to strangers. Vipers have crept in
+among us. They have stolen heat and warmth from our bosoms"--he paused,
+choking with rage.
+
+"And you have reason to suppose that I may prove a viper?" asked Vesper,
+indolently.
+
+"Yes, you also are one. You come here, we receive you. You depart, you
+laugh in your sleeve,--a newspaper comes. We see it all. The meek and
+patient Acadiens are once more held up to be a laughing-stock."
+
+Vesper wrinkled his level eyebrows. "Perhaps you will characterize this
+viperish conduct?"
+
+Agapit calmed himself slightly. "Wait but an instant. Control your
+curiosity, and I will give you something to read," and he went on his
+knees, and rummaged among some loose papers in an open box. "Look at
+it," he said, at last, springing up and handing his caller a newspaper;
+"read, and possibly you will understand."
+
+Vesper's quick eye ran over the sheet that he held up. "This is a New
+York weekly paper. Yes, I know it well. What is there here that concerns
+you?"
+
+"Look, look here," said Agapit, tapping a column in the paper with an
+impatient gesture. "Read the nonsense, the drivel, the insanity of the
+thing--"
+
+"Ah,--'Among the Acadiens, Quaintness Unrivalled, Archaic Forms of
+Speech, A Dance and a Wedding, The Spirit of Evangeline, Humorous
+Traits, If You Wish a Good Laugh Go Among Them!'"
+
+"She laughed in print, she screamed in black ink!" exclaimed Agapit.
+"The silly one,--the witch."
+
+"Who was she,--this lady viper?" asked Vesper, briefly.
+
+"She was a woman--a newspaper woman. She spent a summer among us. She
+gloomed about the beach with a shawl on her shoulders; a small dog
+followed her. She laid in bed. She read novels, and then," he continued,
+with rising voice, "she returned home, she wrote this detestability
+about us."
+
+"Why need you care?" said Vesper, coolly. "She had to reel off a certain
+amount of copy. All correspondents have to do so. She only touched up
+things a little to make lively reading."
+
+"Not touching up, but manufacturing," retorted Agapit, with blazing
+eyes. "She had nothing to go on, nothing--nothing--nothing. We are just
+like other people," and he ruffled his coal-black hair with both his
+hands, and looked at his caller fiercely. "Do you not find us so?"
+
+"Not exactly," said Vesper, so dispassionately and calmly, and with such
+statuesque repose of manner, that he seemed rather to breathe the words
+than to form them with his lips.
+
+"And you will express that in your paper. You will not tell the truth.
+My countrymen will never have justice,--never, never. They are always
+misrepresented, always."
+
+"What a firebrand!" reflected Vesper, and he surveyed, with some
+animation, the inflamed, suspicious face of the Frenchman.
+
+"You also will caricature us," pursued Agapit; "others have done so, why
+should not you?"
+
+Vesper's lips parted. He was on the point of imparting to Agapit the
+story of his great-grandfather's letter. Then he closed them. Why should
+he be browbeaten into communicating his private affairs to a stranger?
+
+"Thank you," he said, and he rose to leave the room. "I am obliged for
+the information you have given me."
+
+Agapit's face darkened; he would dearly love to secure a promise of good
+behavior from this stranger, who was so non-committal, so reserved, and
+yet so strangely attractive.
+
+"See," he said, grandly, and flinging his hand in the direction of his
+books and papers. "To an honest man, really interested in my people, I
+would be pleased to give information. I have many documents, many
+books."
+
+"Ah, you take an interest in this sort of thing," said Vesper.
+
+"An interest--I should die without my books and papers; they are my
+life."
+
+"And yet you were cut out for a farmer," thought Vesper, as he surveyed
+Agapit's sturdy frame. "I suppose you have the details of the expulsion
+at your fingers' ends," he said, aloud.
+
+"Ah, the expulsion," muttered Agapit, turning deathly pale, "the
+abominable, damnable expulsion!"
+
+"Your feelings run high on the subject," murmured Vesper.
+
+"It suffocates me, it chokes me, when I reflect how it was brought
+about. You know, of course, that in the eighteenth century there
+flourished a devil,--no, not a devil," contemptuously. "What is that for
+a word? Devil, devil,--it is so common that there is no badness in it.
+Even the women say, 'Poor devil, I pity him.' Say, rather, there was a
+god of infamy, the blackest, the basest, the most infernal of created
+beings that our Lord ever permitted to pollute this earth--"
+
+For a minute he became incoherent, then he caught his breath. "This
+demon, this arch-fiend, the misbegotten Lawrence that your historian
+Parkman sets himself to whitewash--"
+
+"I know of Parkman," said Vesper, coldly, "he was once a neighbor of
+ours."
+
+"Was he!" exclaimed Agapit, in a paroxysm of excitement. "A fine
+neighbor, a worthy man! Parkman,--the New England story-teller, the
+traducer, who was too careless to set himself to the task of
+investigating records."
+
+Vesper was not prepared to hear any abuse of his countryman, and,
+turning on his heel, he left the room, while Agapit, furious to think
+that, unasked, he had been betrayed into furnishing a newspaper
+correspondent with some crumbs of information that might possibly be
+dished up in appetizing form for the delectation of American readers,
+slammed the door behind him, and went back to his writing.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+
+                              A DEADLOCK.
+
+            "I found the fullest summer here
+               Between these sloping meadow-hills and yon;
+               And came all beauty then, from dawn to dawn,
+             Whether the tide was veiled or flowing clear."
+
+                                                          J. F. H.
+
+
+Three days later, Vesper had only two friends in Sleeping Water,--that
+is, only two open friends. He knew he had a secret one in Mrs. Rose à
+Charlitte, who waited on him with the air of a sorrowing saint.
+
+The open friends were the child Narcisse, and Emmanuel Victor de la
+Rive, the mail-driver. Rose could not keep her child away from the
+handsome stranger. Narcisse had fallen into a passionate adoration for
+him, and even in his dreams prattled of the Englishman from Boston.
+
+On the third night of Vesper's stay in Sleeping Water a violent
+thunder-storm arose. Lying in his bed and watching the weird lighting up
+of the Bay under the vivid discharges of electricity, he heard a
+fumbling at his door-knob, and, upon unlocking the door, discovered
+Narcisse, pale and seraphic, in a long white nightgown, and with beads
+of distress on his forehead.
+
+"Mr. Englishman," he said to Vesper, who now understood his childish
+lingo, "I come to you, for my mother sleeps soundly, and she cannot tell
+me when she wakes,--the trees and the flowers, are they not in a
+terrible fright?" and, holding up his gown with one hand, he went
+swiftly to the window, and pointed out towards the willows, writhing and
+twisting in the wind, and the gentle flowers laid low on the earth.
+
+A yellow glare lighted up the room, a terrible peal of thunder shook the
+house, but the child did not quail, and stood waiting for an answer to
+his question.
+
+"Come here," said Vesper, calmly, "and I will explain to you that the
+thunder does not hurt them, and that they have a way of bending before
+the blast."
+
+Narcisse immediately drew his pink heels up over the side of Vesper's
+bed. He was unspeakably soothed by the merest word of this stranger, in
+whose nervous sensitiveness and reserve he found a spirit more congenial
+to his own than in that of his physically perfect mother.
+
+Vesper talked to him for some time, and the child at last fell asleep,
+his tiny hand clasping a scapulary on his breast, his pretty lips
+murmuring to the picture on it, "Good St. Joseph, Mr. Englishman says
+that only a few of the trees and flowers are hurt by the storm. Watch
+over the little willows and the small lilies while I sleep, and do not
+let them be harmed."
+
+Vesper at first patiently and kindly endured the pressure of the curly
+head laid on his arm. He would like to have a beautiful child like this
+for his own. Then thoughts of his childhood began to steal over him. He
+remembered climbing into his father's bed, gazing worshipfully into his
+face, and stroking his handsome head.
+
+"O God, my father!" he muttered, "I have lost him," and, unable to
+endure the presence of the child, he softly waked him. "Go back to your
+mother, Narcisse. She may miss you."
+
+The child sleepily obeyed him, and went to continue his dreams by his
+mother's side, while Vesper lay awake until the morning, a prey to
+recollections at once tender and painful.
+
+Vesper's second friend, the mail-driver, never failed to call on him
+every morning. If one could put a stamp on a letter it was permissible
+at any point on the route to call, "_Arrête-toi_" (stop), to the crimson
+flying bird. If one could not stamp a letter, it was illegal to detain
+him.
+
+Vesper never had, however, to call "_Arrête-toi_." Of his own accord
+Emmanuel Victor de la Rive, upon arriving before the inn, would fling
+the reins over his pony's back, and spring nimbly out. He was sure to
+find Vesper lolling on the seat under the willows, or lying in the
+hammock, with Narcisse somewhere near, whereupon he would seat himself
+for a few minutes, and in his own courteous and curious way would ask
+various and sundry questions of this stranger, who had fascinated him
+almost as completely as he had Narcisse.
+
+On the morning after the thunder-storm he had fallen into an admiration
+of Vesper's beautiful white teeth. Were they all his own, and not
+artificial? With such teeth he could marry any woman. He was a bachelor
+now, was he not? Did he always intend to remain one? How much longer
+would he stay in Sleeping Water? And Vesper, parrying his questions with
+his usual skill, sent him away with his ears full of polite sentences
+that, when he came to analyze them, conveyed not a single item of
+information to his surprised brain.
+
+However, he felt no resentment towards Vesper. His admiration rose
+superior to any rebuffs. It even soared above the warning intimations he
+received from many Acadiens to the effect that he was laying himself
+open to hostile criticism by his intercourse with the enemy within the
+camp.
+
+Vesper was amused by him, and on this particular morning, after he
+left, he lay back in the hammock, his mind enjoyably dwelling on the
+characteristics of the volatile Acadien.
+
+Narcisse, who stood beside him in the centre of the bare spot on the
+lawn, by the hammock, in vain begged for a story, and at last, losing
+patience, knelt down and put his head to the ground. The Englishman had
+told him that each grass-blade came up from the earth with a tale on the
+tip of its quivering tongue, and that all might hear who bent an ear to
+listen. Narcisse wished to get news of the storm in the night, and
+really fancied that the grass-blades told him it had prevailed in the
+bowels of the earth. He sprang up to impart the news to Vesper, and
+Agapit, who was passing down the lane by the house to the street,
+scowled, disapprovingly, at the pretty, wagging head and animated
+gestures.
+
+Vesper gazed after him, and paid no attention to Narcisse. "I wonder,"
+he murmured, languidly, "what spell holds me in the neighborhood of this
+Acadien demagogue who has turned his following against me. It must be
+the Bay," and in a trance of pleasure he surveyed its sparkling surface.
+
+Always beautiful,--never the same. Was ever another sheet of water so
+wholly charming, was ever another occupation so fitted for unstrung
+nerves as this placid watching of its varying humors and tumults?
+
+This morning it was like crystal. A fleet of small boats was dancing out
+to the deep sea fishing-grounds, and three brown-sailed schooners were
+gliding up the Bay to mysterious waters unknown to him. As soon as he
+grew stronger, he must follow them up to the rolling country and the
+fertile fields beyond Sleeping Water. Just now the mere thought of
+leaving the inn filled him with nervous apprehension, and he started
+painfully and irritably as the sharp clang of the dinner-bell rang out
+through the open windows of the house.
+
+Followed by Narcisse, he sauntered to the table, where he caused Rose à
+Charlitte's heart a succession of pangs and anxieties.
+
+"He does not like my cooking; he eats nothing," she said, mournfully, to
+Agapit, who was taking a substantial dinner at the kitchen table.
+
+"I wish that he would go away," said Agapit, "I hate his insolent face."
+
+"But he is not insolent," said Rose, pleadingly. "It is only that he
+does not care for us; he is likely rich, and we are but poor."
+
+"Do many millionaires come to thy quiet inn?" asked Agapit, ironically.
+
+Rose reluctantly admitted that, so far, her patrons had not been people
+of wealth.
+
+"He is probably a beggar," said Agapit. "He has paid thee nothing yet. I
+dare say he has only old clothes in that trunk of his. Perhaps he was
+forced to leave his home. He intends to spend the rest of his life
+here."
+
+"If he would work," said Rose, timidly, "he could earn his board. If
+thou goest away, I shall need a man for the stable."
+
+"Look at his white hands," said Agapit, "he is lazy,--and dost thou
+think I would leave thee with that young sprig? His character may be of
+the worst. What do we know of him?" and he tramped out to the stable,
+while Mrs. Rose confusedly withdrew to her pantry.
+
+An hour later, while Agapit was grooming Toochune, the thoroughbred
+black horse that was the wonder of the Bay, Narcisse came and stood in
+the stable door, and for a long time silently watched him.
+
+Then he heaved a small sigh. He was thinking neither of the horse nor of
+Agapit, and said, wistfully, "The Englishman from Boston sleeps as well
+as my mother. I have tried to wake him, but I cannot."
+
+Agapit paid no attention to him, but the matter was weighing on the
+child's mind, and after a time he continued, "His face is very white, as
+white as the breast of the ducks."
+
+"His face is always white," growled Agapit.
+
+Narcisse went away, and sat patiently down by the hammock, while Agapit,
+who kept an eye on him despite himself, took occasion a little later to
+go to the garden, ostensibly to mend a hole in the fence, in reality to
+peer through the willows at Vesper.
+
+What he saw caused him to drop his knife, and go to the well, where
+Célina was drawing a bucket of water.
+
+"The Englishman has fainted," he said, and he took the bucket from her.
+Célina ran after him, and watched him thrust Narcisse aside and dash a
+handful of water in Vesper's marble, immobile face.
+
+Narcisse raised one of his tiny fists and struck Agapit a smart blow,
+and, in spite of their concern for the Englishman, both the grown people
+turned and stared in surprise at him. For the first time they saw the
+sweet-tempered child in a rage.
+
+"Go away," he said, in a choking voice, "you shall not hurt him."
+
+"Hush, little rabbit," said the young man. "I try to do him good.
+Christophe! Christophe!" and he hailed an Acadien who was passing along
+the road. "Come assist me to carry the Englishman into the house. This
+is something worse than a faint."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+
+                      ON THE SUDDEN SOMETHING ILL.
+
+            "Dull days had hung like curtained mysteries,
+             And nights were weary with the starless skies.
+             At once came life, and fire, and joys untold,
+             And promises for violets to unfold;
+             And every breeze had shreds of melodies,
+             So faint and sweet."
+
+                                         J. F. HERBIN.
+
+
+One midnight, three weeks later, when perfect silence and darkness
+brooded over Sleeping Water, and the only lights burning were the stars
+up aloft, and two lamps in two windows of the inn, Vesper opened his
+eyes and looked about him.
+
+He saw for some dreamy moments only a swimming curtain of black, with a
+few familiar objects picked out against the gloom. He could distinguish
+his trunk sailing to and fro, a remembered mirror before which he had
+brushed his hair, a book in a well-known binding, and a lamp with a soft
+yellow globe, that immediately took him to a certain restaurant in
+Paris, and made him fancy that he was dining under the yellow lights in
+its ceiling.
+
+Where was he,--in what country had he been having this long, dreamless
+sleep? And by dint of much brain racking, which bathed his whole body in
+a profuse perspiration, he at length retraced his steps back into his
+life, and decided that he was in the last place that he remembered
+before he fell into this disembodied-spirit condition of mind,--his room
+in the Sleeping Water Inn.
+
+There was the open window, through which he had so often listened to the
+soothing murmur of the sea; there were the easy chairs, the chest of
+drawers, the little table, that, as he remembered it last, was not
+covered with medicine-bottles. The child's cot was a wholly new object.
+Had the landlady's little boy been sharing his quarters? What was his
+name? Ah, yes, Narcisse,--and what had they called the sulky Acadien who
+had hung about the house, and who now sat reading in a rocking-chair by
+the table?
+
+Agapit--that was it; but why was he here in his room? Some one had been
+ill. "I am that person," suddenly drifted into his tortured mind. "I
+have been very ill; perhaps I am going to die." But the thought caused
+him no uneasiness, no regret; he was conscious only of an indescribably
+acute and nervous torture as his weary eyes glued themselves to the
+unconscious face of his watcher.
+
+Agapit would soon lift his head, would stare at him, would utter some
+exclamation; and, in mute, frantic expectation, Vesper waited for the
+start and the exclamation. If they did come he felt that they would kill
+him; if they did not, he felt that nothing less than a sudden and
+immediate felling to the floor of his companion would satisfy the
+demands of his insane and frantic agitation.
+
+Fortunately Agapit soon turned his anxious face towards the bed. He did
+not start, he did not exclaim: he had been too well drilled for that;
+but a quick, quiet rapture fell upon him that was expressed only by the
+trembling of his finger tips.
+
+The young American had come out of the death-like unconsciousness of
+past days and nights; he now had a chance to recover; but while a
+thanksgiving to the mother of angels was trembling on his lips, his
+patient surveyed him in an ecstasy of irritation and weakness that found
+expression in hysterical laughter.
+
+Agapit was alarmed. He had never heard Vesper laugh in health. He had
+rarely smiled. Possibly he might be calmed by the offer of something to
+eat, and, picking up a bowl of jelly, he approached the bed.
+
+Vesper made a supreme effort, slightly moved his head from the
+descending spoon, and uttered the worst expression that he could summon
+from his limited vocabulary of abuse of former days.
+
+Agapit drew back, and resignedly put the jelly on the table. "He
+remembers the past," he reflected, with hanging head.
+
+Vesper did not remember the past; he was conscious of no resentment. He
+was possessed only of a wild desire to be rid of this man, whose
+presence inflamed him to the verge of madness.
+
+After sorrowfully surveying him, while retreating further and further
+from his inarticulate expressions of rage, Agapit stepped into the hall.
+In a few minutes he returned with Rose, who looked pale and weary, as if
+she, too, were a watcher by a sick-bed. She glanced quickly at Vesper,
+suppressed a smile when he made a face at Agapit, and signed to the
+latter to leave the room.
+
+Vesper became calm. Instead of sitting down beside him, or staring at
+him, she had gone to the window, and stood with folded hands, looking
+out into the night. After some time she went to the table, took up a
+bottle, and, carefully examining it, poured a few drops into a spoon.
+
+Vesper took the liquid from her, with no sense of irritation; then, as
+she quickly turned away, he felt himself sinking down, down, through his
+bed, through the floor, through the crust of the earth, into regions of
+infinite space, from which he had come back to the world for a time.
+
+The next time he waked up, Agapit was again with him. The former
+pantomime would have been repeated if Agapit had not at once
+precipitated himself from the room, and sent Rose to take his place.
+
+This time she smiled at Vesper, and made an effort to retain his
+attention, even going so far as to leave the room and reënter with a wan
+effigy of Narcisse in her arms,--a pale and puny thing that stared
+languidly at him, and attempted to kiss his hand.
+
+Vesper tried to speak to the child, lost himself in the attempt, then
+roused his slumbering fancy once more and breathed a question to Mrs.
+Rose,--"My mother?"
+
+"Your mother is well, and is here," murmured his landlady. "You shall
+see her soon."
+
+Vesper's periods of slumber after this were not of so long duration, and
+one warm and delicious afternoon, when the sunlight was streaming in and
+flooding his bed, he opened his eyes on a frail, happy figure fluttering
+about the room. "Ah, mother," he said, calmly, "you are here."
+
+She flew to the bed, she hovered over him, embraced him, turned away,
+came back to him, and finally, rigidly clasping her hands to ensure
+self-control, sat down beside him.
+
+At first she would not talk, the doctor would not permit it; but after
+some days her tongue was allowed to take its course freely and
+uninterruptedly.
+
+"My dear boy, what a horrible fright you gave me! Your letters came
+every day for a week, then they stopped. I waited two days, thinking you
+had gone to some other place, then I telegraphed. You were ill. You can
+imagine how I hurried here, with Henry to take care of me. And what do
+you think I found? Such a curious state of affairs. Do you know that
+these Acadiens hated you at first?"
+
+"Yes, I remember that."
+
+"But when you fell ill, that young man, Agapit, installed himself as
+your nurse. They spoke of getting a Sister of Charity, but had some
+scruples, thinking you might not like it, as you are a Protestant. Mrs.
+de Forêt closed her inn; she would receive no guests, lest they might
+disturb you. She and her cousin nursed you. They got an English doctor
+to drive twelve miles every day,--they thought you would prefer him to a
+French one. Then her little boy fell ill; he said the young man Agapit
+had hurt you. They thought he would die, for he had brain fever. He
+called all the time for you, and when he had lucid intervals, they could
+only convince him you were not dead by bringing him in, and putting him
+in this cot. Really, it was a most deplorable state of affairs. But the
+charming part is that they thought you were a pauper. When I arrived,
+they were thunderstruck. They had not opened your trunk, which you left
+locked, though they said they would have done so if I had not come, for
+they feared you might die, and they wanted to get the addresses of your
+friends, and every morning, my dear boy, for three days after you were
+taken ill, you started up at nine o'clock, the time that queer, red
+postman used to come,--and wrote a letter to me."
+
+Mrs. Nimmo paused, hid her face in her hands, and burst into tears. "It
+almost broke my heart when I heard it,--to think of you rousing yourself
+every day from your semi-unconsciousness to write to your mother. I
+cannot forgive myself for letting you go away without me."
+
+"Why did they not write from here to you?" asked Vesper.
+
+"They did not know I was your mother. I don't think they looked at the
+address of the letters you had sent. They thought you were poor, and an
+adventurer."
+
+"Why did they not write to _The Evening News_?"
+
+"My dear boy, they were doing everything possible for you, and they
+would have written in time."
+
+"You have, of course, told them that they shall suffer no loss by all
+this?"
+
+"Yes, yes; but they seem almost ashamed to take money from me. That
+charming landlady says, 'If I were rich I would pay all, myself.'
+Vesper, she is a wonderful woman."
+
+"Is she?" he said, languidly.
+
+"I never saw any one like her. My darling, how do you feel? Mayn't I
+give you some wine? I feel as if I had got you back from the grave, I
+can never be sufficiently thankful. The doctor says you may be carried
+out-of-doors in a week, if you keep on improving, as you are sure to do.
+The air here seems to suit you perfectly. You would never have been ill
+if you had not been run down when you came. That young man Agapit is
+making a stretcher to carry you. He is terribly ashamed of his dislike
+for you, and he fairly worships you now."
+
+"I suppose you went through my trunk," said Vesper, in faint, indulgent
+tones.
+
+"Well, yes," said Mrs. Nimmo, reluctantly. "I thought, perhaps, there
+might be something to be attended to."
+
+"And you read my great-grandfather's letter?"
+
+"Yes,--I will tell you exactly what I did. I found the key the second
+day I came, and I opened the trunk. When I discovered that old yellow
+letter, I knew it was something important. I read it, and of course
+recognized that you had come here in search of the Fiery Frenchman's
+children. However, I did not think you would like me to tell these
+Acadiens that, so I merely said, 'How you have misunderstood my son! He
+came here to do good to some of your people. He is looking for the
+descendants of a poor unhappy man. My son has money, and would help
+you.'"
+
+Vesper tried to keep back the little crease of amusement forming itself
+about his wasted lips. He had rarely seen his mother so happy and so
+excited. She prattled on, watching him sharply to see the effect of her
+words, and hovering over him like a kind little mother-bird. In some way
+she reminded him curiously enough of Emmanuel de la Rive.
+
+"I simply told them how good you are, and how you hate to have a fuss
+made over you. The young Acadien man actually writhed, and Mrs. de Forêt
+cried like a baby. Then they said, 'Oh, why did he put the name of a
+paper after his name?' 'How cruel in you to say that!' I replied to
+them. 'He does that because it reminds him of his dead father, whom he
+adored. My husband was editor and proprietor of the paper, and my son
+owns a part of it.' You should have seen the young Acadien. He put his
+head down on his arms, then he lifted it, and said, 'But does your son
+not write?' 'Write!' I exclaimed, indignantly, 'he hates writing. To me,
+his own mother, he only sends half a dozen lines. He never wrote a
+newspaper article in his life.' They would have been utterly overcome if
+I had not praised them for their disinterestedness in taking care of
+you in spite of their prejudice against you. Vesper, they will do
+anything for you now; and that exquisite child,--it is just like a
+romance that he should have fallen ill because you did."
+
+"Is he better?"
+
+"Almost well. They often bring him in when you are asleep. I daresay it
+would amuse you to have him sit on your bed for awhile."
+
+Vesper was silent, and, after a time, his mother ran on: "This French
+district is delightfully unique. I never was in such an out-of-the-world
+place except in Europe. I feel as if I had been moved back into a former
+century, when I see those women going about in their black
+handkerchiefs. I sit at the window and watch them going by,--I should
+never weary of them."
+
+Vesper said nothing, but he reflected affectionately and acutely that in
+a fortnight his appreciative but fickle mother would be longing for the
+rustle of silks, the flutter of laces, and the hum of fashionable
+conversation on a veranda, which was her idea of an enjoyable summer
+existence.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+
+                          A TALK ON THE WHARF.
+
+            "Long have I lingered where the marshlands are,
+                   Oft hearing in the murmur of the tide
+                   The past, alive again and at my side,
+             With unrelenting power and hateful war."
+
+                                                      J. F. H.
+
+
+"There goes the priest of the parish in his buggy," said Mrs. Nimmo. "He
+must have a sick call."
+
+She sat on a garden chair, crocheting a white shawl and watching the
+passers-by on the road.
+
+"And there are some Sisters of Charity from one of the convents and an
+old Indian with a load of baskets is begging from them--Don't you want
+to look at these bicyclists, Vesper? One, two, three, four, five, six.
+They are from Boston, I know, by the square collars on their jerseys.
+The Nova Scotians do not dress in that way."
+
+Vesper gave only a partial though pleased attention to his mother, who
+had picked up an astonishing amount of neighborhood news, and as he lay
+on a rug at her feet, with his hat pulled over his brows, his mind
+soared up to the blue sky above him. During his illness he had always
+seemed to be sinking down into blackness and desolation. With returning
+health and decreased nervousness his soul mounted upward, and he would
+lie for hours at a time bathed in a delicious reverie and dreaming of "a
+nest among the stars."
+
+"And there is the blacksmith from the corner," continued Mrs. Nimmo,
+"who comes here so often to borrow things that a blacksmith is commonly
+supposed to have. Yesterday he wanted a hammer. 'Not a hammer,' said
+Célina to me, 'but a wife.'"
+
+Vesper's brain immediately turned an abrupt somersault in a descent from
+the sky to earth. "What did you say, mother?"
+
+"Merely that the blacksmith wishes to marry our landlady. It will be an
+excellent match for her. Don't you think so?"
+
+"In some respects,--yes."
+
+"She is too young, and too handsome, to remain a widow. Célina says that
+she has had a great many admirers, but she has never seemed to fancy any
+one but the blacksmith. She went for a drive with him last Sunday
+evening. You know that is the time young Acadiens call on the girls they
+admire. You see them walking by, or driving in their buggies. If a
+girl's _fiancé_ did not call on her that evening she would throw him
+over--There she is now with your beef tea," and Mrs. Nimmo admiringly
+watched Rose coming from the kitchen and carefully guarding a dainty
+china cup in her hand.
+
+Vesper got up and took it from her. "Don't you think it is nonsense for
+me to be drinking this every morning?" he asked.
+
+Rose looked up at him as he stood, tall, keen-eyed, interested, and
+waiting for her answer. "What does madame, your mother, say?" she asked,
+indicating Mrs. Nimmo, by a pretty gesture.
+
+"His mother says," remarked Mrs. Nimmo, indulgently, "that her son
+should take any dose, no matter how disagreeable, if it has for its
+object the good of his health."
+
+Vesper glanced sharply at her, then poured the last few drops of his tea
+on the ground.
+
+"Ah," said Mrs. Rose, anxiously, "I feared that I had not put in enough
+salt. Now I know."
+
+"It was perfect," said Vesper. "I am only offering a libation to those
+pansies," and he inclined his dark head towards Narcisse, who was seated
+cross-legged in the hammock.
+
+Rose took the cup, smiled innocently and angelically on her child and
+the young man and his mother, and returned to the house.
+
+Agapit presently came hurrying by the fence. "Ah, that is good!" he
+exclaimed, when he saw Vesper sauntering to and fro; "do you not think
+you could essay a walk to the wharf?"
+
+"Yes," said Vesper, while his mother anxiously looked up from her work.
+
+"Then come,--let me have the honor of escorting you," and Agapit showed
+his big white teeth in an ecstatic smile.
+
+Vesper extended a hand to Narcisse, and, lifting his cap to his mother,
+went slowly down the lane to the road.
+
+Agapit could scarcely contain his delight. He grinned broadly at every
+one they met, tried to accommodate his pace to Vesper's, kept forgetting
+and striding ahead, and finally, cramming his hands in his pockets, fell
+behind and muttered, "I feel as if I had known you a hundred years."
+
+"You didn't feel that way six weeks ago," said Vesper, good-humoredly.
+
+"I blush for it,--I am ashamed, but can you blame me? Since days of long
+ago, Acadiens have been so much maligned. You do not find that we are
+worse than others?"
+
+"Well, I think you would have been a pretty ticklish fellow to have
+handled at the time of the expulsion."
+
+"Our dear Lord knew better than to bring me into the world then," said
+Agapit, naïvely. "I should have urged the Acadiens to take up arms.
+There were enough of them to kill those devilish English."
+
+"Do all the Acadiens hate the English as much as you do?"
+
+"_I_ hate the English?" cried Agapit. "How grossly you deceive
+yourself!"
+
+"What do you mean then by that strong language?"
+
+Agapit threw himself into an excited attitude. "Let you dare--you
+youthful, proud young republic,--to insult our Canadian flag. You would
+see where stands Agapit LeNoir! England is the greatest nation in the
+world," and proudly swelling out his breast, he swept his glance over
+the majestic Bay before them.
+
+"Yes, barring the United States of America."
+
+"I cannot quarrel with you," said Agapit, and the fire left his glance,
+and moisture came to his eyes. "Let us each hold to our own opinion."
+
+"And suppose insults not forthcoming,--give me some further explanation
+meantime."
+
+"My quarrel is not with the great-minded," said Agapit, earnestly, "the
+eagerly anxious-for-peace Englishmen in years gone by, who reinforced
+the kings and queens of England. No,--I impeach the low-born upstarts
+and their colonial accomplices. Do you know, can you imagine, that the
+diabolical scheme of the expulsion of the Acadiens was conceived by a
+barber, and carried into decapitation by a house painter?"
+
+"Not possible," murmured Vesper.
+
+"Yes, possible,--let me find you a seat. I shall not forgive myself if I
+weary you, and those women will kill me."
+
+They had reached the wharf, and Agapit pointed to a pile of boards
+against the wooden breastwork that kept the waves from dashing over in
+times of storm.
+
+"That infamous letter is always like a scroll of fire before me," he
+exclaimed, pacing restlessly to and fro before Vesper and the child. "In
+it the once barber and footman, Craggs, who was then secretary of state,
+wrote to the governor of Nova Scotia: 'I see you do not get the better
+of the Acadiens. It is singular that those people should have preferred
+to lose their goods rather than be exposed to fight against their
+brethren. This sentimentality is stupid.' Ah, let it be stupid!"
+exclaimed Agapit, breaking off. "Let us once more have an expulsion. The
+Acadiens will go, they will suffer, they will die, before they give up
+sentimentality."
+
+"Hear, hear!" observed Vesper.
+
+Agapit surveyed him with a glowing eye. "Listen to further words from
+this solemn official, this barber secretary: 'These people are evidently
+too much attached to their fellow countrymen and to their religion ever
+to make true Englishmen.' Of what are true Englishmen made, Mr.
+Englishman from Boston?"
+
+"Of poor Frenchmen, according to the barber."
+
+"Now hear more courtly language from the honorable Craggs: 'It must be
+avowed that your position is deucedly critical. It was very difficult to
+prevent them from departing after having left the bargain to their
+choice--'"
+
+"What does he mean by that?" asked Vesper.
+
+"Call to your memory the terms of the treaty of Utrecht."
+
+"I don't remember a word of it,--bear in mind, my friend, that I am not
+an Acadien, and this question does not possess for me the moving
+interest it does for you. I only know Longfellow's 'Evangeline,'--which,
+until lately, has always seemed to me to be a pretty myth dressed up to
+please the public, and make money for the author,--some magazine
+articles, and Parkman, my favorite historian, whom you, nevertheless,
+seem to dislike."
+
+Agapit dropped on a block of wood, and rocked himself to and fro, as if
+in distress. "I will not characterize Parkman, since he is your
+countryman; but I would dearly love--I would truly admire to say what I
+think of him. Now as to the treaty of Utrecht; think just a moment, and
+you will remember that it transferred the Acadiens as the subjects of
+Louis XIV. of France to the good Queen Anne of England."
+
+Vesper, instead of puzzling his brain with historical reminiscences,
+immediately began to make preparations for physical comfort, and
+stretched himself out on the pile of boards, with his arm for a pillow.
+
+"Do not sleep, but conversate," said Agapit, eagerly. "It is cool here,
+you possibly would get cold if you shut your eyes. I will change this
+matter of talk,--there is one I would fain introduce."
+
+Vesper, in inward diversion, found that a new solemnity had taken
+possession of the young Acadien. He looked unutterable things at the
+Bay, indescribable things at the sky, and mysterious things at the cook
+of the schooner, who had just thrust his head through a window in his
+caboose.
+
+At last he gave expression to his emotion. "Would this not be a fitting
+time to talk of the wonderful letter of which madame, your mother,
+hinted?"
+
+Vesper, without a word, drew a folded paper from his pocket, and handed
+it to him.
+
+Agapit took it reverently, swayed back and forth while devouring its
+contents, then, unable to restrain himself, sprang up, and walked, or
+rather ran, to and fro while perusing it a second time.
+
+At last he came to a dead halt, and breathing hard, and with eyes
+aflame, ejaculated, "Thank you, a thousand, thousand time for showing me
+this precious letter." Then pressing it to his breast, he disappeared
+entirely from Vesper's range of vision.
+
+After a time he came back. Some of his excitement had gone from his head
+through his heels, and he sank heavily on a block of wood.
+
+"You do not know, you cannot tell," he said, "what this letter means to
+us."
+
+"What does it mean?"
+
+"It means--I do not know that I can say the word, but I will
+try--cor-rob-oration."
+
+"Explain a little further, will you?"
+
+"In the past all was for the English. Now records are being discovered,
+old documents are coming to light. The guilty colonial authorities
+suppressed them. Now these records declare for the Acadiens."
+
+"So--this letter, being from one on the opposite side, is valuable."
+
+"It is like a diamond unearthed," said Agapit, turning it over;
+"but,"--in sudden curiosity,--"this is a copy mutilated, for the name of
+the captain is not here. From whom did you have it, if I am permitted to
+ask?"
+
+"From the great-grandson of the old fellow mentioned."
+
+"And he does not wish his name known?"
+
+"Well, naturally one does not care to shout the sins of one's
+ancestors."
+
+"The noble young man, the dear young man," said Agapit, warmly. "He will
+atone for the sins of his fathers."
+
+"Not particularly noble, only business-like."
+
+"And has he much money, that he wishes to aid this family of Acadiens?"
+
+"No, not much. His father's family never succeeded in making money and
+keeping it. His mother is rich."
+
+"I should like to see him," exclaimed Agapit, and his black eyes flashed
+over Vesper's composed features. "I should love him for his sensitive
+heart."
+
+"There is nothing very interesting about him," said Vesper. "A sick,
+used-up creature."
+
+"Ah,--he is delicate."
+
+"Yes, and without courage. He is a college man and would have chosen a
+profession if his health had not broken down."
+
+"I pity him from my heart; I send good wishes to his sick-bed," said
+Agapit, in a passion of enthusiasm. "I will pray to our Lord to raise
+him."
+
+"Can you give him any assistance?" asked Vesper, nodding towards the
+letter.
+
+"I do not know; I cannot tell. There are many LeNoirs. But I will go
+over my papers; I will sit up at night, as I now do some writing for
+the post-office. You know I am poor, and obliged to work. I must pay
+Rose for my board. I will not depend on a woman."
+
+Vesper half lifted his drooping eyelids. "What are you going to make of
+yourself?"
+
+"I wish to study law. I save money for a period in a university."
+
+"How old are you?"
+
+"Twenty-three."
+
+"Your cousin looks about that age."
+
+"She is twenty-four,--a year older; and you,--may I ask your age?"
+
+"Guess."
+
+Agapit studied his face. "You are twenty-six."
+
+"No."
+
+"I daresay we are both younger than Rose," said Agapit, ingenuously,
+"and she has less sense than either."
+
+"Did your ancestors come from the south of France?" asked Vesper,
+abruptly.
+
+"Not the LeNoirs; but my mother's family was from Provence. Why do you
+ask?"
+
+"You are like a Frenchman of the south."
+
+"I know that I am impetuous," pursued Agapit. "Rose says that I resemble
+the tea-kettle. I boil and bubble all the time that I am not asleep,
+and"--uneasily--"she also says that I speak too hastily of women; that
+I do not esteem them as clever as they are. What do you think?"
+
+Vesper laughed quickly. "Southerners all have a slight contempt for
+women. However, they are frank about it. Is there one thought agitating
+your bosom that you do not express?"
+
+"No; most unfortunately. It chagrins me that I speak everything. I feel,
+and often speak before I feel, but what can one do? It is my nature.
+Rose also follows her nature. She is beautiful, but she studies nothing,
+absolutely nothing, but the science of cooking."
+
+"Without which philosophers would go mad from indigestion."
+
+"Yes; she was born to cook and to obey. Let her keep her position, and
+not say, 'Agapit, thou must do so and so,' as she sometimes will, if I
+am not rocky with her."
+
+"Rocky?" queried Vesper.
+
+"Firmy, firm," said Agapit, in confusion. "The words twist in my mind,
+unless my blood is hot, when I speak better. Will you not correct me?
+Upon going out in the world I do not wish to be laughed."
+
+"To be laughed at," said his new friend. "Don't worry yourself. You
+speak well enough, and will improve."
+
+Agapit grew pale with emotion. "Ah, but we shall miss you when you go!
+There has been no Englishman here that we so liked. I hope that you will
+be long in finding the descendants of the Fiery Frenchman."
+
+"Perhaps I shall find some of them in you and your cousin," said Vesper.
+
+"Ah, if you could, what joy! what bliss!--but I fear it is not so. Our
+forefathers were not of Grand Pré."
+
+Vesper relapsed into silence, only occasionally rousing himself to
+answer some of Agapit's restless torrent of remarks about the ancient
+letter. At last he grew tired, and, sitting up, laid a caressing hand on
+the head of Narcisse, who was playing with some shells beside him.
+"Come, little one, we must return to the house."
+
+On the way back they met the blacksmith. Agapit snickered gleefully,
+"All the world supposes that he is making the velvet paw to Rose."
+
+"She drives with him," said Vesper, indifferently.
+
+"Yes, but to obtain news of her sister who flouts him. She is down the
+Bay, and Rose receives news of her. She will no longer drive with him if
+she hears this gossip."
+
+"Why should she not?"
+
+"I do not know, but she will not. Possibly because she is no coquette."
+
+"She will probably marry some one."
+
+"She cannot," muttered Agapit, and he fell into a quiet rage, and out of
+it again in the duration of a few seconds. Then he resumed a
+light-hearted conversation with Vesper, who averted his curious eyes
+from him.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+
+                        BACK TO THE CONCESSION.
+
+          "And Nature hath remembered, for a trace
+             Of calm Acadien life yet holds command,
+             Where, undisturbed, the rustling willows stand,
+           And the curved grass, telling the breeze's pace."
+
+                                                          J. F. H.
+
+
+Mrs. Rose à Charlitte served her dinner in the middle of the day. The
+six o'clock meal she called supper.
+
+With feminine insight she noticed, at supper, on a day a week later,
+that her guest was more quiet than usual, and even dull in humor.
+
+Agapit, who was nearly always in high spirits, and always very much
+absorbed in himself, came bustling in,--sobered down for one minute to
+cross himself, and reverently repeat a _bénédicité_, then launched into
+a voluble and enjoyable conversation on the subject of which he never
+tired,--his beloved countrymen, the Acadiens.
+
+Rose withdrew to the innermost recesses of her pantry. "Do you know
+these little berries?" she asked, coming back, and setting a glass
+dish, full of a thick, whitish preserve, before Vesper.
+
+"No," he said, absently, "what are they?"
+
+"They are _poudabre_, or _capillaire_,--waxen berries that grow deep in
+the woods. They hide their little selves under leaves, yet the children
+find them. They are expensive, and we do not buy many, yet perhaps you
+will find them excellent."
+
+"They are delicious," said Vesper, tasting them.
+
+"Give me also some," said Agapit, with pretended jealousy. "It is not
+often that we are favored with _poudabre_."
+
+"There are yours beside your plate," said Rose, mischievously; "you
+have, if anything, more than Mr. Nimmo."
+
+She very seldom mentioned Vesper's name. It sounded foreign on her lips,
+and he usually liked to hear her. This evening he paid no attention to
+her, and, with a trace of disappointment in her manner, she went away to
+the kitchen.
+
+After Vesper left the table she came back. "Agapit, the young man is
+dull."
+
+"I assure thee," said Agapit, in French, and very dictatorially, "he is
+as gay as he usually is."
+
+"He is never gay, but this evening he is troubled."
+
+Agapit grew uneasy. "Dost thou think he will again become ill?"
+
+Rose's brilliant face became pale. "I trust not. Ah, that would be
+terrible!"
+
+"Possibly he thinks of something. Where is his mother?"
+
+"Above, in her room. Some books came from Boston in a box, and she
+reads. Go to him, Agapit; talk not of the dear dead, but of the living.
+Seek not to find out in what his dullness consists, and do not say
+abrupt things, but gentle. Remember all the kind sayings that thou
+knowest about women. Say that they are constant if they truly love. They
+do not forget."
+
+Agapit's fingers remained motionless in the bowl of the big pipe that he
+was filling with tobacco. "_Ma foi_, but thou art eloquent. What has
+come over thee?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing," she said, hurriedly, "I only wonder whether he
+thinks of his _fiancée_."
+
+"How dost thou know he has a _fiancée_?"
+
+"I do not know, I guess. Surely, so handsome a young man must belong
+already to some woman."
+
+"Ah,--probably. Rose, I am glad that thou hast never been a coquette."
+
+"And why should I be one?" she asked, wonderingly.
+
+"Why, thou hast ways,--sly ways, like most women, and thou art meek and
+gentle, else why do men run after thee, thou little bleating lamb?"
+
+Rose made him no answer beyond a shrug of her shoulders.
+
+"But thou wilt not marry. Is it not so?" he continued, with tremulous
+eagerness. "It is better for thee to remain single and guard thy child."
+
+She looked up at him wistfully, then, as solemnly as if she were taking
+a vow, she murmured, "I do not know all things, but I think I shall
+never marry."
+
+Agapit could scarcely contain his delight. He laid a hand on her
+shoulder, and exclaimed, "My good little cousin!" Then he lighted his
+pipe and smoked in ecstatic silence.
+
+Rose occupied herself with clearing the things from the table, until a
+sudden thought struck Agapit. "Leave all that for Célina. Let us take a
+drive, you and I and the little one. Thou hast been much in the house
+lately."
+
+"But Mr. Nimmo--will it be kind to leave him?"
+
+"He can come if he will, but thou must also ask madame. Go then, while I
+harness Toochune."
+
+"I am not ready," said Rose, shrinking back.
+
+"Ready!" laughed Agapit. "I will make thee ready," and he pulled her
+shawl and handkerchief from a peg near the kitchen door.
+
+"I had the intention of wearing my hat," faltered Rose.
+
+"Absurdity! keep it for mass, and save thy money. Go ask the young man,
+while I am at the stable."
+
+Rose meekly put on the shawl and the handkerchief, and went to the front
+of the house.
+
+Vesper stood in the doorway, his hands clasped behind his back. She
+could only see his curly head, a bit of his cheek, and the tip of his
+mustache. At the sound of her light step he turned around, and his face
+brightened.
+
+"Look at the sunset," he said, kindly, when she stood in embarrassment
+before him. "It is remarkable."
+
+It was indeed remarkable. A blood-red sun was shouldering his way in and
+out of a wide dull mass of gray cloud that was unrelieved by a single
+fleck of color.
+
+Rose looked at the sky, and Vesper looked at her, and thought of a
+grieving Madonna. She had been so gay and cheerful lately. What had
+happened to call that expression of divine tenderness and sympathy to
+her face? He had never seen her so ethereal and so spiritually
+beautiful, not even when she was bending over his sick-bed. What a rest
+and a pleasure to weary eyes she was, in her black artistic garments,
+and how pure was the oval of her face, how becoming the touch of
+brownness on the fair skin. The silk handkerchief knotted under her chin
+and pulled hood-wise over the shock of flaxen hair combed up from the
+forehead, which two or three little curls caressed daintily, gave the
+finishing touch of quaintness and out-of-the-worldness to her
+appearance.
+
+"You are feeling slightly blue this evening, are you not?" he asked.
+
+"Blue,--that means one's thoughts are black?" said Rose, bringing her
+glance back to him.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then I am a very little blue," she said, frankly. "This inn is like the
+world to me. When those about me are sad, I, too, am sad. Sometimes I
+grieve when strangers go,--for days in advance I have a weight at heart.
+When they leave, I shut myself in my room. For others I do not care."
+
+"And are you melancholy this evening because you are thinking that my
+mother and I must soon leave?"
+
+Her eyes filled with tears. "No; I did not think of that, but I do now."
+
+"Then what was wrong with you?"
+
+"Nothing, since you are again cheerful," she said, in tones so doleful
+that Vesper burst into one of his rare laughs, and Rose, laughing with
+him, brushed the tears from her face.
+
+"There was something running in my mind that made me feel gloomy," he
+said, after a short silence. "It has been haunting me all day."
+
+Her eager glance was a prayer to him to share the cause of his
+unhappiness with her, and he recited, in a low, penetrating voice, the
+lines:
+
+     "Mon Dieu, pour fuir la mort n'est-il aucun moyen?
+      Quoi? Dans un jour peut-être immobile et glacé....
+      Aujourd'hui avenir, le monde, la pensée
+      Et puis, demain, ... plus rien."
+
+Rose had never heard anything like this, and she was troubled, and
+turned her blue eyes to the sky, where a trailing white cloud was
+soaring above the dark cloud-bank below. "It is like a soul going up to
+our Lord," she murmured, reverently.
+
+Vesper would not shock her further with his heterodoxy. "Forget what I
+said," he went on, lightly, "and let me beg you never to put anything on
+your head but that handkerchief. You Acadien women wear it with such an
+air."
+
+"But it is because we know how to tie it. Look,--this is how the Italian
+women in Boston carry those colored ones," and, pulling the piece of
+silk from her head, she arranged it in severe lines about her face.
+
+"A decided difference," Vesper was saying, when Agapit came around the
+corner of the house, driving Toochune, who was attached to a shining
+dog-cart.
+
+"Are you going with us?" he called out.
+
+"I have not yet been asked."
+
+"Thou naughty Rose," exclaimed Agapit; but she had already hurried
+up-stairs to invite Mrs. Nimmo to accompany them. "Madame, your mother,
+prefers to read," she said, when she came back, "therefore Narcisse will
+come."
+
+"Mount beside me," said Agapit to Vesper; "Rose and Narcisse will sit in
+the background."
+
+"No," said Vesper, and he calmly assisted Rose to the front seat, then
+extended a hand to swing Narcisse up beside her. The child, however,
+clung to him, and Vesper was obliged to take him in the back seat, where
+he sat nodding his head and looking like a big perfumed flower in his
+drooping hat and picturesque pink trousers.
+
+"You smile," said Agapit, who had suddenly twisted his head around.
+
+"I always do," said Vesper, "for the space of five minutes after getting
+into this cart."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Well--an amusing contrast presents itself to my mind."
+
+"And the contrast, what is it?"
+
+"I am driving with a modern Evangeline, who is not the owner of the
+rough cart that I would have fancied her in, a few weeks ago, but of a
+trap that would be an ornament to Commonwealth Avenue."
+
+"Am I the modern Evangeline?" said Agapit, in his breakneck fashion.
+
+"To my mind she was embodied in the person of your cousin," and Vesper
+bowed in a sidewise fashion towards his landlady.
+
+Rose crimsoned with pleasure. "But do you think I am like
+Evangeline,--she was so dark, so beautiful?"
+
+"You are passable, Rose, passable," interjected Agapit, "but you lack
+the passion, the fortitude of the heroine of Mr. Nimmo's immortal
+countryman, whom all Acadiens venerate. Alas! only the poets and
+story-tellers have been true to Acadie. It is the historians who lie."
+
+"Why do you think your cousin is lacking in passion and fortitude?"
+asked Vesper, who had either lost his gloomy thoughts, or had completely
+subdued them, and had become unusually vivacious.
+
+"She has never loved,--she cannot. Rose, did you love your husband as I
+did _la belle Marguerite_?"
+
+"My husband was older,--he was as a father," stammered Rose. "Certainly
+I did not tear my hair, I did not beat my foot on the ground when he
+died, as you did when _la belle_ married the miller."
+
+"Have you ever loved any man?" pursued Agapit, unmercifully.
+
+"Oh, shut up, Agapit," muttered Vesper; "don't bully a woman."
+
+Agapit turned to stare at him,--not angrily, but rather as if he had
+discovered something new and peculiar in the shape of young manhood.
+"Hear what she always says when young men, and often old men, drive up
+and say, 'Rose à Charlitte, will you marry me?' She says, 'Love,--it is
+all nonsense. You make all that.' Is it not so, Rose?"
+
+"Yes," she replied, almost inaudibly; "I have said it."
+
+"You make all that," repeated Agapit, triumphantly. "They can rave and
+cry,--they can say, 'My heart is breaking;' and she responds,
+'Love,--there is no such thing. You make all that.' And yet you call her
+an Evangeline, a martyr of love who laid her life on its holy altar."
+
+Rose was goaded into a response, and turned a flushed and puzzled face
+to her cousin. "Agapit, I will explain that lately I do not care to say
+'You make all that.' I comprehend--possibly because the blacksmith talks
+so much to me of his wish towards my sister--that one does not make
+love. It is something that grows slowly, in the breast, like a flower.
+Therefore, do not say that I am of ice or stone."
+
+"But you do not care to marry,--you just come from telling me so."
+
+"Yes; I am not for marriage," she said, modestly, "yet do not say that I
+understand not. It is a beautiful thing to love."
+
+"It is," said Agapit, "yet do not think of it, since thou dost not care
+for a husband. Let thy thoughts run on thy cooking. Thou wert born for
+that. I think that thou must have arrived in this world with a little
+stew-pan in thy hand, a tasting fork hanging at thy girdle. Do not wish
+to be an Evangeline or to read books. Figure to yourself, Mr.
+Nimmo,"--and he turned his head to the back seat,--"that last night she
+came to my room, she begged me for an English book,--she who says often
+to Narcisse, 'I will shake thee, my little one, if thou usest English
+words.' She says now that she wishes to learn,--she finds herself
+forgetful of many things that she learned in the convent. I said, 'Go to
+bed, thou silly fool. Thy eyes are burning and have black rings around
+them the color of thy stove,' and she whimpered like a baby."
+
+"Your cousin is an egotist, Mrs. Rose," said Vesper, over his shoulder.
+"I will lend you some books."
+
+"Agapit is as a brother," she replied, simply.
+
+"I have been a good brother to thee," he said, "and I will never forget
+thee; not even when I go out into the world. Some day I will send for
+thee to live with me and my wife."
+
+"Perhaps thy wife will not let me," she said, demurely.
+
+"Then she may leave me; I detest women who will not obey."
+
+For some time the cousins chattered on and endeavored to snatch a
+glimpse, in "time's long and dark prospective glass," of Agapit's future
+wife, while Vesper listened to them with as much indulgence as if they
+had been two children. He was just endeavoring to fathom the rationale
+of their curious interchange of _thou_ and _you_, when Agapit said, "If
+it is agreeable to you, we will drive back in the woods to the
+Concession. We have a cousin who is ill there,--see, here we pass the
+station," and he pointed his whip at the gabled roof near them.
+
+The wheels of the dog-cart rolled smoothly over the iron rails, and they
+entered upon a road bordered by sturdy evergreens that emitted a
+deliciously resinous odor and occasioned Mrs. Rose to murmur,
+reverently, "It is like mass; for from trees like these the altar boys
+get the gum for incense."
+
+Wild gooseberry and raspberry bushes lined the roadside, and under their
+fruit-laden branches grew many wild flowers. A man who stopped Agapit to
+address a few remarks to him gathered a handful of berries and a few
+sprays of wild roses and tossed them in Narcisse's lap.
+
+The child uttered a polite, "_Merci, monsieur_" (thank you, sir), then
+silently spread the flowers and berries on the lap rug and allowed tears
+from his beautiful eyes to drop on them.
+
+Vesper took some of the berries in his hand, and carefully explained to
+the sorrowing Narcisse that the sensitive shrubs did not shiver when
+their clothes were stripped from them and their hats pulled off. They
+were rather shaking their sides in laughter that they could give
+pleasure to so good and gentle a boy. And the flowers that bowed so
+meekly when one wished to behead them, were trembling with delight to
+think that they should be carried, for even a short time, by one who
+loved them so well.
+
+Narcisse at last was comforted, and, drying his tears, he soberly ate
+the berries, and presented the roses to his mother in a brilliant
+nosegay, keeping only one that he lovingly fastened in his neck, where
+it could brush against his cheek.
+
+Soon they were among the clearings in the forest. Back of every farm
+stood grim trees in serried rows, like soldiers about to close in on the
+gaps made in their ranks by the diligent hands of the Acadien farmers.
+The trees looked inexorable, but the farmers were more so. Here in the
+backwoods so quiet and still, so favorable for farming, the forest must
+go as it had gone near the shore.
+
+About every farmhouse, men and women were engaged in driving in cows,
+tying up horses, shutting up poultry, feeding pigs, and performing the
+hundred and one duties that fall to the lot of a farmer's family.
+Everywhere were children. Each farmer seemed to have a quiver full of
+these quiet, well-behaved little creatures, who gazed shyly and
+curiously at the dog-cart as it went driving by.
+
+When they came to a brawling, noisy river, having on its banks a
+saw-mill deserted for the night, Agapit exclaimed, "We are at last
+arrived!"
+
+Close to the mill was a low, old-fashioned house, situated in the midst
+of an extensive apple orchard in which the fruit was already taking on
+size and color.
+
+"They picked four hundred barrels from it last year," said Agapit, "our
+cousins, the Kessys, who live here. They are rich, but very simple," and
+springing out, he tied Toochune's head to the gatepost. "Now let us
+enter," he said, and he ushered Vesper into a small, dull room where an
+old woman of gigantic stature sat smoking by an open fireplace.
+
+Another tall woman, with soft black eyes, and wearing on her breast a
+medal of the congregation of St. Anne, took Rose away to the sick-room,
+while Agapit led Vesper and Narcisse to the fireplace. "Cousin
+grandmother, will you not tell this gentleman of the commencement of the
+Bay?"
+
+The old woman, who was nearly sightless, took her pipe from her mouth,
+and turned her white head. "Does he speak French?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said Agapit, joyfully.
+
+A light came into her face,--a light that Vesper noticed always came
+into the faces of Acadiens, no matter how fluent their English, if he
+addressed them in their mother tongue.
+
+"I was born _en haut de la Baie_" (up the Bay), she began, softly.
+
+"Further than Sleeping Water,--towards Digby," said Agapit, in an
+undertone.
+
+"Near Bleury," she continued, "where there were only eight families. In
+the morning my mother would look out at the neighbors' chimneys; where
+she saw smoke she would send me, saying, 'Go, child, and borrow fire.'
+Ah! those were hard days. We had no roads. We walked over the beach
+fifteen miles to Pointe à l'Eglise to hear mass sung by the good Abbé.
+
+"There were plenty of fish, plenty of moose, but not so many boats in
+those days. The hardships were great, so great that the weak died. Now
+when my daughter sits and plays on the organ, I think of it. David
+Kessy, my father, was very big. Once our wagon, loaded with twenty
+bushels of potatoes, stuck in the mud. He put his shoulder against it
+and lifted it. Nowadays we would rig a jack, but my father was strong,
+so strong that he took insults, though he trembled, for he knew a blow
+from his hand would kill a man."
+
+The Acadienne paused, and fell into a gentle reverie, from which Agapit,
+who was stepping nimbly in and out of the room with jelly and other
+delicacies that he had brought for the invalid, soon roused her.
+
+"Tell him about the derangement, cousin grandmother," he vociferated in
+her ear, "and the march from Annapolis."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI
+
+                      NEWS OF THE FIERY FRENCHMAN.
+
+     "Below me winds the river to the sea,
+       On whose brown slope stood wailing, homeless maids;
+       Stood exiled sons; unsheltered hoary heads;
+     And sires and mothers dumb in agony.
+     The awful glare of burning homes, where free
+       And happy late they dwelt, breaks on the shades,
+       Encompassing the sailing fleet; then fades,
+     With tumbling roof, upon the night-bound sea.
+     How deep is hope in sorrow sunk! How harsh
+       The stranger voice; and loud the hopeless wail!
+       Then silence came to dwell; the tide fell low;
+     The embers died. On the deserted marsh,
+       Where grain and grass stirred only to the gale,
+       The moose unchased dare cross the Gaspereau."
+
+                                             J. F. HERBIN.
+
+
+An extraordinary change came over the aged woman at Agapit's words. Some
+color crept to her withered cheeks. She straightened herself, and, no
+longer leaning on her cane, said, in a loud, firm voice, to Vesper, "The
+Acadiens were not all stolen from Annapolis at the derangement. Did you
+think they were?"
+
+"I don't know that I ever thought about it, madame," he said,
+courteously; "but I should like to know."
+
+"About fifty families ran to the wood," she said, with mournful
+vivacity; "they spent the winter there; I have heard the old people talk
+of it when I was young. They would sit by the fire and cry. I would try
+not to cry, but the tears would come. They said their good homes were
+burnt. Only at night could they revisit them, lest soldiers would catch
+them. They dug their vegetables from the ground. They also got one cow
+and carried her back. Ah, she was a treasure! There was one man among
+them who was only half French, and they feared him, so they watched. One
+day he went out of the woods,--the men took their guns and followed.
+Soon he returned, fifty soldiers marching behind him. 'Halt!' cried the
+Acadiens. They fired, they killed, and the rest of the soldiers ran.
+'Discharge me! discharge me!' cried the man, whom they had caught. 'Yes,
+we will discharge you,' they said, and they put his back against a tree,
+and once more they fired, but very sadly. At the end of the winter some
+families went away in ships, but the Comeaus, Thibaudeaus, and Melançons
+said, 'We cannot leave Acadie; we will find a quiet place.' So they
+began a march, and one could trace them by the graves they dug. I will
+not tell you all, for why should you be sad? I will say that the
+Indians were good, but sometimes the food went, and they had to boil
+their moccasins. One woman, who had a young baby, got very weak. They
+lifted her up, they shook the pea-straw stuffing from the sack she lay
+on, and found her a handful of peas, which they boiled, and she got
+better.
+
+"They went on and on, they crossed streams, and carried the little ones,
+until they came here to the Bay,--to Grosses Coques,--where they found
+big clams, and the tired women said, 'Here is food; let us stay.'
+
+"The men cut a big pine and hollowed a boat, in which they went to the
+head of the Bay for the cow they had left there. They threw her down,
+tied her legs, and brought her to Grosses Coques. Little by little they
+carried also other things to the Bay, and made themselves homes.
+
+"Then the families grew, and now they cover all the Bay. Do you
+understand now about the march from Annapolis?"
+
+"Thank you, yes," said Vesper, much moved by the sight of tears
+trickling down her faded face.
+
+"What reason did the old people give for this expulsion from their
+homes?"
+
+"Always the same, always, always," said Madame Kessy, with energy. "They
+would not take the oath, because the English would not put in it that
+they need not fight against the French."
+
+"But now you are happy under English rule?"
+
+"Yes, now,--but the past? What can make up for the weeping of the old
+people?"
+
+Nothing could, and Vesper hastened to introduce a new subject of
+conversation. "I have heard much about the good Abbé that you speak of.
+Did you ever see him?"
+
+"See him,--ah, sir, he was an angel of God, on this Bay, and he a
+gentleman out of France. We were all his children, even the poor
+Indians, whom he gathered around him and taught our holy religion, till
+their fine voices would ring over the Bay, in hymns to the ever blessed
+Virgin. He denied himself, he paid our doctors' bills, even to twenty
+pounds at a time,--ah, there was mourning when he died. When my bans
+were published in church the good Abbé rode no more on horseback along
+the Bay. He lay a corpse, and I could scarcely hold up my head to be
+married."
+
+"In speaking of those old days," said Vesper, "can you call to mind ever
+hearing of a LeNoir of Grand Pré called the Fiery Frenchman?"
+
+"Of Etex LeNoir," cried the old woman, in trumpet tones, "of the martyr
+who shamed an Englishman, and was murdered by him?"
+
+"Yes, that is the man."
+
+"I have heard of him often, often. The old ones spoke of it to me. His
+heart was broken,--the captain, who was more cruel than Winslow, called
+him a papist dog, and struck him down, and the sailors threw him into
+the sea. He laid a curse on the wicked captain, but I cannot remember
+his name."
+
+"Did you ever hear anything of the wife and child of Etex LeNoir?"
+
+"No," she said, absently, "there was only the husband Etex that I had
+heard of. Would not his wife come back to the Bay? I do not know," and
+she relapsed into the dullness from which her temporary excitement had
+roused her.
+
+"He was called the Fiery Frenchman," she muttered, presently, but so low
+that Vesper had to lean forward to hear her. "The old ones said that
+there was a mark like flame on his forehead, and he was like fire
+himself."
+
+"Agapit, is it not time that we embark?" said Rose, gliding from an
+inner room. "It will soon be dark."
+
+Agapit sprang up. Vesper shook hands with Madame Kessy and her daughter,
+and politely assured them, in answer to their urgent request, that he
+would be sure to call again, then took his seat in the dog-cart, where
+in company with his new friends he was soon bowling quickly over a bit
+of smooth and newly repaired road.
+
+Away ahead, under the trees, they soon heard snatches of a lively song,
+and presently two young men staggered into view supporting each other,
+and having much difficulty in keeping to their side of the road.
+
+Agapit, with angry mutterings, drove furiously by the young men, with
+his head well in the air, although they saluted him as their dear cousin
+from the Bay.
+
+Rose did not speak, but she hung her head, and Vesper knew that she was
+blushing to the tips of the white ears inside her black handkerchief.
+
+No one ventured a remark until they reached a place where four roads
+met, when Agapit ejaculated, desperately, "The devil is also here!"
+
+Vesper turned around. The sun had gone down, the twilight was nearly
+over, but he possessed keen sight and could plainly discover against the
+dull blue evening sky the figures of a number of men and boys, some of
+whom were balancing themselves on the top of a zigzag fence, while
+others stood with hands in their pockets,--all vociferously laughing and
+jeering at a man who staggered to and fro in their midst with clenched
+fists, and light shirt-sleeves spotted with red.
+
+"This is abominable," said Agapit, in a rage, and he was about to lay
+his whip on Toochune's back when Vesper suggested mildly that he was in
+danger of running down some of his countrymen.
+
+Agapit pulled up the horse with a jerk, and Rose immediately sprang to
+the road and ran up to the young man, who had plainly been fighting and
+was about to fight again.
+
+Vesper slipped from his seat and stood by the wheel.
+
+"Do not follow her," exclaimed Agapit; "they will not hurt her. They
+would beat you."
+
+"I know it."
+
+"She is my cousin, thou impatient one," pursued Agapit, irritably. "I
+would not allow her to be insulted."
+
+"I know that, too," said Vesper, calmly, and he watched the young men
+springing off the fences and hurrying up to Rose, who had taken the
+pugilist by the hand.
+
+"Isidore," she said, sorrowfully, and as unaffectedly as if they had
+been alone, "hast thou been fighting again?"
+
+"It is her second cousin," growled Agapit; "that is why she interferes."
+
+"_Écoute-moi, écoute-moi_, Rose" (listen to me), stammered the young man
+in the blood-stained shirt. "They all set upon me. I was about to be
+massacred. I struck out but a little, and I got some taps here and
+there. I was drunk at first, but I am not very drunk now."
+
+"Poor Isidore, I will take thee home; come with me."
+
+The crowd of men and boys set up a roar. They were quarrelsome and
+mischievous, and had not yet got their fill of rowdyism.
+
+"_Va-t'ang, va-t'ang_" (go away), "Rose à Charlitte. We want no women
+here. Go home about thy business. If Big Fists wishes to fight, we will
+fight."
+
+Among all the noisy, discordant voices this was the only insulting one,
+and Rose turned and fixed her mild gaze on the offender, who was one of
+the oldest men present, and the chief mischief-maker of the
+neighborhood. "But it is not well for all to fight one man," she said,
+gently.
+
+"We fight one by one. Isidore is big,--he has never enough. Go away, or
+there will yet be a bigger row," and he added a sentence of gross abuse.
+
+Vesper made a step forward, but Isidore, the young bully, who was of
+immense height and breadth, and a son of the old Acadienne that they had
+just quitted, was before him.
+
+"You wish to fight, my friends," he said, jocularly; "here, take this,"
+and, lifting his big foot, he quickly upset the offender, and kicked him
+towards some men in the crowd who were also relatives of Rose.
+
+One of them sprang forward, and, with his dark face alight with glee at
+the chance to avenge the affront offered to his kinswoman, at once
+proceeded to beat the offender calmly and systematically, and to roll
+him under the fence.
+
+Rose, in great distress, attempted to go to his rescue, but the young
+giant threw his arm around her. "This is only fun, my cousin. Thou must
+not spoil everything. Come, I will return with thee."
+
+"_Nâni_" (no), cried Agapit, furiously, "thou wilt not. Fit company art
+thou for strangers!"
+
+Isidore stared confusedly at him, while Vesper settled the question by
+inviting him in the back seat and installing Rose beside him. Then he
+held out his arms to Narcisse, who had been watching the disturbance
+with drowsy interest, fearful only that the Englishman from Boston might
+leave him to take a hand in it.
+
+As soon as Vesper mounted the seat beside him, Agapit jerked the reins,
+and set off at a rapid pace; so rapid that Vesper at first caught only
+snatches of the dialogue carried on behind him, that was tearful on the
+part of Rose, and meek on that of Isidore.
+
+Soon Agapit sobered down, and Rose's words could be distinguished. "My
+cousin, how canst thou? Think only of thy mother and thy wife; and the
+good priest,--suppose he had come!"
+
+"Then thou wouldst have seen running like that of foxes," replied
+Isidore, in good-natured, semi-interested tones.
+
+"Thou wast not born a drunkard. When sober thou art good, but there
+could not be a worse man when drunk. Such a pile of cursing words to go
+up to the sky,--and such a volley of fisting. Ah, how thou wast wounding
+Christ!"
+
+Isidore held on tightly, for Agapit was still driving fast, and uttered
+an inaudible reply.
+
+"Tell me where thou didst get that liquor," said Rose.
+
+"It was a stolen cask, my cousin."
+
+"Isidore!"
+
+"But I did not steal it. It came from thy charming Bay. Thou didst not
+know that, shortly ago, a captain sailed to Sleeping Water with five
+casks of rum. He hired a man from the Concession to help him hide them,
+but the man stole one cask. Imagine the rage of the captain, but he
+could not prosecute, for it was smuggled. Since then we have fun
+occasionally."
+
+"Who is that bad man? If I knew where was his cask, I would take a
+little nail and make a hole in it."
+
+"Rose, couldst thou expect me to tell thee?"
+
+"Yes," she said, warmly. Then, remembering that she had been talking
+English to his French, she suddenly relapsed into low, swift sentences
+in her own tongue, which Vesper could not understand. He caught their
+import, however. She was still inveighing against the sin of drunkenness
+and was begging him to reform, and her voice did not flag until they
+reached his home, where his wife--a young woman with magnificent eyes
+and a straight, queenly figure--stood by the gate.
+
+"_Bon soir_ (good evening), Claudine," called out Agapit. "We have
+brought home Isidore, who, hearing that a distinguished stranger was
+about to pass through the Concession, thoughtfully put himself on
+exhibition at the four roads. You had better keep him at home until _La
+Guerrière_ goes back to Saint Pierre."
+
+"It was _La Guerrière_ that brought the liquor," said Rose, suddenly, to
+Isidore.
+
+He did not contradict her, and she said, firmly, "Never shall that
+captain darken my doors again."
+
+The young Acadien beauty gave Vesper a fleeting glance, then she said,
+bitterly, "It should rather be Saint Judas, for from there the evil one
+sends stuff to torture us women--Here enter," and half scornfully, half
+affectionately, she extended a hand to her huge husband, who was making
+a wavering effort to reach the gateway.
+
+He clung to her as if she had been an anchor, and when she asked him
+what had happened to his shirt he stuttered, regretfully, "Torn,
+Claudine,--torn again."
+
+"How many times should one mend a shirt?" she asked, turning her big
+blazing eyes on Rose.
+
+"Charlitte never became drunk," said Rose, in a plaintive voice, "but I
+have mended the shirts of my brothers at least a hundred times."
+
+"Then I have but one more time," said the youthful Madame Kessy. "After
+that I shall throw it in the fire. Go into the house, my husband. I was
+a fool to have married thee," she added, under her breath.
+
+Isidore stood tottering on his feet, and regarded her with tipsy
+gravity. "And thou shalt come with me, my pretty one, and make me a hot
+supper and sing me a song."
+
+"I will not do that. Thou canst eat cold bread, and I will sing thee a
+song with my tongue that will not please thee."
+
+"The priest married us," said Isidore, doggedly, and in momentary
+sobriety he stalked to the place where she stood, picked her up, and,
+putting her under his arm, carried her into the house, she meanwhile
+protesting and laughing hysterically while she shrieked out something to
+Rose about the loan of a sleeve pattern.
+
+"Yes, yes, I understand," called Rose, "the big sleeve, with many folds;
+I will send it. Make thy husband his supper and come soon to see me."
+
+"Rose," said Agapit, severely, as they drove away, "is it a good thing
+to make light of that curse of curses?"
+
+"To make light of it! _Mon Dieu_, you do not understand. It is men who
+make women laugh even when their hearts are breaking."
+
+Agapit did not reply, and, as they were about to enter a thick wood, he
+passed the reins to Vesper and got out to light the lamps.
+
+While he was fidgeting with them, Rose moved around so that she could
+look into the front seat.
+
+"Your child is all right," said Vesper, gazing down at the head laid
+confidingly against his arm. "He is sound asleep,--not a bit alarmed by
+that fuss."
+
+"It does not frighten him when human beings cry out. He only sorrows for
+things that have no voices, and he is always right when with you. It is
+not that; I wish to ask you--to ask you to forgive me."
+
+"For what?"
+
+"But you know--I told you what was not true."
+
+"Do not speak of it. It was a mere bagatelle."
+
+"It is not a bagatelle to make untruths," she said, wearily, "but I
+often do it,--most readily when I am frightened. But you did not
+frighten me."
+
+Vesper did not reply except by a reassuring glance, which in her
+preoccupation she lost, and, catching her breath, she went on, "I think
+so often of a sentence from an Englishman that the sisters of a convent
+used to say to us,--it is about the little lies as well as the big ones
+that come from the pit."
+
+"Do you mean Ruskin?" said Vesper, curiously, "when he speaks of 'one
+falsity as harmless, and another as slight, and another as
+unintended,--cast them all aside; they may be light and accidental, but
+they are ugly soot from the smoke of the pit for all that?'"
+
+"Yes, yes, it is that,--will you write it for me?--and remember," she
+continued, hurriedly, as she saw Agapit preparing to reënter the cart,
+"that I did not say what I did to make a fine tale, but for my people
+whom I love. You were a stranger, and I supposed you would linger but a
+day and then proceed, and it is hard for me to say that the Acadiens are
+no better than the English,--that they will get drunk and fight. I did
+not imagine that you would see them, yet I should not have told the
+story," and with her flaxen head drooping on her breast she turned away
+from him.
+
+"When is lying justifiable?" asked Vesper of Agapit.
+
+The young Acadien plunged into a long argument that lasted until they
+reached the top of the hill overlooking Sleeping Water. Then he paused,
+and as he once more saw above him the wide expanse of sky to which he
+was accustomed, and knew that before him lay the Bay, wide, open, and
+free, he drew a long breath.
+
+"Ah, but I am glad to arrive home. When I go to the woods it is as if a
+large window through which I had been taking in the whole world had
+been closed."
+
+No one replied to him, and he soon swung them around the corner and up
+to the inn door. Rose led her sleepy boy into the kitchen, where bright
+lights were burning, and where the maid Célina seemed to be entertaining
+callers. Vesper took the lantern and followed Agapit to the stable.
+
+"Is it a habit of yours to give your hotel guests drives?" he asked,
+hanging the lantern on a hook and assisting Agapit in unbuckling straps.
+
+"Yes, whenever it pleases us. Many, also, hire our horse and pony. You
+see that we have no common horse in Toochune."
+
+"Yes, I know he is a thoroughbred."
+
+"Rose, of course, could not buy such an animal. He was a gift from her
+uncle in Louisiana. He also sent her this dog-cart and her organ. He is
+rich, very rich. He went South as a boy, and was adopted by an old
+farmer; Rose is the daughter of his favorite sister, and I tell her that
+she will inherit from him, for his wife is dead and he is alone, but she
+says not to count on what one does not know."
+
+Vesper had already been favored with these items of information by his
+mother, so he said nothing, and assisted Agapit in his task of making
+long-legged Toochune comfortable for the night. Having finished, and
+being rewarded by a grateful glance from the animal's lustrous eyes,
+they both went to the pump outside and washed their hands.
+
+"It is too fine for the house," said Agapit. "Are you too fatigued to
+walk? If agreeable I will take you to Sleeping Water River, where you
+have not yet been, and tell you how it accumulated its name. There is no
+one inside," he continued, as Vesper cast a glance at the kitchen
+windows, "but the miller and his wife, in whom I no longer take
+pleasure, and the mail-driver who tells so long stories."
+
+"So long that you have no chance."
+
+"Exactly," said Agapit, fumbling in his pocket. "See what I bought
+to-day of a travelling merchant. Four cigars for ten cents. Two for you,
+and two for me. Shall we smoke them?"
+
+Vesper took the cigars, slipped them in his pocket, and brought out one
+of his own, then with Agapit took the road leading back from the village
+to the river.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII.
+
+                           AN UNHAPPY RIVER.
+
+                              "Pools and shadows merge
+            Beneath the branches, where the rushes lean
+              And stumble prone; and sad along the verge
+            The marsh-hen totters. Strange the branches play
+              Above the snake-roots in the dark and wet,
+            Adown the hueless trunks, this summer day.
+              Strange things the willows whisper."
+
+                                                      J. F. H.
+
+
+"There is a story among the old people," said Agapit, "that a band of
+Acadiens, who evaded the English at the time of the expulsion, sailed
+into this Bay in a schooner. They anchored opposite Sleeping Water, and
+some of the men came ashore in a boat. Not knowing that an English ship
+lay up yonder, hidden by a point of land, they pressed back into the
+woods towards Sleeping Water Lake. Some of the English, also, were on
+their way to this lake, for it is historic. The Acadiens found traces of
+them and turned towards the shore, but the English pursued over the
+marshes by the river, which at last the Acadiens must cross. They threw
+aside their guns and jumped in, and, as one head rose after another,
+the English, standing on the bank, shot until all but one were killed.
+This one was a Le Blanc, a descendant of René Le Blanc, that one reads
+of in 'Evangeline.' Rising up on the bank, he found himself alone.
+Figure the anguish of his heart,--his brothers and friends were dead. He
+would never see them again, and he turned and stretched out a hand in a
+supreme adieu. The English, who would not trouble to swim, fired at him,
+and called, 'Go to sleep with your comrades in the river.'
+
+"'They sleep,' he cried, 'but they will rise again in their children,'
+and, quite untouched by their fire, he ran to his boat, and, reaching
+the ship, set sail to New Brunswick; and in later years his children and
+the children of the murdered ones came back to the Bay, and began to
+call the river Sleeping Water, and, in time, the lake, which was Queen
+Anne's Lake, was also changed to Sleeping Water Lake."
+
+"And the soldiers?"
+
+"Ah! you look for vengeance, but does vengeance always come? Remember
+the Persian distich:
+
+     "'They came, conquered, and burned,
+         Pillaged, murdered, and went.'"
+
+"I do not understand this question thoroughly," said Vesper, with
+irritation, "yet from your conversation it seems not so barbarous a
+thing that the Acadiens should have been transported as that those who
+remained should have been so persecuted."
+
+"Now is your time to read 'Richard.' I have long been waiting for your
+health to be restored, for it is exciting."
+
+"That is the Acadien historian you have spoken of?"
+
+"Yes; and when you read him you will understand my joy at the venerable
+letter you showed me. You will see why we blame the guilty Lawrence and
+his colleagues, and not England herself, for the wickedness wrought her
+French children."
+
+Vesper smoked out his cigar in silence. They had left the village street
+some distance behind them, and were now walking along a flat, narrow
+road, having a thick, hedge-like border of tangled bushes and wild
+flowers that were agitated by a gentle breeze, and waved out a sweet,
+faint perfume on the night air. On either side of them were low, grassy
+marshes, screened by clumps of green.
+
+"We are arrived at last," said Agapit, pausing on a rustic bridge that
+spanned the road; "and down there," he went on, in a choking voice, "is
+where the bones of my countrymen lie."
+
+Vesper leaned over the railing. What a sluggish, silent, stealthy river!
+He could perceive no flow in its reluctant waters. A few willows,
+natives, not French ones, swayed above it, and close to its edge grew
+the tall grasses, rustling and whispering together as if imparting
+guilty secrets concerning the waters below.
+
+"Which way does it go?" murmured Vesper; but Agapit did not hear him,
+for he was eagerly muttering: "A hateful river,--I never see a bird
+drink from it, there are no fishes in it, the lilies will not grow here,
+and the children fall in and are drowned; and, though it has often been
+sounded, they can find no bottom to it."
+
+Vesper stared below in silence, only making an involuntary movement when
+his companion's cap fell off and struck the face of the dull black
+mirror presented to them.
+
+"Let it go," exclaimed Agapit, with a shudder. "Poor as I am, I would
+not wear it now. It is tainted," and flinging back the dark locks from
+his forehead, he turned his face towards the shore.
+
+"No, I will talk no more about the Acadiens," he said, when Vesper tried
+to get him to enter upon his favorite theme, "for, though you are
+polite, I fear I shall weary you; we will speak of other things."
+
+The night was a perfect one, and for an hour the two young men walked up
+and down the quiet road before the inn, talking at first of the fishing
+that was over, and the hunting that would in a few weeks begin.
+
+Vesper would have enjoyed seeking big game in the backwoods, if his
+health had permitted, and he listened with suppressed eagerness to
+Agapit's account of a moose hunt. The world of sport disposed of, their
+conversation drifted to literature, to science and art in general,--to
+women and love affairs, and Agapit rambled on excitedly and delightedly,
+while Vesper, contenting himself with the briefest of rejoinders,
+extracted an acute and amused interest from the entirely novel and
+out-of-the-way opinions presented to him.
+
+"Ah! but I enjoy this," said Agapit, at last; "it is the fault of my
+countrymen that they do not read enough and study,--their sole fault. I
+meet with so few who will discuss, yet I must not detain you. Come in,
+come in, and I will give you my 'Richard.' Begin not to read him
+to-night, for you could not sleep. I believe," and he raised his brown,
+flushed face to the stars above, "that he has done justice to the
+Acadien people; but remember, we do not complain now. We are faithful to
+our sovereign and to our country,--as faithful as you are to your Union.
+The smart of the past is over. We ask only that the world may believe
+that the Acadiens were loyal and consistent, and that we do not wish for
+reparation from England except, perhaps--" and he hesitated and looked
+down at the shabby sleeve of his coat, while tears filled his eyes.
+"_Mon Dieu!_ I will not speak of the pitiful economies that I am obliged
+to practise to educate myself. And there are other young men more poor.
+If the colonial government would give us some help, I would go to
+college; for now I hesitate lest I should save my money for my family.
+If the good lands that were taken from us were now ours, we should be
+rich--"
+
+Vesper liked the young Acadien best in his quiet moods. "Don't worry,"
+he said, consolingly; "something will turn up. Get me that book, will
+you?"
+
+Vesper paused for an instant when he entered his room. On a table by his
+bed was placed a tray, covered by a napkin. Lifting the napkin, he
+discovered a wing of cold chicken with jelly, thin slices of bread and
+butter, and a covered pitcher of chocolate.
+
+He poured himself out a cup of the chocolate, and murmuring, "Here's to
+the Lady of the Sleeping Water Inn," seized one of the two volumes that
+Agapit had given him, and, throwing himself into an easy chair, began to
+read.
+
+One by one the hours slipped away, but he did not move in his chair,
+except to put out a hand at regular intervals and turn a leaf. Shortly
+before daybreak a chill wind blew up the Bay, and came floating in the
+window. He threw down the book, rose slowly to his feet, and looked
+about him in a dreamy way. He had been transported to a previous century
+and to another atmosphere than this peaceful one.
+
+He shivered sensitively, and, going to the window, closed it, and stood
+gazing at the faint flush in the sky. "O God! it is true," he muttered,
+drearily, "we are sent into this world to enact hell. Goethe understood
+that. And what a hell of long years was enacted on these shores!"
+
+"The devils," he went on, in youthful, generous indignation; "they had
+no pity, not even after years of suffering on the part of their
+victims."
+
+His eyes smarted, his head ached. He put his hand to his eyes, and, when
+it came away wet, he curled his lip. He had not shed tears since he was
+a boy.
+
+Then he threw himself on his bed, and thoughts of his father mingled
+with those of the Acadiens. An invincible melancholy took possession of
+him, and burying his face in his arms, he lay for a long time with his
+whole frame quivering in emotion.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII.
+
+                            AN ILLUMINATION.
+
+                         "Sait-on où l'on va?"
+
+
+"What a sleeper, what a lover of his bed!" exclaimed Agapit, the next
+morning, as he rapped vigorously on Vesper's door. "Is he never going to
+rise?"
+
+"What do you want?" said a voice from within.
+
+"I, Agapit, latest and warmest of your friends, apologize for disturbing
+you, but am forced to ask a question."
+
+"Come in; the door is not locked."
+
+Agapit thrust his head in. "Did you sit late reading my books?"
+
+Vesper lifted his closely cropped curly head from the pillow. "Yes."
+
+"And did not your heart stir with pity for the unfortunate Acadiens?"
+
+"I found the history interesting."
+
+"I wept over it at my first reading,--I gnashed my teeth; but
+come,--will you not go to the picnic with us? All the Bay is going, as
+the two former days of it were dull."
+
+"I had forgotten it. Does my mother wish to go?"
+
+"Madame, your mother, is already prepared. See from your window, she
+talks to the mail-driver, who never tires of her adorable French. Do you
+know, this morning he came herding down the road three shy children, who
+were triplets. She was charmed, having never seen more than twins."
+
+Vesper raised himself on his elbow and glanced through the window at
+Monsieur de la Rive, who, with his bright wings folded close to his
+sides, was cheeping voluble remarks to Mrs. Nimmo.
+
+"All right, I will go," he said.
+
+Agapit hurried down-stairs, and Vesper began to dress himself in a
+leisurely way, stopping frequently to go to the window and gaze dreamily
+out at the Bay.
+
+Soon Rose came to the kitchen door to feed her hens. She looked so
+lovely, as she stood with her resplendent head in a blaze of sunlight,
+that Vesper's fingers paused in the act of fastening his necktie, and he
+stood still to watch her.
+
+Presently the mail-driver went streaking down the road in fiery flight,
+and Mrs. Nimmo, seeing Rose alone, came tripping towards her. To her
+son, who understood her perfectly, there were visible in Mrs. Nimmo's
+manner some sure and certain signs of an inward disturbance. Rose,
+however, perceived nothing, and continued feeding her hens with her
+usual grace and composure.
+
+"Are you not going to the picnic?" asked Mrs. Nimmo, and her eye ran
+over the simple cotton gown that Rose always wore in the morning.
+
+"Yes, madame, but first I do my work."
+
+"You will be glad to see your friends there,--and your family?"
+
+"Ah, yes, madame,--it is such a pleasure."
+
+"I should like to see your sister, Perside."
+
+"I will present her, madame; she will be honored."
+
+"And it is she that the blacksmith is going to marry? Do you know," and
+Mrs. Nimmo laughed tremulously, "I have been thinking all the time that
+it was you."
+
+"Now I get at the cause of your discontent," soliloquized Vesper, above,
+"my poor little mother."
+
+Rose surveyed her companion in astonishment: "I thought all the Bay
+knew."
+
+"But I am not the Bay," said Mrs. Nimmo, with attempted playfulness; "I
+am Boston."
+
+A shadow crossed Rose's face. "Yes, madame, I know. I might have told
+you, but I did not think; and you are delicate,--you would not ask."
+
+"No, I am not delicate," said Mrs. Nimmo, honestly. "I am inclined to be
+curious, or interested in other people, we will say,--I think you are
+very kind to be making matrimonial plans for other young women, and not
+to think of yourself."
+
+"Madame?"
+
+"You do not know that long word. It means pertaining to marriage."
+
+"Ah! marriage, I understand that. But, lately, I resolve not to marry,"
+and Rose turned her deep blue eyes, in which there was not a trace of
+craft or deceit, on her nervously apprehensive interlocutor, while
+Vesper murmured in the window above, "She is absolutely guileless, my
+mother; cast out of your mind that vague and formless suspicion."
+
+Mrs. Nimmo, however, preferred to keep the suspicion, and not only to
+keep it, but to foster the stealthy creeping thing until it had taken on
+the rudiments of organized reflection.
+
+"Some young people do not care for marriage," she said, after a long
+pause. "My son never has."
+
+"May the Lord forgive you for that," ejaculated her son, piously. Then
+he listened for Rose's response, which was given with deep respect and
+humility. "He is devoted to you, madame. It is pleasant to see a son
+thus."
+
+"He is a dear boy, and it would kill me if he were to leave me. I am
+glad that you appreciate him, and that he has found this place so
+interesting. We shall hate to leave here."
+
+"Must you go soon, madame?"
+
+"Pretty soon, I think; as soon as my son finishes this quest of his. You
+know it is very quiet here. You like it because it is your home, but we,
+of course, are accustomed to a different life."
+
+"I know that, madame," said Rose, sadly, "and it will seem yet more
+quiet when we do not see you. I dread the long days."
+
+"I daresay we may come back sometime. My son likes to revisit favorite
+spots, and the strong air of the Bay certainly agrees wonderfully with
+him. He is sleeping like a baby this morning. I must go now and see if
+he is up. Thank you for speaking so frankly to me about yourself. Do you
+know, I believe you agree with me,"--and Mrs. Nimmo leaned
+confidentially towards her,--"that it is a perfectly wicked thing for a
+widow to marry again," and she tripped away, folding about her the white
+shawl she always wore.
+
+Rose gazed after her retreating form with a face that was, for a time,
+wholly mystified.
+
+By degrees, her expression became clearer. "Good heavens! she
+understands," muttered Vesper; "now let us see if there will be any
+resentment."
+
+There was none. A vivid, agonized blush overspread Rose's cheeks. She
+let the last remnant of food slip to the expectant hens from her two
+hands, that suddenly went out in a gesture of acute distress; but the
+glance that she bestowed on Mrs. Nimmo, who was just vanishing around
+the corner of the house, was one of saintly magnanimity, with not a
+trace of pride or rebellion in it.
+
+Vesper shrugged his shoulders and left the window. "Strange that the
+best of women will worry each other," and philosophically proceeding
+with his toilet, he shortly after went down-stairs.
+
+After a breakfast that was not scanty, as his breakfasts had been before
+his illness, but one that was comprehensive and eaten with good
+appetite, he made his way to the parlor, where his mother was sitting
+among a number of vivacious Acadiens.
+
+Rose, slim and elegant in a new black gown, and having on her head a
+small straw hat, with a dotted veil drawn neatly over her pink cheeks
+and mass of light hair, was receiving other young men and women who were
+arriving, while Agapit, burly, and almost handsome in his Sunday suit of
+black serge, was bustling about, and, immediately pouncing upon Vesper,
+introduced him to each member of the party.
+
+The young American did not care to talk. He returned to the doorway,
+and, loitering there, amused himself by comparing the Acadiens who had
+remained at home with those who had gone out into the world.
+
+The latter were dressed more gaily; they had more assurance, and, in
+nearly every case, less charm of manner than the former. There was
+Rose's aunt,--white-haired Madame Pitre. She was like a sweet and demure
+little owl in her hood-like handkerchief and plain gown. Amandine, her
+daughter who had never left the Bay, was a second little owl; but the
+sisters Diane and Lucie, factory girls from Worcester, were overdressed
+birds of paradise, in their rustling silk blouses, big plumed hats, and
+self-conscious manners.
+
+"Here, at last, is the wagon," cried Agapit, running to the door, as a
+huge, six-seated vehicle, drawn by four horses, appeared. He made haste
+to assist his friends and relatives into it, then, darting to Vesper,
+who stood on the veranda, exclaimed, "The most honorable seat beside me
+is for madame, your mother."
+
+"Do you care to go?" asked Vesper, addressing her.
+
+"I should like to go to the picnic, but could you not drive me?"
+
+"But certainly he can," exclaimed Agapit. "Toochune is in the stable.
+Possibly this big wagon would be noisy for madame. I will go and
+harness."
+
+"You will do nothing of the kind," said Vesper, laying a detaining hand
+on his shoulder. "You go on. We will follow."
+
+Agapit nodded gaily, and sprang to the box, while Rose bent her flushed
+face over Narcisse, who set up a sudden wail of despair. "He is coming,
+my child. Thou knowest he does not break his promises."
+
+Narcisse raised his fist as if to strike her; he was in a fury at being
+restrained, and, although ordinarily a shy child, he was at present
+utterly regardless of the strangers about him.
+
+"Stop, stop, Agapit!" cried Diane; "he will cast himself over the
+wheel!"
+
+Agapit pulled up the horses, and Vesper, hearing the disturbance, and
+knowing the cause, came sauntering after the wagon, with a broad smile
+on his face.
+
+He became grave, however, when he saw Rose's pained expression. "I think
+it better not to yield," she said, in a low voice. "Calm thyself,
+Narcisse, thou shalt not get out."
+
+"I will," gasped the child. "You are a bad mother. The Englishman may
+run away if I leave him. You know he is going."
+
+"Let me have him for a minute," said Vesper. "I will talk to him," and,
+reaching out his arms, he took the child from the blacksmith, who swung
+him over the side of the wagon.
+
+"Come get a drink of water," said the young American, good-humoredly.
+"Your little face is as red as a turkey-cock's."
+
+Narcisse pressed his hot forehead to Vesper's cheek, and meekly allowed
+himself to be carried into the house.
+
+"Now don't be a baby," said Vesper, putting him on the kitchen sink, and
+holding a glass of water to his lips; "I am coming after you in half an
+hour."
+
+"Will you not run away?"
+
+"No," said Vesper, "I will not."
+
+Narcisse gave him a searching look. "I believe you; but my mother once
+said to me that I should have a ball, and she did not give it."
+
+"What is it that the Englishman has done to the child?" whispered Madame
+Pitre to her neighbor, when Vesper brought back the quiet and composed
+Narcisse and handed him to his mother. "It is like magic."
+
+"It is rather that the child needs a father," replied the young
+Acadienne addressed. "Rose should marry."
+
+"I wish the Englishman was poor," muttered Madame Pitre, "and also
+Acadien; but he does not think of Rose, and Acadiens do not marry out of
+their race."
+
+Vesper watched them out of sight, and then he found that Agapit had
+spoken truly when he said that all the Bay was going to the picnic.
+Célina's mother, a brown-faced, vigorous old woman who was to take
+charge of the inn for the day, was the only person to be seen, and he
+therefore went himself to the stable and harnessed Toochune to the
+dog-cart.
+
+Célina's mother admiringly watched the dog-cart joining the procession
+of bicycles, buggies, two-wheeled carts, and big family wagons going
+down the Bay, and fancied that its occupants must be extremely happy.
+
+Mrs. Nimmo, however, was not happy, and nothing distracted her attention
+from her own teasing thoughts. She listened abstractedly to the merry
+chatter of French in the air, and gazed disconsolately at the gloriously
+sunny Bay, where a few distant schooner sails stood up sharp against the
+sky like the white wings of birds.
+
+At last she sighed heavily, and said, in a plaintive voice, "Vesper, are
+you not getting tired of Sleeping Water?"
+
+He flicked his whip at a fly that was torturing Toochune, then said,
+calmly, "No, I am not."
+
+"I never saw you so interested in a place," she observed, with a fretful
+side glance. "The travelling agents and loquacious peasants never seem
+to bore you."
+
+"But I do not talk to the agents, and I do not find the others
+loquacious; neither would I call them peasants."
+
+"It doesn't matter what you call them. They are all beneath you."
+
+Vesper looked meditatively across the Bay at a zigzag, woolly trail of
+smoke made by a steamer that was going back and forth in a distressed
+way, as if unable to find the narrow passage that led to the Bay of
+Fundy.
+
+"The Checkertons have gone to the White Mountains," said Mrs. Nimmo, in
+a vexed tone, as if the thought gave her no pleasure. "I should like to
+join them there."
+
+"Very well, we can leave here to-morrow."
+
+Her face brightened. "But your business?"
+
+"I can send some one to look after it, or Agapit would attend to it."
+
+"And you would not need to come back?"
+
+"Not necessarily. I might do so, however."
+
+"In the event of some of the LeNoirs being found?"
+
+"In the event of my not being able to exist without--the Bay."
+
+"Give me the Charles River," said Mrs. Nimmo, hastily. "It is worth
+fifty Bays."
+
+"To me also," said Vesper; "but there is one family here that I should
+like to transplant to the banks of the Charles."
+
+Mrs. Nimmo did not speak until they had passed through long Comeauville
+and longer Saulnierville, and were entering peaceful Meteghan River with
+its quietly flowing stream and grassy meadows. Then having partly
+subdued the first shock of having a horror of such magnitude presented
+to her, she murmured, "Are you sure that you know your own mind?"
+
+"Quite sure, mother," he said, earnestly and affectionately; "but now,
+as always, my first duty is to you."
+
+Tears sprang to her eyes, and ran quietly down her cheeks. "When you lay
+ill," she said, in a repressed voice, "I sat by you. I prayed to God to
+spare your life. I vowed that I would do anything to please you, yet,
+now that you are well, I cannot bear the idea of giving you up to
+another woman."
+
+Vesper looked over his shoulder, then guided Toochune up by one of the
+gay gardens before the never-ending row of houses in order to allow a
+hay-wagon to pass them. When they were again in the middle of the road,
+he said, "I, too, had serious thoughts when I was ill, but you know how
+difficult it is for me to speak of the things nearest my heart."
+
+"I know that you are a good son," she said, passionately. "You would
+give up the woman of your choice for my sake, but I would not allow it,
+for it would make you hate me,--I have seen so much trouble in families
+where mothers have opposed their sons' marriages. It does no good, and
+then--I do not want you to be a lonely old man when I'm gone."
+
+"Mother," he said, protestingly.
+
+"How did it happen?" she asked, suddenly composing herself, and dabbing
+at her face with her handkerchief.
+
+Vesper's face grew pale, and, after a short hesitation, he said,
+dreamily, "I scarcely know. She has become mixed up with my life in an
+imperceptible way, and there is an inexpressible something about her
+that I have never found in any other woman."
+
+Mrs. Nimmo struggled with a dozen conflicting thoughts. Then she sighed,
+miserably, "Have you asked her to marry you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But you will?"
+
+"I do not know," he said, reluctantly. "I have nothing planned. I wish
+to tell you, to save misunderstandings."
+
+"She has some crotchet against marriage,--she told me so this morning.
+Do you know what it is?"
+
+"I can guess."
+
+Mrs. Nimmo pondered a minute. "She has fallen in love with you," she
+said at last, "and because she thinks you will not marry her, she will
+have no other man."
+
+"I think you scarcely understand her. She does not understand herself."
+
+Mrs. Nimmo uttered a soft, "Nonsense!" under her breath.
+
+"Suppose we drop the matter for a time," said Vesper, in acute
+sensitiveness. "It is in an incipient state as yet."
+
+"I know you better than to suppose that it will remain incipient," said
+his mother, despairingly. "You never give anything up. But, as you say,
+we had better not talk any more about it. It has given me a terrible
+shock, and I will need time to get over it,--I thank you for telling me,
+however," and she silently directed her attention to the distant red
+cathedral spire, and the white houses of Meteghan,--the place where the
+picnic was being held.
+
+They caught up with the big wagon just before it reached a large brown
+building, surrounded by a garden and pleasure-grounds, and situated some
+distance from the road. This was the convent, and Vesper knew that,
+within its quiet walls, Rose had received the education that had added
+to her native grace the gentle _savoir faire_ that reminded him of
+convent-bred girls that he had met abroad, and that made her seem more
+like the denizen of a city than the mistress of a little country inn.
+
+In front of the convent the road was almost blocked by vehicles. Rows of
+horses stood with their heads tied to its garden fence, and bicycles by
+the dozen were ranged in the shadow of its big trees. Across the road
+from it a green field had been surrounded by a hedge of young spruce
+trees, and from this enclosure sounds of music and merrymaking could be
+heard. A continual stream of people kept pouring in at the
+entrance-gate, without, however, making much diminution in the crowd
+outside.
+
+Agapit requested his passengers to alight, then, accompanied by one of
+the young men of his party, who took charge of Vesper's horse, he drove
+to a near stable. Five minutes later he returned, and found his
+companions drawn up together watching Acadien boys and girls flock into
+the saloon of a travelling photographer.
+
+"There is now no time for picture-taking," he vociferated; "come, let us
+enter. See, I have tickets," and he proudly marshalled his small army up
+to the gate, and entered the picnic grounds at their head.
+
+They found Vesper and his mother inside. This ecclesiastical fair going
+on under the convent walls, and almost in the shadow of the red
+cathedral, reminded them of the fairs of history. Here, as there, no
+policemen were needed among the throngs of buyers and sellers, who
+strolled around and around the grassy enclosure, and examined the wares
+exhibited in verdant booths. Good order was ensured by the presence of
+several priests, who were greeted with courtesy and reverence by all.
+Agapit, who was a devout Catholic, stood with his hat in his hand until
+his own parish priest had passed; then his eyes fell on the essentially
+modern and central object in the fair grounds,--a huge merry-go-round
+from Boston, with brightly painted blue seats, to which a load of
+Acadien children clung in an ecstasy of delight, as they felt themselves
+being madly whirled through the air.
+
+"Let us all ride!" he exclaimed. "Come, showman, give us the next turn."
+
+The wheezing, panting engine stopped, and they all mounted, even Madame
+Pitre, who shivered with delicious apprehension, and Mrs. Nimmo, who
+whispered in her son's ear, "I never did such a thing before, but in
+Acadie one must do as the Acadiens do."
+
+Vesper sat down beside her, and took the slightly dubious Narcisse on
+his knee, holding him closely when an expression of fear flitted over
+his delicate features, and encouraging him to sit upright when at last
+he became more bold.
+
+"Another turn," shouted Agapit, when the music ceased, and they were
+again stationary. The whistle blew, and they all set out again; but no
+one wished to attempt a third round, and, giddily stumbling over each
+other, they dismounted and with laughing remarks wandered to another
+part of the grounds, where dancing was going on in two spruce arbors.
+
+"It is necessary for all to join," he proclaimed, at the top of his
+voice, but his best persuasions failed to induce either Rose or Vesper
+to step into the arbors, where two young Acadiens sat perched up in two
+corners, and gleefully tuned their fiddles.
+
+"She will not dance, because she wishes to make herself singular,"
+reflected Mrs. Nimmo, bitterly, and Vesper, who felt the unspoken
+thought as keenly as if it had been uttered, moved a step nearer Rose,
+who modestly stood apart from them.
+
+Agapit flung down his money,--ten cents apiece for each dance,--and,
+ordering his associates to choose their partners, signed to the fiddlers
+to begin.
+
+Mrs. Nimmo forgot Rose for a time, as she watched the dancers. The girls
+were shy and demure; the young men danced lustily, and with great
+spirit, emphasizing the first note of each bar by a stamp on the floor,
+and beating a kind of tattoo with one foot, when not taking part in the
+quadrille.
+
+"Do you have only square dances?" she asked Madame Pitre, when a second
+and a third quadrille were succeeded by a fourth.
+
+"Yes," said the Acadienne, gravely. "There is no sin in a quadrille.
+There is in a waltz."
+
+"Come seek the lunch-tables," said Agapit, presently bursting out on
+them, and mopping his perspiring face with his handkerchief. "Most
+ambrosial dainties are known to the cooks of this parish."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV.
+
+                           WITH THE OLD ONES.
+
+            "The fresh salt breezes mingle with the smell
+               Of clover fields and ripened hay beside;
+               And Nature, musing, happy and serene,
+             Hath here for willing man her sweetest spell."
+
+                                                        J. F. H.
+
+
+After lunch, the Sleeping Water party separated. The Pitres found some
+old friends from up the Bay. Agapit wandered away with some young men,
+and Vesper, lazily declining to saunter with them, stood leaning against
+a tree behind a bench on which his mother and Rose were seated.
+
+The latter received and exchanged numerous greetings with her
+acquaintances who passed by, sometimes detaining them for an
+introduction to Mrs. Nimmo, who was making a supreme effort to be
+gracious and agreeable to the woman that the fates had apparently
+destined to be her daughter-in-law.
+
+Vesper looked on, well pleased. "Why do you not introduce me?" he said,
+mischievously, while his mother's attention was occupied with two
+Acadien girls.
+
+Rose gave him a troubled glance. She took no pleasure in his presence
+now,--his mother had spoiled all that, and, although naturally simple
+and unaffected, she was now tortured by self-consciousness.
+
+"I think that you do not care," she said, in a low voice.
+
+Vesper did not pursue the subject. "Have all Acadien women gentle
+manners?" he asked, with a glance at the pair of shy, retiring ones
+talking to his mother.
+
+A far-away look came into Rose's eyes, and she replied, with more
+composure: "The Abbé Casgrain says--he who wrote 'A Pilgrimage to the
+Land of Evangeline'--that over all Acadiens hangs a quietness and
+melancholy that come from the troubles of long ago; but Agapit does not
+find it so."
+
+"What does Agapit say?"
+
+"He finds," and Rose drew her slight figure up proudly, "that we are
+born to good manners. It was the best blood of France that settled
+Acadie. Did our forefathers come here poor? No, they brought much money.
+They built fine houses of stone, not wood; Grand Pré was a very fine
+village. They also built châteaux. Then, after scatteration, we became
+poor; but can we not keep our good manners?"
+
+Vesper was much diverted by the glance with which his mother, having
+bowed farewell to her new acquaintances, suddenly favored Rose. There
+was pride in it,--pride in the beauty and distinction of the woman
+beside her who was scarcely more than a girl; yet there was also in her
+glance a jealousy and aversion that could not yet be overcome. Time
+alone could effect this; and smothering a sigh, Vesper lifted his head
+towards Narcisse, who had crawled from his shoulder to a most
+uncomfortable seat on the lower limb of a pine-tree, where, however, he
+professed to be most comfortable, and sat with his head against the
+rough bark as delightedly as if it were the softest of cushions.
+
+"I am quite right," said Narcisse, in English, which language he was
+learning with astonishing rapidity, and Vesper again turned his
+attention to the picturesque, constantly changing groups of people. He
+liked best the brown and wrinkled old faces belonging to farmers and
+their wives who were enjoying a well-earned holiday. The young men in
+gray suits, he heard Rose telling his mother, were sailors from up the
+Bay, whose schooners had arrived just in time for them to throw
+themselves on their wheels and come to the picnic. The smooth-faced
+girls in blue, with pink handkerchiefs on their heads, were from a
+settlement back in the woods. The dark-eyed maidens in sailor hats, who
+looked like a troop of young Evangelines, were the six demoiselles
+Aucoin, the daughters of a lawyer in Meteghan, and the tall lady in blue
+was an Acadienne from New York, who brought her family every summer to
+her old home on the Bay.
+
+"And that tall priest in the distance," said Rose, "is the father in
+whose parish we are. Once he was a colonel in the army of France."
+
+"There is something military in his figure," murmured Mrs. Nimmo.
+
+"He was born among the Acadiens in France. They did not need him to
+ministrate, so when he became a priest he journeyed here," continued
+Rose, hurriedly, for the piercing eyes of the kindly-faced ecclesiastic
+had sought out Vesper and his mother, and he was approaching them with
+an uplifted hat.
+
+Rose got up and said, in a fluttering voice, "May I present you, Father
+La Croix, to Mrs. Nimmo, and also her son?"
+
+The priest bowed gracefully, and begged to assure madame and her son
+that their fame had already preceded them, and that he was deeply
+grateful to them for honoring his picnic with their presence.
+
+"I suppose there are not many English people here to-day," said Mrs.
+Nimmo, smiling amiably, while Vesper contented himself with a silent
+bow.
+
+Father La Croix gazed about the crowd, now greatly augmented. "As far as
+I can see, madame, you and your son are the only English that we have
+the pleasure of entertaining. You are now in the heart of the French
+district of Clare."
+
+"And yet I hear a good deal of English spoken."
+
+Father La Croix smiled. "We all understand it, and you see here a good
+many young people employed in the States, who are home for their
+holidays."
+
+"And I suppose we are the only Protestants here," continued Mrs. Nimmo.
+
+"The only ones,--you are also alone in the parish of Sleeping Water. If
+at any time a sense of isolation should prey upon madame and her son--"
+
+He did not finish his sentence except by another smile of infinite
+amusement, and a slight withdrawal of his firm lips from his set of
+remarkably white teeth.
+
+Rose was disturbed. Vesper noticed that the mention of the word
+Protestant at any time sent her into a transport of uneasiness. She was
+terrified lest a word might be said to wound his feelings or those of
+his mother.
+
+"_Monsieur le curé_ is jesting, Madame de Forêt," he said, reassuringly.
+"He is quite willing that we should remain heretics."
+
+Rose's face cleared, and Vesper said to the priest, "Are there any old
+people here to-day who would be inclined to talk about the early
+settlers?"
+
+"Yes, and they would be flattered,--up behind the lunch-tables is a
+knot of old men exchanging reminiscences of early days. May I have the
+pleasure of introducing you to them?"
+
+"I shall be gratified if you will do so," and both men lifted their hats
+to Mrs. Nimmo and Rose, and then disappeared among the crowd.
+
+Narcisse immediately demanded to be taken from the tree, and, upon
+reaching the ground, burst into tears. "Look, my mother,--I did not see
+before."
+
+Rose followed the direction of his pointing finger. He pretended to have
+just discovered that under the feet of this changeful assemblage were
+millions of crushed and suffering grass-blades.
+
+Rose exchanged a glance with Mrs. Nimmo. This was a stroke of childish
+diplomacy. He wished to follow Vesper.
+
+"Show him something to distract his attention," whispered the elder
+woman. "I will go talk to Madame Pitre."
+
+"See, Narcisse, this little revolver," said Rose, leading him up to a
+big wheel of fortune, before which a dozen men sat holding numbered
+sticks in their hands. "When the wheel stops, some men lose, others
+gain."
+
+"I see only the grass-blades," wailed Narcisse. "My mother, does it hurt
+them to be trampled on?"
+
+"No, my child; see, they fly back again. I have even heard that it made
+them grow."
+
+"Let us walk where there is no grass," said Narcisse, passionately, and,
+drawing her along with him, he went obliviously past the fruit and candy
+booths, and the spread tables, to a little knoll where sat three old men
+on rugs.
+
+Vesper lay stretched on the grass before them, and, catching sight of
+Narcisse, who was approaching so boldly, and his mother, who was holding
+back so shyly, he craved permission from the old men to seat them on one
+of the rugs.
+
+The permission was gladly given, and Rose shook hands with the three old
+men, whom she knew well. Two of them were brothers, from Meteghan, the
+other was a cousin, from up the Bay, whom they rarely saw. The brothers
+were slim, well-made, dapper old men; the cousin was a fat, jolly
+farmer, dressed in homespun.
+
+"I can tell you one of olden times," said this latter, in a thick,
+syrupy voice, "better dan dat last."
+
+"Suppose we have it then," said Vesper.
+
+"Dere was Pierre Belliveau,--Pierre aged dwenty-one and a half at de
+drama of 1755. His fadder was made prisoner. Pierre, he run to de fores'
+wid four,--firs' Cyprian Gautreau and de tree brudders, Joseph _dit_
+Coudgeau, Charlitte _dit_ Le Fort--"
+
+"Is that where the husband of Madame de Forêt got his name?" interrupted
+Vesper, indicating his landlady by a gesture.
+
+"Yes," said the old man, "it is a name of long ago,--besides Charlitte
+was Bonaventure, an' dese five men suffered horrible, mos' horrible, for
+winter came on, an' dey was all de time hungry w'en dey wasn't eatin',
+an' dey had to roam by night like dogs, to pick up w'at dey could. But
+dey live till de spring, an' dey wander like de wile beasties roun' de
+fores' of Beauséjour, an' dey was well watched by de English. If dey had
+been shot, dis man would not be talkin' to you, for Bonaventure was my
+ancessor on my modder's side. On a day w'en dey come to Tintamarre--you
+know de great ma'sh of Tintamarre?"
+
+"No; I never heard of it."
+
+"Well, it big ma'sh in Westmoreland County. One day dey come dere, an'
+dey perceive not far from dem a _goêlette_,--a schooner. De sea was low,
+an' all de men in de schooner atten' de return of de tide, for dey was
+high an' dry. Dose five Acadiens look at dat schooner, den dey
+w'isper,--den dey wander, as perchance, near dat schooner. De cap'en
+look at dem like a happy wile beas', 'cause he was sent from Port Royal
+to catch the runawoods. He call out, he invite dose Acadiens, he say,
+'Come on, we make you no harm,' an' dey go, meek like sheep; soon de sea
+mount, de cap'en shout, 'Raise de anchor,' but Pierre said, 'We mus' go
+ashore.' 'Trow dose Romans in _la cale_,' say dat bad man. _La cale
+c'est_--"
+
+"In the hold," supplied the two other eager old men, in a breath.
+
+"Yes, in de hole,--but tink you dey went? No; Charlitte he was big, he
+had de force of five men, he look at Pierre. Pierre he shout, '_Fesse_,
+Charlitte,' and Charlitte he snatch a bar from de deck, he bang it on de
+head of de Englishman an' massacre him. 'Debarrass us of anoder,' cried
+Pierre. Charlitte he raise his bar again,--an' still anoder, an' tree
+Englishmen lay on de deck. Only de cap'en remain, an' a sailor very
+big,--mos' as big as Charlitte. De cap'en was consternate, yet he made a
+sign of de han'. De sailor jump on Pierre an' try to pitch him in de
+hole. Tink you Charlitte let him go? No; he runs, he chucks dat sailor
+in de sea. Den de cap'en falls on his knees. 'Spare me de life an' I
+will spare you de lives.' 'Spare us de lives!' said Pierre, 'did you
+spare de lives of dose unhappy ones of Port Royal whom you sen' to
+exile? No; an' you would carry us to Halifax to de cruel English. Dat is
+how you spare. Where are our mudders an' fadders, our brudders an'
+sisters? You carry dem to a way-off shore w'ere dey cry mos' all de
+time. We shall see dem never. Recommen' your soul to God.' Den after a
+little he say very low, 'Charlitte _fesse_,' again. An' Charlitte he
+_fesse_, an' dey brush de han' over de eyes an' lower dat cap'en in de
+sea.
+
+"Den Pierre, who was fine sailor, run de schooner up to Petitcodiac.
+Later on, de son of Bonaventure come to dis Bay, an' his daughter was my
+mudder."
+
+When the old man finished speaking, a shudder ran over the little group,
+and Vesper gazed thoughtfully at the lively scene beyond them. This was
+a dearly bought picnic. These quiet old men, gentle Mrs. Rose, the
+prattling children, the vivacious young men and women, were all
+descendants of ancestors who had with tears and blood sought a
+resting-place for their children. He longed to hear more of their
+exploits, and he was just about to prefer a request when little
+Narcisse, who had been listening with parted lips, leaned forward and
+patted the old man's boot. "Tell Narcisse yet another story with trees
+in it."
+
+The fat old man nodded his head. "I know anodder of a Belliveau, dis one
+Charles. He was a carpenter an' he made ships from trees. At de great
+derangement de English hole him prisoner at Port Royal. One of de ships
+to take away de Acadiens had broke her mas' in a tempes'. Charles he
+make anodder, and w'en he finish dat mas' he ask his pay. One refuse him
+dat. Den de mas' will fall,' he say. 'I done someting to it.' De cap'en
+hurry to give him de price, an' Charlie he say, 'It all right.' W'en dey
+embark de prisoners dey put Charles on dat schooner. Dey soon leave de
+war-ship dat go wid dem, but de cap'en of de war-ship he say to de
+cap'en of de schooner, 'Take care, my fren', you got some good sailors
+'mong dose Acadiens.' De cap'en of de schooner laugh. He was like dose
+trees, Narcisse, dat is rooted so strong dey tink dat no ting can never
+upset dem. He still let dose Acadiens come on deck,--six, seven at a
+times, cause de hole pretty foul, an' dey might die. One day, w'en de
+order was given, 'Go down, you Acadiens, an' come up seven odder,' de
+firs' lot dey open de hatch, den spring on de bridge. Dey garrotte de
+cap'en and crew, an' Charles go to turn de schooner. De cap'en call,
+'Dat gran' mas' is weak,--you go for to break it.' 'Liar,' shouted
+Charles, 'dis is I dat make it.' Dose Acadiens mount de River St.
+John,--I don' know what dey did wid dose English. I hope dey kill 'em,"
+he added, mildly.
+
+"Père Baudouin," said Rose, bending forward, "this is an Englishman from
+Boston."
+
+"I know," said the old man; "he is good English, dose were bad."
+
+Vesper smiled, and asked him whether he had ever heard of the Fiery
+Frenchman of Grand Pré.
+
+The old man considered carefully and consulted with his cousins. Neither
+of them had ever heard of such a person. There were so many Acadiens,
+they said, in an explanatory way, so many different bands, so many
+scattering groups journeying homeward. But they would inquire.
+
+"Here comes Father La Croix," said Rose, softly; "will you not ask him
+to help you?"
+
+"You are very kind to be so much interested in this search of mine,"
+said Vesper, in a low voice.
+
+Rose's lip trembled, and avoiding his glance, she kept her eyes fixed
+steadily on the ex-colonel and present priest, who was expressing a
+courteous hope that Vesper had obtained the information he wished.
+
+"Not yet," said Vesper, "though I am greatly indebted to these
+gentlemen," and he turned to thank the old men.
+
+"I know of your mission," said Father La Croix, "and if you will favor
+me with some details, perhaps I can help you."
+
+Vesper walked to and fro on the grass with him for some minutes, and
+then watched him threading his way in and out among the groups of his
+parishioners and their guests until at last he mounted the band-stand,
+and extended his hand over the crowd.
+
+He did not utter a word, yet there was almost instantaneous silence. The
+merry-go-round stopped, the dancers paused, and a hush fell on all
+present.
+
+"My dear people," he said, "it rejoices me to see so many of you here
+to-day, and to know that you are enjoying yourselves. Let us be thankful
+to God for the fine weather. I am here to request you to do me a favor.
+You all have old people in your homes,--you hear them talking of the
+great expulsion. I wish you to ask these old ones whether they remember
+a certain Etex LeNoir, called the Fiery Frenchman of Grand Pré. He, too,
+was carried away, but never reached his destination, having died on the
+ship _Confidence_, but his wife and child probably arrived in
+Philadelphia. Find out, if you can, the fate of this widow and her
+child,--whether they died in a foreign land, or whether she succeeded in
+coming back to Acadie,--and bring the information to me."
+
+He descended the steps, and Vesper hastened to thank him warmly for his
+interest.
+
+"It may result in nothing," said the priest, "yet there is an immense
+amount of information stored up among the Acadiens on this Bay; I do not
+at all despair of finding this family," and he took a kindly leave of
+Vesper, after directing him where to find his mother.
+
+"But this is terrible," said Rose, trying to restrain the ardent
+Narcisse, who was dragging her towards his beloved Englishman. "My
+child, thy mother will be forced to whip thee."
+
+Vesper at that moment turned around, and his keen glance sought her out.
+"Why do you struggle with him?" he asked, coming to meet them.
+
+"But I cannot have him tease you."
+
+"He does not tease me," and in quiet sympathy Vesper endeavored to
+restore peace to her troubled mind. She, most beautiful flower of all
+this show, and most deserving of joy and comfort, had been unhappy and
+ill at ease ever since they entered the gates. The lingering, furtive
+glances of several young Acadiens were unheeded by her. Her only thought
+was to reach her home and be away from this bustle and excitement, and
+it was his mother who had wrought this change in her; and in sharp
+regret, Vesper surveyed the little lady, who, apparently in the most
+amiable of moods, was sitting chatting to an Acadien matron to whom
+Father La Croix had introduced her.
+
+A slight scuffle in a clump of green bushes beside them distracted his
+attention from her. A pleading exclamation from a manly voice was
+followed by an eloquent silence, a brisk sound like a slap, or a box on
+the ears, and a laugh from a girl, with a threatening, "_Tu me paicras
+ça_" (Thou shalt pay me for that).
+
+Vesper laughed too. There was something so irresistibly comical in the
+man's second exclamation of dismayed surprise.
+
+"It is Perside," said Rose, wearily. "How can she be so gay, in so
+public a place?"
+
+"Serves the blacksmith right, for trying to kiss her," said Vesper.
+
+"Perside," said Rose, rebukingly, and thrusting her head through the
+verdant screen, "come and be presented to Mrs. Nimmo."
+
+Perside came forward. She was a laughing, piquant beauty, smaller and
+more self-conscious than Rose. With admirable composure she dismissed
+her blacksmith-_fiancé_, and followed her sister.
+
+Mrs. Nimmo had been receiving a flattering amount of attention, and was
+holding quite a small court of Acadien women about her. Among them was
+Rose's stepmother. Vesper had not met her before, and he gazed at her
+calm, statuesque, almost severe profile, under the dark handkerchief.
+Her hands, worn by honest toil, and folded in her lap, were unmistakable
+signs of a long and hard struggle with poverty. Yet her smile was
+gentleness and sweetness itself, when she returned Vesper's salutation.
+A poor farm, many cares, many children,--he knew her history, for Rose
+had told him of her mother's death during Perside's infancy, and the
+great kindness of the young woman who had married their father and had
+brought up not only his children, but also the motherless Agapit.
+
+With a filial courtesy that won the admiration of the Acadiens, among
+whom respect for parents is earnestly inculcated, Vesper asked his
+mother if she wished him to take her home.
+
+"If you are quite ready to leave," she replied, getting up and drawing
+her wrap about her.
+
+The Acadien women uttered their regrets that madame should leave so
+soon. But would she not come to visit them in their own homes?
+
+"You are very kind," she said, graciously, "but we leave
+soon,--possibly in two days," and her inquiring eyes rested on her son,
+who gravely inclined his head in assent.
+
+There was a chorus of farewells and requests that madame would, at some
+future time, visit the Bay, and Mrs. Nimmo, bowing her acknowledgments,
+and singling out Perside for a specially approving glance, took her
+son's arm and was about to move away when he said, "If you do not
+object, we will take the child with us. He is tired, and is wearing out
+his mother."
+
+Mrs. Nimmo could afford to be magnanimous, as they were so soon to go
+away, and might possibly shake off all connection with this place.
+Therefore she favored the pale and suffering Rose with a compassionate
+glance, and extended an inviting hand to the impetuous boy, who,
+however, disdained it and ran to Vesper.
+
+"But why are they going?" cried Agapit, hurrying up to Rose, as she
+stood gazing after the retreating Nimmos. "Did you tell them of the
+fireworks, and the concert, and the French play; also that there would
+be a moon to return by?"
+
+"Madame was weary."
+
+"Come thou then with me. I enjoy myself so much. My shirt is wet on my
+back from the dancing. It is hot like a hay field--what, thou wilt not?
+Rose, why art thou so dull to-day?"
+
+She tried to compose herself, to banish the heartrending look of sorrow
+from her face, but she was not skilled in the art of concealing her
+emotions, and the effort was a vain one.
+
+"Rose!" said her cousin, in sudden dismay. "Rose--Rose!"
+
+"What is the matter with thee?" she asked, alarmed in her turn by his
+strange agitation.
+
+"Hush,--walk aside with me. Now tell me, what is this?"
+
+"Narcisse has been a trouble," began Rose, hurriedly; then she calmed
+herself. "I will not deceive thee,--it is not Narcisse, though he has
+worried me. Agapit, I wish to go home."
+
+"I will send thee; but be quiet, speak not above thy breath. Tell me,
+has this Englishman--"
+
+"The Englishman has done nothing," said Rose, brokenly, "except that in
+two days he goes back to the world."
+
+"And dost thou care? Stop, let me see thy face. Rose, thou art like a
+sister to me. My poor one, my dear cousin, do not cry. Come, where is
+thy dignity, thy pride? Remember that Acadien women do not give their
+hearts; they must be begged."
+
+"I remember," she said, resolutely. "I will be strong. Fear not, Agapit,
+and let us return. The women will be staring."
+
+She brushed her hand over her face, then by a determined effort of will
+summoned back her lost composure, and with a firm, light step rejoined
+the group that they had just left.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" muttered Agapit, "my pleasure is gone, and I was lately so
+happy. I thought of this nightmare, and yet I did not imagine it would
+come. I might have known,--he is so calm, so cool, so handsome. That
+kind charms women and men too, for I also love him, yet I must give him
+up. Rose, my sister, thou must not go home early. I must keep thee here
+and suffer with thee, for, until the Englishman leaves, thou must be
+kept from him as a little bunch of tow from a slow fire. Does he already
+love thee? May the holy saints forbid--yes--no, I cannot tell. He is
+inscrutable. If he does, I think it not. If he does not, I think it
+so."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV.
+
+                         THE CAVE OF THE BEARS.
+
+               "I had found out a sweet green spot,
+                  Where a lily was blooming fair;
+                The din of the city disturbed it not;
+                But the spirit that shades the quiet cot
+                  With its wings of love was there.
+
+               "I found that lily's bloom
+                  When the day was dark and chill;
+                It smiled like a star in a misty gloom,
+                  And it sent abroad a sweet perfume,
+                  Which is floating around me still."
+
+                                                       PERCIVAL.
+
+
+More than twenty miles beyond Sleeping Water is a curious church built
+of cobblestones.
+
+Many years ago, the devoted priest of this parish resolved that his
+flock must have a new church, and yet how were they to obtain one
+without money? He pondered over the problem for some time, and at last
+he arrived at a satisfactory solution. Would his parishioners give time
+and labor, if he supplied the material for construction?
+
+They would,--and he pointed to the stones on the beach. The Bay already
+supplied them with meat and drink, they were now to obtain a place of
+worship from it. They worked with a will, and in a short time their
+church went up like the temple of old, without the aid of alien labor.
+
+Vesper, on the day after the picnic, had announced his intention of
+visiting this church, and Agapit, in unconcealed disapproval and slight
+vexation, stood watching him clean his wheel, preparatory to setting out
+on the road down the Bay.
+
+He would be sure to overtake Rose, who had shortly before left the inn
+with Narcisse. She had had a terrible scene with the child relative to
+the approaching departure of the American, and Agapit himself had
+advised her to take him to her stepmother. He wished now that he had not
+done so, he wished that he could prevent Vesper from going after
+her,--he almost wished that this quiet, imperturbable young man had
+never come to the Bay.
+
+"And yet, why should I do that?" he reflected, penitently. "Does not
+good come when one works from honest motives, though bad only is at
+first apparent? Though we suffer now, we may yet be happy," and, casting
+a long, reluctant look at the taciturn young American, he rose from his
+comfortable seat and went up-stairs. He was tired, out of sorts, and
+irresistibly sleepy, having been up all night examining the old
+documents left by his uncle, the priest, in the hope of finding
+something relating to the Fiery Frenchman, for he was now as anxious to
+conclude Vesper's mission to the Bay as he had formerly been to prolong
+it.
+
+With a quiet step he crept past the darkened room where Mrs. Nimmo,
+after worrying her son by her insistence on doing her own packing, had
+been obliged to retire, in a high state of irritation, and with a raging
+headache.
+
+He hoped that the poor lady would be able to travel by the morrow; her
+son would be, there was no doubt of that. How well and strong he seemed
+now, how immeasurably he had gained in physical well-being since coming
+to the Bay.
+
+"For that we should be thankful," said Agapit, in sincere admiration and
+regard, as he stood by his window and watched Vesper spinning down the
+road.
+
+"He goes so cool, so careless, like those soldiers who went to battle
+with a rose between their lips, and I do not dare to warn, to question,
+lest I bring on what I would keep back. But do thou, my cousin Rose, not
+linger on the way. It would be better for thee to bite a piece from thy
+little tongue than to have words with this handsome stranger whom I fear
+thou lovest. Now to work again, and then, if there is time, half an
+hour's sleep before supper, for my eyelids flag strangely."
+
+Agapit sat down before the table bestrewn with papers, while Vesper went
+swiftly over the road until he reached the picnic ground of the day
+before, now restored to its former quietness as a grazing place for
+cows. Of all the cheerful show there was left only the big
+merry-go-round, that was being packed in an enormous wagon drawn by four
+pairs of oxen.
+
+"What are you going to do with it?" asked Vesper, springing off his
+wheel, and addressing the Acadiens at work.
+
+"We take it to a parish farther down the Bay, where there is to be yet
+another picnic," said one of them.
+
+"How much did they make yesterday?" pursued Vesper.
+
+"Six hundred dollars, and only four hundred the day before, and three
+the first, for you remember those days were partly rainy."
+
+"And some people say that you Acadiens are poor."
+
+The man grinned. "There were many people here, many things. This wooden
+darling," and he pointed to the dismembered merry-go-round, "earned one
+dollar and twenty cents every five minutes. We need much for our
+churches," and he jerked his thumb towards the red cathedral. "The
+plaster falls, it must be restored. Do you go far, sir?"
+
+Vesper mentioned his destination.
+
+All the Acadiens on the Bay knew him and took a friendly interest in
+his movements, and the man advised him to take in the Cave of the Bears,
+that was also a show-place for strangers. "It is three miles farther,
+where there is a bite in the shore, and the bluff is high. You will know
+it by two yellow houses, like twins. Descend there, and you will see a
+troop of ugly bears quite still about a cave. The Indians of this coast
+say that their great man, Glooscap, in days before the French came, once
+sat in the cave to rest. Some hungry bears came to eat him, but he
+stretched out a pine-tree that he carried and they were turned to
+stone."
+
+Vesper thanked him, and went on. When he reached the sudden and
+picturesque cove in the Bay, his attention was caught, not so much by
+its beauty, as by the presence of the inn pony, who neighed a joyful
+welcome, and impatiently jerked back and forth the road-cart to which he
+was attached.
+
+Vesper glanced sharply at the yellow houses. Perhaps Rose was making a
+call in one of them. Then he stroked the pony, who playfully nipped his
+coat sleeve, and, after propping his wheel against a stump, ran nimbly
+down a grassy road, where a goat was soberly feeding among lobster-traps
+and drawn-up boats.
+
+He crossed the strip of sand in the semicircular inlet, and there before
+him were the bears,--ugly brown rocks with coats of slippery seaweed,
+their grinning heads turned towards the mouth of a black cavern in the
+lower part of the bluff, their staring eye-sockets fixed on the dainty
+woman's figure inside, as if they would fain devour her.
+
+Rose sat with her face to the sea, her head against the damp rock
+wall,--her whole attitude one of abandonment and mournful despair.
+
+Vesper began to hurry towards her, but, catching sight of Narcisse, he
+stopped.
+
+The child, with a face convulsed and tear-stained, was angrily seizing
+stones from the beach to fling them against the most lifelike bear of
+all,--a grotesque, hideous creature, that appeared to be shouldering his
+way from the water in order to plunge into the cave.
+
+"Dost thou mock me?" exclaimed Narcisse, furiously. "I will strike thee
+yet again, thou hateful thing. Thou shalt not come on shore to eat my
+mother and the Englishman," and he dashed a yet larger stone against it.
+
+"Narcisse," said Vesper.
+
+The child turned quickly. Then his trouble was forgotten, and stumbling
+and slipping over the seaweed, but at last attaining his goal, he flung
+his small unhappy self against Vesper's breast. "I love you, I love
+you,--_gros comme la grange à Pinot_" (as much as Pinot's barn),--"yet
+my mother carried me away. Take me with you, Mr. Englishman. Narcisse is
+very sick without you."
+
+In maternal alarm Rose sprang up at her child's first shriek. Then she
+sank back, pale and confused, for Vesper's eye was upon her, although
+apparently he was engaged only in fondling the little curly head, and in
+allowing the child to stroke his face and dive into his pockets, to pull
+out his watch, and indulge in the fond and foolish familiarities
+permitted to a child by a loving father.
+
+"Go to her, Narcisse," said Vesper, presently, and the small boy ran
+into the cave. "My mother, my mother!" he cried, in an ecstasy; and he
+wagged his curly head as if he would shake it from his body. "The
+Englishman returns to you and to me,--he will stay away only a short
+time. Come, get up, get up. Let us go back to the inn. I am to go no
+more to my grandmother. Is it not so?" and he anxiously gazed at Vesper,
+who was slowly approaching.
+
+Vesper did not speak, neither did Rose. What was the matter with these
+grown people that they stared so stupidly at each other?
+
+"Have you a headache, Mr. Englishman?" he asked, with abrupt childish
+anxiety, as he noticed a sudden and unusual wave of color sweeping over
+his friend's face. "And you, my mother,--why do you hang your head? Give
+only the Englishman your hand and he will lift you from the rock. He is
+strong, very strong,--he carries me over the rough places."
+
+"Will you give me your hand, Rose?"
+
+She started back, with a heart-broken gesture.
+
+"But you are imbecile, my darling mother!" cried Narcisse, throwing
+himself on her in terror. "The Englishman will become angry,--he will
+leave us. Give him your hand, and let us go from this place," and,
+resolutely seizing her fluttering fingers in his own soft ones, he
+directed them to Vesper's strong, true clasp.
+
+"Go stone the bears again, Narcisse," said the young man, with a strange
+quiver in his voice. "I will talk to your mother about going back to the
+inn. See, she is not well;" for Rose had bowed her weary head on her
+arm.
+
+"Yes, talk to her," said the child, "that is good, and, above all, do
+not let her hand go. She runs from me sometimes, the little naughty
+mother," and, with affected roguishness that, however, concealed a
+certain anxiety, he put his head on one side, and stared affectionately
+at her as he left the cave.
+
+He had gone some distance, and Vesper had already whispered a few words
+in Rose's ear, when he returned and stared again at them. "Will you tell
+me only one little story, Mr. Englishman?"
+
+"About what, you small bother?"
+
+"About bears, big brown bears, not gentle trees."
+
+"There was once a sick bear," said the young man, "and he went all about
+the world, but could not get well until he found a quiet spot, where a
+gentle lady cured him."
+
+"And then--"
+
+"The lady had a cub," said Vesper, suddenly catching him in his arms and
+taking him out to the strip of sand, "a fascinating cub that the bear--I
+mean the man--adored."
+
+Narcisse laughed gleefully, snatched Vesper's cap and set off with it,
+fell into a pool of water and was rescued, and set to the task of taking
+off his shoes and stockings and drying them in the sun, while Vesper
+went back to Rose, who still sat like a person in acute distress of body
+and mind.
+
+"I was sudden,--I startled you," he murmured.
+
+She made a dissenting gesture, but did not speak.
+
+"Will you look at me, Rose?" he said, softly; "just once."
+
+"But I am afraid," fluttered from her pale lips. "When I gaze into your
+eyes it is hard--"
+
+He stood over her in such quiet, breathless sympathy that presently she
+looked up, thinking he was gone.
+
+His glance caught and held hers. She got up, allowed him to take her
+hands and press them to his lips, and to place on her head the hat that
+had fallen to the ground.
+
+"I will say nothing more now," he murmured, "you are shocked and upset.
+We had better go home."
+
+"Come and be presented to Mrs. Nimmo," suddenly said a saucy, laughing
+voice.
+
+Rose started nervously. Her sister Perside had caught sight of
+them,--teasing, yet considerate Perside, since she had bestowed only one
+glance on the lovers, and had then gone sauntering past the mouth of the
+cave, out to the wide array of black rocks beyond them. She carried a
+hooked stick over her shoulder, and a tin pail in her hand, and
+sometimes she looked back at a second girl, similarly equipped, who was
+running down the grassy road after her.
+
+Nothing could have made Rose more quickly recover herself. "It is not
+the time of perigee,--you will find nothing," she called after Perside;
+then she added to Vesper, in a low, shy voice, "She seeks lobsters. She
+danced so much at the picnic that she was too tired to go home, and had
+to stay here with cousins."
+
+"Times and seasons do not matter for some things," returned Perside,
+gaily, over her shoulder; "one has the fun."
+
+Narcisse stopped digging his bare toes in the sand and shrieked,
+delightedly, "Aunt Perside, aunt Perside, do you know the Englishman
+returns to my mother and me? He will never leave us, and I am not to go
+to my grandmother." Then, fearful that his assertions had been too
+strong, he averted his gaze from the two approaching people, and fixed
+it on the blazing sun.
+
+"Will you promise not to make a scene when I leave to-morrow?" said
+Vesper.
+
+Narcisse blinked at him, his eyes full of spots and wheels and revolving
+lights. He was silly with joy, and gurgled deep down in his little
+throat. "Let me kiss your hand, as you kissed my mother's. It is a
+pretty sight."
+
+"Will you be a good boy when I leave to-morrow," said Vesper again.
+
+"But why should I cry if you return?" cried the child, excitedly
+flinging a handful of sand at his boots. "Narcisse will never again be
+bad," and rolling over and over, and kicking his pink heels in glee, he
+forced Vesper and Rose to retire to a respectful distance.
+
+They stood watching him for some time, and, as they watched, Rose's
+tortured face grew calm, and a spark of the divine passion animating her
+lover's face came into her deep blue eyes. She had no right to break the
+tender, sensitive little heart given so strangely to this stranger. She
+would forget Agapit and his warnings; she would forget the proud women
+of her race, who would not wed a stranger, and one of another creed; she
+would also forget the nervous, jealous mother who would keep her son
+from all women.
+
+"You have asked me for myself," she said, impulsively stretching out her
+hands to him, "for myself and my child. We are yours."
+
+Vesper bent down, and pressed her cool fingers against his burning
+cheeks. She smiled at him, even laughed gleefully, and passed her hands
+over his head in a playful caress; then, with her former expression of
+exaltation and virginal modesty and shyness, she ran up the grassy road,
+and paused at the top to look back at him, as he toiled up with
+Narcisse.
+
+She was vivacious and merry now,--he had never seen her just so before.
+In an instant,--a breath,--with her surrender to him, she had seemed to
+drop her load of care, that usually made her youthful face so grave and
+sweet beyond her years. He would like to see her cheerful and
+laughing--thoughtless even; and murmuring endearing epithets under his
+breath, he assisted her into the cart, placed the reins in her hands,
+tucked Narcisse in by her side, and, surreptitiously lifting a fold of
+her dress to his face, murmured, "_Au revoir_, my sweet saint."
+
+Then, stroking his mustache to conceal from the yellow houses his proud
+smile of ownership, he watched the upright pose of the light head, and
+the contorted appearance of the dark one that was twisted over a little
+shoulder as long as the cart was in sight.
+
+He forgot all about the church, and, going back to the beach, he lay for
+a long time sunning himself on the sand, and plunged in a delicious
+reverie. Then, mounting his wheel, he returned to the inn.
+
+Agapit was running excitedly to and fro on the veranda. "Come, make
+haste," he cried, as he caught sight of him in the distance. "Extremely
+strange things have happened--Let me assist you with that wheel,--a
+malediction on it, these bicycles go always where one does not expect.
+There is news of the Fiery Frenchman. I found something, also Father La
+Croix."
+
+"This is interesting," said Vesper, good-naturedly, as he folded his
+arms, and lounged against one of the veranda posts.
+
+"I was delving among my uncle's papers. I had precipitately come on the
+name of LeNoir,--Etex, the son of Raphael, who was a wealthy _bourgeois_
+of Calais, and emigrated to Grand Pré. He was dead when the expulsion
+came, and of his two sons one, Gabriel LeNoir, escaped up the St. John
+River, and that Gabriel was my ancestor, and that of Rose; therefore,
+most astonishingly to me, we are related to this family whom you have
+sought," and Agapit wound up with a flourish of his hands and his heels.
+
+"I am glad of this," said Vesper, in a deeply gratified voice.
+
+"But more remains. I was shouting over my discovery, when Father La
+Croix came. I ran, I descended,--the good man presented his compliments
+to madame and you. Several of his people went to him this morning. They
+had questioned the old ones. He wrote what they said, and here it is.
+See--the son of the murdered Etex was Samson. His mother landed in
+Philadelphia. In griping poverty the boy grew up. He went to Boston. He
+joined the Acadiens who marched the five hundred miles through the woods
+to Acadie. He arrived at the Baie Chaleur, where he married a Comeau. He
+had many children, but his eldest, Jean, is he in whom you will interest
+yourself, as in the direct line."
+
+"And what of Jean?" asked Vesper, when Agapit stopped to catch his
+breath.
+
+Agapit pointed to the Bay. "He lies over Digby Neck, in the Bay of
+Fundy, but his only child is on this Bay."
+
+"A boy or a girl?"
+
+"A devil," cried Agapit, in a burst of grief, "a little devil."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI.
+
+                      FOR THE HONOR OF THEIR RACE.
+
+                        "Love is the perfect sum
+                         Of all delight!
+                         I have no other choice
+                         Either for pen or voice
+                         To sing or write."
+
+
+"Why is the descendant of the Fiery Frenchman a devil?" asked Vesper.
+
+"Because she has no heart. They have taken from her her race, her
+religion. Her mother, who had some Indian blood, was also wild. She
+would not sweep her kitchen floor. She went to sea with her husband, and
+when she was drowned with him, her sister, who is also gay, took the
+child."
+
+"What do you mean by gay?"
+
+"I mean like hawks. They go here and there,--they love the woods. They
+do not keep neat houses, and yet they are full of strange ambitions.
+They change their names. They are not so much like the English as we
+are, yet they pretend to have no French blood. Sometimes I visit them,
+for the uncle of the child--Claude à Sucre--is worthy, but his wife I
+detestate. She has no bones of purpose; she is like a flabby sunfish."
+
+"Where do they live?"
+
+"Up the Bay,--near Bleury."
+
+"And do you think there is nothing I can do for this little renegade?"
+
+"Nothing?" cried Agapit. "You can do everything. It is the opportunity
+of your life. You so wise, so generous, so understanding the Acadiens.
+You have in your power to make born again the whole family through the
+child. They are superstitious. They will respect the claim of the dead.
+Come to the garden to talk, for there are strangers approaching."
+
+Vesper shivered. He was not altogether happy over the discovery of the
+lost link connecting him with the far-back tragedy in which his
+great-grandfather had been involved. However, he suppressed all signs of
+emotion, and, following Agapit to the lawn, he walked to and fro,
+listening attentively to the explanations and information showered upon
+him. When Rose came to the door to ring the supper-bell, both young men
+paused. She thought they had been speaking of her, and blushed divinely.
+
+Agapit, with an alarmed expression, turned to his companion, who smiled
+quietly, and was just about to address him, when a lad came running up
+to them.
+
+"Agapit, come quickly,--old miser Lefroy is dying, and would make his
+will. He calls for thee."
+
+"Return,--say that I will come," exclaimed Agapit, waving his hand; then
+he looked at Vesper. "One word only, why does Rose look so strangely?"
+
+"Rose has promised to be my wife."
+
+Agapit groaned, flung himself away a few steps, then came back. "Say no
+more to her till you see me. How could you--and yet you do her honor. I
+cannot blame you," and with a farewell glance, in which there was a
+curious blending of despair and gratified pride, he ran after the boy.
+
+Vesper went up-stairs to his mother, who announced herself no better,
+and begged only that she might not be disturbed. He accordingly
+descended to the dining-room and took his place at the table.
+
+Rose was quietly moving to and fro with a heightened color. She was glad
+that Agapit was away,--it was more agreeable to her to have only one
+lord and master present; yet, sensitively alive to the idiosyncrasies of
+this new one, she feared that he was disapproving of her unusual number
+of guests.
+
+He, however, nobly suppressed his disapproval, and even talked
+pleasantly of recent political happenings in his own country with some
+travelling agents who happened to be some of his own fellow citizens.
+
+"Ah, it is a wonderful thing, this love," she said to herself, as she
+went to the kitchen for a fresh supply of coffee; "it makes one more
+anxious to please, and to think less of oneself. Mr. Nimmo wishes to aid
+me,--and yet, though he is so kind, he slightly wrinkles his beautiful
+eyebrows when I place dishes on the table. He does not like me to serve.
+He would have me sit by him; some day I shall do so;" and, overcome by
+the confused bliss of the thought, she retired behind the pantry door,
+where the curious Célina found her with her face buried in her hands,
+and in quick, feminine intuition at once guessed her secret.
+
+There were many dishes to wash after supper, and Vesper, who was keeping
+an eye on the kitchen, inwardly applauded Célina, who, instead of
+running to the door as she usually did to exchange pleasantries with
+waiting friends and admirers, accomplished her tasks with surprising
+celerity. In the brief space of three-quarters of an hour she was ready
+to go out, and after donning a fresh blouse and a clean apron, and
+coquettishly tying a handkerchief on her head, she went to the lawn,
+where she would play croquet and gossip with her friends until the stars
+came out.
+
+Vesper left the smokers on the veranda and the chattering women in the
+parlor, and sauntered through the quiet dining-room and kitchen. Rose
+was nowhere in sight, but her pet kitten, that followed her from morning
+till night, was mewing at the door of a small room used as a laundry.
+
+Vesper cautiously looked in. The supple young back of his sweetheart was
+bent over a wash-tub. "Rose," he exclaimed, "what are you doing?"
+
+She turned a blushing face over her shoulder. "Only a little washing--a
+very little. The washerwoman forgot."
+
+Vesper walked around the tub.
+
+"It was such a pleasure," she stammered. "I did not know that you would
+wish to talk to me till perhaps later on."
+
+Her slender hands gripped a white garment affectionately, and partly
+lifted it from the soap-suds. Vesper, peering in the tub, discovered
+that it was one of the white jerseys that he wore bicycling, and, gently
+taking it from her, he dropped it out of sight in the foam.
+
+"But it is of wool,--it will shrink," she said, anxiously.
+
+He laughed, dried her white arms on his handkerchief, and begged her to
+sit down on a bench beside him.
+
+She shyly drew back and, pulling down her sleeves, seated herself on a
+stool opposite.
+
+"Rose," he said, seriously, "do you know how to flirt?"
+
+Her beautiful lips parted, and she laughed in a gleeful, wholehearted
+way that reminded him of Narcisse. "I think that it would be possible to
+learn," she said, demurely.
+
+Vesper did not offer to teach her. He fell into an intoxicated silence,
+and sat musing on this, the purest and sweetest passion of his life.
+What had she done--this simple Acadien woman--to fill his heart with
+such profound happiness? A light from the window behind her shone around
+her flaxen head, and reminded him of the luminous halos surrounding the
+heads of her favorite saints. Since the ecstatic dreams of boyhood he
+had experienced nothing like this,--and yet this dream was more
+extended, more spiritual and less earthly than those, for infinite
+worlds of happiness now unfolded themselves to his vision, and endless
+possibilities and responsibilities stretched out before him. This
+woman's life would be given fearlessly into his hands, and also the life
+of her child. He, Vesper Nimmo, almost a broken link in humanity's
+chain, would become once more a part in the glorious whole.
+
+Rose, enraptured with this intellectual love-making, sat watching every
+varying emotion playing over her lover's face. How different he was from
+Charlitte,--ah, poor Charlitte!--and she shuddered. He was so rough, so
+careless. He had been like a good-natured bear that wished a plaything.
+He had not loved her as gently, as tenderly as this man did.
+
+"Rose," asked Vesper, suddenly, "what is the matter with Agapit?"
+
+"I do not know," she said, and her face grew troubled. "Perhaps he is
+angry that I have told a story, for I said I would not marry."
+
+"Why should he not wish you to marry?"
+
+Again she said that she did not know.
+
+"Will you marry me in six weeks?"
+
+"I will marry when you wish," she replied, with dignity, "yet I beg you
+to think well of it. My little boy is in his bed, and when I no longer
+see him, I doubt. There are so few things that I know. If I go to your
+dear country, that you love so much, you may drop your head in
+shame,--notwithstanding what you have said, I give you up if you wish."
+
+"Womanlike, you must inject a drop of bitterness into the only full cup
+of happiness ever lifted to your lips. Let us suppose, however, that you
+are right. My people are certainly not as your people. Shall we part
+now,--shall I go away to-morrow, and never see you again?"
+
+Rose stared blindly at him.
+
+"Are you willing for me to go?" he asked, quietly.
+
+His motive in suggesting the parting was the not unworthy one of a lover
+who longs for an open expression of affection from one dear to him, yet
+he was shocked at the signs of Rose's suppressed passion and
+inarticulate terror. She did not start from her seat, she did not throw
+herself in his inviting arms, and beg him to stay with her. No; the
+terrified blue eyes were lowered meekly to the floor, and, in scarcely
+audible accents, she murmured, "What seems right to you must be done."
+
+"Rose,--I shall never leave you."
+
+"I feel that I have reached up to heaven, and plucked out a very bright
+star," she stammered, with white lips, "and yet here it is," and trying
+to conceal her agony, she opened her clenched and quivering hand, as if
+to restore something to him.
+
+He went down on his knees before her. "You are a princess among your
+people, Rose. Keep the star,--it is but a poor ornament for you," and
+seizing her suffering hands, he clasped them to his breast. "Listen,
+till I tell you my reasons for not leaving the woman who has given me my
+life and inspired me with hope for the future."
+
+Rose listened, and grew pale at his eloquent words, and still more
+eloquent pauses.
+
+After some time, a gentle, melancholy smile came creeping to her face; a
+smile that seemed to reflect past suffering rather than present joy. "It
+is like pain," she said, and she timidly laid a finger on his dark head,
+"this great joy. I have had so many terrors,--I have loved you so long,
+I find, and I thought you would die."
+
+Vesper felt that his veins had been filled with some glowing elixir of
+earthly and heavenly delight. How adorable she was,--how unique, with
+her modesty, her shyness, her restrained eagerness. Surely he had found
+the one peerless woman in the world.
+
+"Talk to me more about yourself and your feelings," he entreated.
+
+"I have longed to tell you," she murmured, "that you have taught me what
+it is,--this love; and also that one does not make it, for it is life or
+death, and therefore can only come from the Lord. When you speak, your
+words are so agreeable that they are like rain on dusty ground. I feel
+that you are quite admirable," and, interrupting herself, she bent over
+to gently kiss his cheek as he still knelt before her.
+
+"Continue, Rose," he said, shutting his eyes in an ecstasy.
+
+"I speak freely," she said, "because I feel that I can trust you without
+fear, and always, always love and serve you till you are quite, quite
+old. I also understand you. Formerly I did not. You say that I am like a
+princess. Ah, not so much as you. You are altogether like a prince. You
+had the air of being contented; I did not know your thoughts. Now I can
+look into your beautiful white soul. You hide nothing from me. No, do
+not put your face down. You are a very, very good man. I do not think
+that there can be any one so good."
+
+Vesper looked up, and laid a finger across the sweet, praising mouth.
+
+"Let us talk of your mother," said Rose. "Since I love you, I love her
+more; but she does not like me equally."
+
+"But she will, my ingenuous darling. I have talked to her twice. She is
+quite reconciled, but it will take time for her to act a mother's part.
+You will have patience?"
+
+Rose wrinkled her delicate brows. "I put myself in her place,--ah, how
+hard for her! Let me fancy you my son. How could I give you up? And yet
+it would be wrong for her to take you from one who can make you more
+happy; is it not so?"
+
+Vesper sprang to his feet. "Yes, Rose; it is you and I against the
+world,--one heart, one soul; it is wonderful, and a great mystery," and
+clasping his hands behind him, he walked to and fro along the narrow
+room.
+
+Rose, with a transfigured face, watched him, and hung on every word
+falling from his lips, as he spoke of his plans for the future, his
+disappointed hopes and broken aspirations of the past. It did not occur
+to either of them, so absorbed were they with each other, to glance at
+the small window overlooking the dooryard, where an eager face came and
+went at intervals.
+
+Sometimes the face was angry; sometimes sorrowful. Sometimes a clenched
+fist was raised between it and the glass as if at an imaginary enemy.
+The unfortunate watcher, in great perplexity of mind, was going through
+every gesture in the pantomime of distress.
+
+The lovers, unmindful of him, continued their conversation, and the
+suffering Agapit continued to suffer.
+
+Vesper talked and walked on, occasionally stopping to listen to a remark
+from Rose, or to bend over her in an adoring, respectful attitude while
+he bestowed a caress or received a shy and affectionate one from her.
+
+"It is sinful,--I should interrupt," groaned Agapit, "yet it would be
+cruel. They are in paradise. Ah, dear blessed Virgin,--mother of
+suffering hearts,--have pity on them, for they are both noble, both
+good;" and he dashed his hand across his eyes to hide the sight of the
+beautiful head held as tenderly between the hands of the handsome
+stranger as if it were indeed a fragile, full-blown rose.
+
+"They take leave," he muttered; "I will look no more,--it is a
+sacrilege," and he rushed into the house by another door.
+
+The croquet players called to him from the lawn. He could hear the click
+of the balls and the merry voices as he passed, but he paid no heed to
+them. Only in the dining-room did he stay his hasty steps. There, in
+front of the picture of Rose's husband, he paused with uplifted arm.
+
+"Scoundrel!" he muttered, furiously; then striking his fist through the
+glass, he shattered the portrait, from the small twinkling eyes to its
+good-natured, sensuous mouth.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII.
+
+                   THE SUBLIMEST THING IN THE WORLD.
+
+             "Ah, tragedy of lusty life! How oft
+                Some high emprise a soul divinely grips,
+              But as it crests, fate's undertow despoils!"
+
+                                               THEODORE H. RAND.
+
+
+Mrs. Nimmo was better the next morning, and, rising betimes, gave her
+son an early audience in her room.
+
+"You need not tell me anything," she said, with a searching glance at
+him. "It is all arranged between you and the Acadien woman. I know,--you
+cannot stave off these things. I will be good, Vesper, only give me
+time,--give me time, and let us have no explanations. You can tell her
+that you have not spoken to me, and she will not expect me to gush."
+
+Her voice died away in a pitiful quaver, and Vesper quietly, but with
+intense affection, kissed the cold cheek she offered him.
+
+"Go away," she said, pushing him from her, "or I shall break down, and I
+want my strength for the journey."
+
+Vesper went down-stairs, his eyes running before him for the sweet
+presence of Rose. She was not in the dining-room, and with suppressed
+disappointment he looked curiously at Célina, who was red-eyed and
+doleful, and requested her to take his mother's breakfast up-stairs.
+Then, with a disagreeable premonition of trouble, he turned his
+attention to Agapit, whose face had turned a sickly yellow and who was
+toying abstractedly with his food. He appeared to be ill, and, refusing
+to talk, waited silently for Vesper to finish his breakfast.
+
+"Will you come to the smoking-room?" he then said; and being answered by
+a silent nod, he preceded Vesper to that room and carefully closed the
+door.
+
+"Now give me your hand," he said, tragically, "for I am going to make
+you angry, and perhaps you will never again clasp mine in friendship."
+
+"Get out," said Vesper, peevishly. "I detest melodrama,--and say quickly
+what you have to say. We have only an hour before the train leaves."
+
+"My speech can be made in a short time," said Agapit, solemnly. "Your
+farewell of Sleeping Water to-day must be eternal."
+
+"Don't be a fool, Agapit, but go look for a rope for my mother's trunk;
+she has lost the straps."
+
+"If I found a rope it would be to hang myself," said Agapit,
+desperately. "Never was I so unhappy, never, never."
+
+"What is wrong with you?"
+
+"I am desolated over your engagement to my cousin. We thank you for the
+honor, but we decline it."
+
+"Indeed! as the engagement does not include you, I must own that I will
+take my dismissal only from your cousin."
+
+"Look at me,--do I seem like one in play? God knows I do not wish to
+torment you. All night I walked my floor, and Rose,--unhappy Rose! I
+shudder when I think how she passed the black hours after my cruel
+revealings."
+
+"What have you said to Rose?" asked Vesper, in a fury. "You forget that
+she now belongs to me."
+
+"She belongs to no one but our Lord," said Agapit, in an agony. "You
+cannot have her, though the thought makes my heart bleed for you."
+
+Vesper's face flushed. "If you will let it stop bleeding long enough to
+be coherent, I shall be obliged to you."
+
+"Oh, do not be angry with me,--let me tell you now that I love you for
+your kindness to my people. You came among us,--you, an Englishman. You
+did not despise us. You offer my cousin your hand, and it breaks our
+hearts to refuse it, but she cannot marry you. She sends you that
+message,--'You must go away and forget me. Marry another woman if you so
+care. I must give you up.' These are her words as she stood pale and
+cold."
+
+Vesper seated himself on the edge of the big table in the centre of the
+room. Very deliberately he took out his watch and laid it beside him. So
+intense was the stillness of the room, so nervously sensitive and
+unstrung was Agapit by his night's vigil, that he started at the
+rattling of the chain on the polished surface.
+
+"I give you five minutes," said Vesper, "to explain your attitude
+towards your cousin, on the subject of her marriage. As I understand the
+matter, you were an orphan brought up by her father. Of late years you
+arrogate the place of a brother. Your decisions are supreme. You
+announce now that she is not to marry. You have some little knowledge of
+me. Do you fancy that I will be put off by any of your trumpery
+fancies?"
+
+"No, no," said Agapit, wildly. "I know you better,--you have a will of
+steel. But can you not trust me? I say an impediment exists. It is like
+a mountain. You cannot get over it, you cannot get around it; it would
+pain you to know, and I cannot tell it. Go quietly away therefore."
+
+Vesper was excessively angry. With his love for Rose had grown a certain
+jealousy of Agapit, whose influence over her had been unbounded. Yet he
+controlled himself, and said, coldly, "There are other ways of getting
+past a mountain."
+
+"By flying?" said Agapit, eagerly.
+
+"No,--tunnelling. Tell me now how long this obstacle has existed?"
+
+"It would be more agreeable to me not to answer questions."
+
+"I daresay, but I shall stay here until you do."
+
+"Then, it is one year," said Agapit, reluctantly.
+
+"It has, therefore, not arisen since I came?"
+
+"Oh, no, a thousand times no."
+
+"It is a question of religion?"
+
+"No, it is not," said Agapit, indignantly; "we are not in the Middle
+Ages."
+
+"It seems to me that we are; does Rose's priest know?"
+
+"Yes, but not through her."
+
+"Through you,--at confession?"
+
+"Yes, but he would die rather than break the seal of confession."
+
+"Of course. Does any one here but you know?"
+
+"Oh, no, no; only myself, and Rose's uncle, and one other."
+
+"It has something to do with her first marriage," said Vesper, sharply.
+"Did she promise her husband not to marry again?"
+
+Agapit would not answer him.
+
+"You are putting me off with some silly bugbear," said Vesper,
+contemptuously.
+
+"A bugbear! holy mother of angels, it is a question of the honor of our
+race. But for that, I would tell you."
+
+"You do not wish her to marry me because I am an American."
+
+"I would be proud to have her marry an American," said Agapit,
+vehemently.
+
+"I shall not waste more time on you," said Vesper, disdainfully. "Rose
+will explain."
+
+"You must not go to her," said Agapit, blocking his way. "She is in a
+strange state. I fear for her reason."
+
+"You do," muttered Vesper, "and you try to keep me from her?"
+
+Agapit stood obstinately pressing his back against the door.
+
+"You want her for yourself," said Vesper, suddenly striking him a smart
+blow across the face.
+
+The Acadien sprang forward, his burly frame trembled, his hot breath
+enveloped Vesper's face as he stood angrily regarding him. Then he
+turned on his heel, and pressed his handkerchief to his bleeding lips.
+
+"I will not strike you," he mumbled, "for you do not understand. I, too,
+have loved and been unhappy."
+
+The glance that he threw over his shoulder was so humble, so forgiving,
+that Vesper's heart was touched.
+
+"I ask your pardon, Agapit,--you have worried me out of my senses," and
+he warmly clasped the hand that the Acadien extended to him.
+
+"Come," said Agapit, with an adorable smile. "Follow me. You have a
+generous heart. You shall see your Rose."
+
+Agapit knocked softly at his cousin's door, then, on receiving
+permission, entered with a reverent step.
+
+Vesper had never been in this little white chamber before. One
+comprehensive glance he bestowed on it, then his eyes came back to Rose,
+who had, he knew without being told, spent the whole night on her knees
+before the niche in the wall, where stood a pale statuette of the
+Virgin.
+
+This was a Rose he did not know, and one whose frozen beauty struck a
+deadly chill to his heart. He had lost her,--he knew it before she
+opened her lips. She seemed not older, but younger. The look on her face
+he had seen on the faces of dead children; the blood had been frightened
+from her very lips. What was it that had given her this deadly shock? He
+was more than ever determined to know, and, subduing every emotion but
+that of stern curiosity, he stood expectant.
+
+"You insisted on an adieu," she murmured, painfully.
+
+"I am coming back in a week," said Vesper, stubbornly.
+
+The hand that held her prayer-book trembled. "You have told him that he
+must not return?" and she turned to Agapit, and lifted her flaxen
+eyebrows, that seemed almost dark against the unearthly pallor of her
+skin.
+
+"Yes," he said, with a gusty sigh. "I have told him, but he does not
+heed me."
+
+"It is for the honor of our race," she said to Vesper.
+
+"Rose," he said, keenly, "do you think I will give you up?"
+
+Her white lips quivered. "You must go; it is wrong for me even to see
+you."
+
+Vesper stared at Agapit, and seeing that he was determined not to leave
+the room, he turned his back squarely on him. "Rose," he said, in a low
+voice, "Rose."
+
+The saint died in her, the woman awoke. Little by little the color crept
+back to her face. Her ears, her lips, her cheeks, and brow were suffused
+with the faint, delicate hue of the flower whose name she bore.
+
+A passionate light sprang into her blue eyes. "Agapit," she murmured,
+"Agapit," yet her glance did not leave Vesper's face, "can we not tell
+him?"
+
+[Illustration: "'AGAPIT,' SHE MURMURED, 'CAN WE NOT TELL HIM?'"]
+
+"Shall we be unfaithful to our race?" said her cousin, inexorably.
+
+"What is our race?" she asked, wildly. "There are the Acadiens, there
+are also the Americans,--the one Lord makes all. Agapit, permit that we
+tell him."
+
+"Think of your oath, Rose."
+
+"My oath--my oath--and did I not also swear to love him? I told him only
+yesterday, and now I must give him up forever, and cause him pain.
+Agapit, you shall tell him. He must not go away angry. Ah, my cousin, my
+cousin," and, evading Vesper, she stretched out the prayer-book, "by our
+holy religion, I beg that you have pity. Tell him, tell him,--I shall
+never see him again. It will kill me if he goes angry from me."
+
+There were tears of agony in her eyes, and Agapit faltered as he
+surveyed her.
+
+"We are to be alone here all the years," she said, "you and I. It will
+be a sin even to think of the past. Let us have no thought to start with
+as sad as this, that we let one so dear go out in the world blaming us."
+
+"Well, then," said Agapit, sullenly, "I surrender. Tell you this
+stranger; let him have part in an unusual shame of our people."
+
+"I tell him!" and she drew back, hurt and startled. "No, Agapit, that
+confession comes better from thee. Adieu, adieu," and she turned, in a
+paroxysm of tenderness, to Vesper, and in her anguish burst into her
+native language. "After this minute, I must put thee far from my
+thoughts,--thou, so good, so kind, that I had hoped to walk with
+through life. But purgatory does not last forever; the blessed saints
+also suffered. After we die, perhaps--" and she buried her face in her
+hands, and wept violently.
+
+"But do not thou remember," she said at last, checking her tears. "Go
+out into the world and find another, better wife. I release thee, go,
+go--"
+
+Vesper said nothing, but he gave Agapit a terrible glance, and that
+young man, although biting his lip and scowling fiercely, discreetly
+stepped into the hall.
+
+For half a minute Rose lay unresistingly in Vesper's arms, then she
+gently forced him from the room, and with a low and bitter cry, "For
+this I must atone," she opened her prayer-book, and again dropped on her
+knees.
+
+Once more the two young men found themselves in the smoking-room.
+
+"Now, what is it?" asked Vesper, sternly.
+
+Agapit hung his head. In accents of deepest shame he murmured,
+"Charlitte yet lives."
+
+"Charlitte--what, Rose's husband?"
+
+A miserable nod from Agapit answered his question.
+
+"It is rumor," stammered Vesper; "it cannot be. You said that he was
+dead."
+
+"He has been seen,--the miserable man lives with another woman."
+
+Vesper had received the worst blow of his life, yet his black eyes fixed
+themselves steadily on Agapit's face. "What proof have you?"
+
+Agapit stumbled through some brief sentences. "An Acadien--Michel
+Amireau--came home to die. He was a sailor. He had seen Charlitte in New
+Orleans. He had changed his name, yet Michel knew him, and went to the
+uncle of Rose, on the Bayou Vermilion. The uncle promised to watch him.
+That is why he is so kind to Rose, this good uncle, and sends her so
+much. But Charlitte goes no more to sea, but lives with this woman. He
+is happy; such a devil should die."
+
+Vesper was stunned and bewildered, yet his mind had never worked more
+clearly. "Does any other person know?" he asked, sharply.
+
+"No one; Michel would not tell, and he is dead."
+
+Vesper leaned on a chair-back, and convulsively clasped his fingers
+until every drop of blood seemed to have left them. "Why did he leave
+Rose?"
+
+"Who can tell?" said Agapit, drearily. "Rose is beautiful; this other
+woman unbeautiful and older, much older. But Charlitte was always gross
+like a pig,--but good-natured. Rose was too fine, too spiritual. She
+smiled at him, she did not drink, nor dance, nor laugh loudly. These are
+the women he likes."
+
+"How old is he?"
+
+"Not old,--fifty, perhaps. If our Lord would only let him die! But those
+men live forever. He is strong, very strong."
+
+"Would Rose consent to a divorce?"
+
+"A divorce! _Mon Dieu_, she is a good Catholic."
+
+Vesper sank into a chair and dropped his head on his hand. Hot,
+rebellious thoughts leaped into his heart. Yesterday he had been so
+happy; to-day--
+
+"My friend," said Agapit, softly, "do not give way."
+
+His words stung Vesper as if they had been an insult.
+
+"I am not giving way," he said, fiercely. "I am trying to find a way out
+of this diabolical scrape."
+
+"But surely there is only one road to follow."
+
+Vesper said nothing, but his eyes were blazing, and Agapit recoiled from
+him with a look of terror.
+
+"You surely would not influence one who loves you to do anything wrong?"
+
+"Rose is mine," said Vesper, grimly.
+
+"But she is married to Charlitte."
+
+"To a dastardly villain,--she must separate from him."
+
+"But she cannot."
+
+"She will if I ask her," and Vesper started up, as if he were about to
+seek her.
+
+"Stop but an instant," and Agapit pressed both hands to his forehead
+with a gesture of bewilderment. "Let me say over some things first to
+you. Think of what you have done here,--you, so quiet, so strong,--so
+pretending not to be good, and yet very good. You have led Rose as a
+grown one leads a child. Before you came I did not revere her as I do at
+present. She is now so careful, she will not speak even the least of
+untruths; she wishes to improve herself,--to be more fitted for the
+company of the blessed in heaven."
+
+Vesper made some inarticulate sound in his throat, and Agapit went on
+hurriedly. "Women are weak, men are imperious; she may, perhaps, do
+anything you say, but is it not well to think over exactly what one
+would tell her? She is in trouble now, but soon she will recover and
+look about her. She will see all the world equally so. There are good
+priests with sore hearts, also holy women, but they serve God. All the
+world cannot marry. Marriage, what is it?--a little living together,--a
+separation. There is also a holy union of hearts. We can live for God,
+you, and I, and Rose, but for a time is it not best that we do not see
+each other?"
+
+Again Vesper did not reply except by a convulsive movement of his
+shoulders, and an impatient drumming on the table with his fingers.
+
+"Dear young man, whom I so much admire," said Agapit, leaning across
+towards him, "I have confidence in you. You, who think so much of the
+honor of your race,--you who shielded the name of your ancestor lest
+dishonor should come on it, I trust you fully. You will, some day when
+it seems good to you, find out this child who has cast off her race; and
+now go,--the door is open, seek Rose if you will. You will say nothing
+unworthy to her. You know love, the greatest of things, but you also
+know duty, the sublimest."
+
+His voice died away, and Vesper still preserved a dogged silence. At
+last, however, his struggle with himself was over, and in a harsh, rough
+voice, utterly unlike his usual one, he looked up and said, "Have we
+time to catch the train?"
+
+"By driving fast," said Agapit, mildly, "we may. Possibly the train is
+late also."
+
+"Make haste then," said Vesper, and he hurried to his mother, whose
+voice he heard in the hall.
+
+Agapit fairly ran to the stable, and as he ran he muttered, "We are all
+very young,--the old ones say that trouble cuts into the hearts of
+youth. Let us pray our Lord for old age."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+               NARCISSE GOES IN SEARCH OF THE ENGLISHMAN.
+
+                    "L'homme s'agite, Dieu le mène."
+
+
+Mrs. Nimmo was a very unhappy woman. She had never before had a trouble
+equal to this trouble, and, as she sat at the long window in the bedroom
+of her absent son, she drearily felt that it was eating the heart and
+spirit out of her.
+
+Vesper was away, and she had refused to share his unhappy wanderings,
+for she knew that he did not wish her to do so. Very calmly and coldly
+he had told her that his engagement to Rose à Charlitte was over. He
+assigned no cause for it, and Mrs. Nimmo, in her desperation, earnestly
+wished that he had never heard of the Acadiens, that Rose à Charlitte
+had never been born, and that the little peninsula of Nova Scotia had
+never been traced on the surface of the globe.
+
+It was a lovely evening of late summer. The square in which she lived
+was cool and quiet, for very few of its inhabitants had come back from
+their summer excursions. Away in the distance, beyond the leafy common,
+she could hear the subdued roar of the city, but on the brick pavements
+about her there was scarcely a footfall.
+
+The window at which she sat faced the south. In winter her son's room
+was flooded with sunlight, but in summer the branching elm outside put
+forth a kindly screen of leaves to shield it from the too oppressive
+heat. Her glance wandered between the delicate lace curtains, swaying to
+and fro, to this old elm that seemed a member of her family. How much
+her son loved it,--and with an indulgent thought of Vesper's passion for
+the natives of the outdoor world, a disagreeable recollection of the
+Acadien woman's child leaped into her mind.
+
+How absurdly fond of trees and flowers he had been, and what a fanciful,
+unnatural child he was, altogether. She had never liked him, and he had
+never liked her, and she wrinkled her brows at the distasteful
+remembrance of him.
+
+A knock at the half-open door distracted her attention, and, languidly
+turning her head, she said, "What is it, Henry?"
+
+"It's a young woman, Mis' Nimmo," replied that ever alert and demure
+colored boy, "what sometimes brings you photographs. She come in a hack
+with a girl."
+
+"Let her come up. She may leave the girl below."
+
+"I guess that girl ain't a girl, Mis' Nimmo,--she looks mighty like a
+boy. She's the symbol of the little feller in the French place I took
+you to."
+
+Mrs. Nimmo gave him a rebuking glance. "Let the girl remain
+down-stairs."
+
+"Madame," said a sudden voice, "this is now Boston,--where is the
+Englishman?"
+
+Mrs. Nimmo started from her chair. Here was the French child himself,
+standing calmly before her in the twilight, his small body habited in
+ridiculous and disfiguring girl's clothes, his cropped curly head and
+white face appearing above an absurd kind of grayish yellow cloak.
+
+"Narcisse!" she ejaculated.
+
+"Madame," said the faint yet determined little voice, "is the Englishman
+in his house?"
+
+Mrs. Nimmo's glance fell upon Henry, who was standing open-mouthed and
+grotesque, and with a gesture she sent him from the room.
+
+Narcisse, exhausted yet eager, had started on a tour of investigation
+about the room, holding up with one hand the girl's trappings, which
+considerably hampered his movements, and clutching something to his
+breast with the other. He had found the house of the Englishman and his
+mother, and by sure tokens he recognized his recent presence in this
+very room. Here were his books, his gloves, his cap, and, best of all,
+another picture of him; and, with a cry of delight, he dropped on a
+footstool before a full-length portrait of the man he adored. Here he
+would rest: his search was ended; and meekly surveying Mrs. Nimmo, he
+murmured, "Could Narcisse have a glass of milk?"
+
+Mrs. Nimmo's emotions at present all seemed to belong to the order of
+the intense. She had never before been so troubled; she had never before
+been so bewildered. What did the presence of this child under her roof
+mean? Was his mother anywhere near? Surely not,--Rose would never clothe
+her comely child in those shabby garments of the other sex.
+
+She turned her puzzled face to the doorway, and found an answer to her
+questions in the presence of an anxious-faced young woman there, who
+said, apologetically, "He got away from me; he's been like a wild thing
+to get here. Do you know him?"
+
+"Know him? Yes, I have seen him before."
+
+The anxious-faced young woman breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought,
+maybe, I'd been taken in. I was just closing up the studio, an hour ago,
+when two men came up the stairs with this little fellow wrapped in an
+old coat. They said they were from a schooner called the _Nancy Jane_,
+down at one of the wharves, and they picked up this boy in a drifting
+boat on the Bay Saint-Mary two days ago. They said he was frightened
+half out of his senses, and was holding on to that photo in his
+hand,--show the lady, dear."
+
+Narcisse, whose tired head was nodding sleepily on his breast, paid no
+attention to her request, so she gently withdrew one of his hands from
+under his cloak and exhibited in it a torn and stained photograph of
+Vesper.
+
+Mrs. Nimmo caught her breath, and attempted to take it from him, but he
+quickly roused himself, and, placing it beneath him, rolled over on the
+floor, and, with a farewell glance at the portrait above, fell sound
+asleep.
+
+"He's beat out," said the anxious-faced young woman. "I'm glad I've got
+him to friends. The sailors were awful glad to get rid of him. They kind
+of thought he was a French child from Nova Scotia, but they hadn't time
+to run back with him, for they had to hurry here with their cargo, and
+then he held on to the photo and said he wanted to be taken to that
+young man. The sailors saw our address on it, but they sort of
+misdoubted we wouldn't keep him. However, I thought I'd take him off
+their hands, for he was frightened to death they would carry him back to
+their vessel, though I guess they was kind enough to him. I gave them
+back their coat, and borrowed some things from the woman who takes care
+of our studio. I forgot to say the boy had only a night-dress on when
+they found him."
+
+Mrs. Nimmo mechanically felt in her pocket for her purse. "They didn't
+say anything about a woman being with him?"
+
+"No, ma'am; he wouldn't talk to them much, but they said it was likely a
+child's trick of getting in a boat and setting himself loose."
+
+"Would you--would you care to keep him until he is sent for?" faltered
+Mrs. Nimmo.
+
+"I--oh, no, I couldn't. I've only a room in a lodging-house. I'd be
+afraid of something happening to him, for I'm out all day. I offered him
+something to eat, but he wouldn't take it--oh, thank you, ma'am, I
+didn't spend all that. I guess I'll have to go. Does he come from down
+East?"
+
+"Yes, he is French. My son visited his house this summer, and used to
+pet him a good deal."
+
+The young woman cast a glance of veiled admiration at the portrait. "And
+the little one ran away to find him. Quite a story. He's cute, too,"
+and, airily patting Narcisse's curly head, she took her leave of Mrs.
+Nimmo, and made her way down-stairs. A good many strange happenings came
+into her daily life in this large city, and this was not one of the
+strangest.
+
+Mrs. Nimmo sat still and stared at Narcisse. Rose had probably not been
+in the boat with him,--had probably not been drowned. He had apparently
+run away from home, and the first thing to do was to communicate with
+his mother, who would be frantic with anxiety about him. She therefore
+wrote out a telegram to Rose, "Your boy is with me, and safe and well,"
+and ringing for Henry, she bade him send it as quickly as possible.
+
+Then she sank again into profound meditation. The child had come to see
+Vesper. Had she better not let him know about it? If she applied the
+principles of sound reasoning to the case, she certainly should do so.
+It might also be politic. Perhaps it would bring him home to her, and,
+sighing heavily, she wrote another telegram.
+
+In the meantime Narcisse did not awake. He lay still, enjoying the heavy
+slumber of exhaustion and content. He was in the house of his beloved
+Englishman; all would now be well.
+
+He did not know that, after a time, his trustful confidence awoke the
+mother spirit in the woman watching him. The child for a time was wholly
+in her care. No other person in this vast city was interested in him. No
+one cared for him. A strange, long-unknown feeling fluttered about her
+breast, and memories of her past youth awoke. She had also once been a
+child. She had been lonely and terrified, and suffered childish agonies
+not to be revealed until years of maturity. They were mostly agonies
+about trifles,--still, she had suffered. She pictured to herself the
+despair and anger of the boy upon finding that Vesper did not return to
+Sleeping Water as he had promised to do. With his little white face in a
+snarl, he would enter the boat and set himself adrift, to face
+sufferings of fright and loneliness of which in his petted childhood he
+could have had no conception. And yet what courage. She could see that
+he was exhausted, yet there had been no whining, no complaining; he had
+attained his object and he was satisfied. He was really like her own
+boy, and, with a proud, motherly smile, she gazed alternately from the
+curly head on the carpet to the curly one in the portrait.
+
+The external resemblance, too, was indeed remarkable, and now the
+thought did not displease her, although it had invariably done so in
+Sleeping Water, when she had heard it frequently and naïvely commented
+on by the Acadiens.
+
+Well, the child had thrown himself on her protection,--he should not
+repent it; and, summoning a housemaid, she sent her in search of some of
+Vesper's long-unused clothing, and then together they slipped the
+disfiguring girl's dress from Narcisse's shapely body, and put on him a
+long white nightrobe.
+
+He drowsily opened his eyes as they were lifting him into Vesper's bed,
+saw that the photograph was still in his possession, and that a familiar
+face was bending over him, then, sweetly murmuring "_Bon soir_" (good
+night), he again slipped into the land of dreams.
+
+Several times during the night Mrs. Nimmo stole into her son's room, and
+drew the white sheet from the black head half buried in the pillow. Once
+she kissed him, and this time she went back to her bed with a lighter
+heart, and was soon asleep herself.
+
+She was having a prolonged nap the next morning when something caused
+her suddenly to open her eyes. Just for an instant she fancied herself a
+happy young wife again, her husband by her side, their adored child
+paying them an early morning call. Then the dream was over. This was the
+little foreign boy who was sitting curled up on the foot of her bed,
+nibbling hungrily at a handful of biscuits.
+
+"I came, madame, because those others I do not know," and he pointed
+towards the floor, to indicate her servants. "Has your son, the
+Englishman, yet arrived?"
+
+"No," she said, gently.
+
+"Your skin is white," said Narcisse, approvingly; "that is good; I do
+not like that man."
+
+"But you have seen colored people on the Bay,--you must not dislike
+Henry. My husband brought him here as a boy to wait on my son. I can
+never give him up."
+
+"He is amiable," said Narcisse, diplomatically. "He gave me these," and
+he extended his biscuits.
+
+They were carrying on their conversation in French, for only with Vesper
+did Narcisse care to speak English. Perfectly aware, in his acute
+childish intelligence, that he was, for a time, entirely dependent on
+"madame," whom, up to this, he had been jealous of, and had positively
+disliked, he was keeping on her a watchful and roguish eye. Mrs. Nimmo,
+meanwhile, was interested and amused, but would make no overtures to
+him.
+
+"Is your bed as soft as mine, madame?" he said, politely.
+
+"I do not know; I never slept in that one."
+
+Narcisse drew a corner of her silk coverlet over his feet. "Narcisse was
+very sick yesterday."
+
+"I do not wonder," said his hostess.
+
+"Your son said that he would return, but he did not."
+
+"My son has other things to think of, little boy."
+
+Mrs. Nimmo's manner was one that would have checked confidences in an
+ordinary child. It made Narcisse more eager to justify himself. "Why
+does my mother cry every night?" he asked, suddenly.
+
+"How can I tell?" answered Mrs. Nimmo, peevishly.
+
+"I hear a noise in the night, like trees in a storm," said Narcisse,
+tragically, and, drawing himself up, he fetched a tremendous sigh from
+the pit of his little stomach; "then I put up my hand so,"--and leaning
+over, he placed three fingers on Mrs. Nimmo's eyelids,--"and my mother's
+face is quite wet, like leaves in the rain."
+
+Mrs. Nimmo did not reply, and he went on with alarming abruptness. "She
+cries for the Englishman. I also cried, and one night I got out of bed.
+It was very fine; there was the night sun in the sky,--you know, madame,
+there is a night sun and a day sun--"
+
+"Yes, I know."
+
+"I went creeping, creeping to the wharf like a fly on a tree. I was not
+afraid, for I carried your son in my hand, and he says only babies cry
+when they are alone."
+
+"And then,--" said Mrs. Nimmo.
+
+"Oh, the beautiful stone!" cried Narcisse, his volatile fancy attracted
+by a sparkling ring on Mrs. Nimmo's finger.
+
+She sighed, and allowed him to handle it for a moment. "I have just put
+it on again, little boy. I have been in mourning for the last two years.
+Tell me about your going to the boat."
+
+"There is nothing to tell," said Narcisse; "it was a very little boat."
+
+"Whose boat was it?"
+
+"The blacksmith's."
+
+"How did you get it off from the wharf?"
+
+"Like this," and bending over, he began to fumble with the strings of
+her nightcap, tying and untying until he tickled her throat and made her
+laugh irresistibly and push him away. "There was no knife," he said, "or
+I would have cut it."
+
+"But you did wrong to take the blacksmith's boat."
+
+Narcisse's face flushed, yet he was too happy to become annoyed with
+her. "When the Englishman is there, I am good, and my mother does not
+cry. Let him go back with me."
+
+"And what shall I do?"
+
+Narcisse was plainly embarrassed. At last he said, earnestly, "Remain,
+madame, with the black man, who will take care of you. When does the
+Englishman arrive?"
+
+"I do not know; run away now, I want to dress."
+
+"You have here a fine bathroom," said Narcisse, sauntering across the
+room to an open door. "When am I to have my bath?"
+
+"Does your mother give you one every day?"
+
+"Yes, madame, at night, before I go to bed. Do you not know the screen
+in our room, and the little tub, and the dish with the soap that smells
+so nice? I must scour myself hard in order to be clean."
+
+"I am glad to hear that. I will send a tub to your room."
+
+"But I like this, madame."
+
+"Come, come," she said, peremptorily, "run away. No one bathes in my tub
+but myself."
+
+Narcisse had a passion for dabbling in water, and he found this dainty
+bathroom irresistible. "I hate you, madame," he said, flushing angrily,
+and stamping his foot at her. "I hate you."
+
+Mrs. Nimmo looked admiringly past the child at his reflection in her
+cheval glass. What a beauty he was, as he stood furiously regarding her,
+his sweet, proud face convulsed, his little body trembling inside his
+white gown! In his recklessness he had forgotten to be polite to her,
+and she liked him the better for it.
+
+"You are a naughty boy," she said, indulgently. "I cannot have you in my
+room if you talk like that."
+
+Without a word Narcisse went to her dressing-table, picked up his
+precious photograph that he had left propped against a silver-backed
+brush, and turned to leave her, when she said, curiously, "Why did you
+tear that picture if you think so much of it?"
+
+Narcisse immediately fell into a state of pitiable confusion, and,
+hanging his head, remained speechless.
+
+"If you will say you are sorry for being rude, I will give you another
+one," she said, and in a luxury of delight at playing with this little
+soul, she raised herself on her arm and held out a hand to him.
+
+Narcisse drew back his lips at her as if he had been a small dog.
+"Madame," he faltered, tapping his teeth, "these did it, but I stopped
+them."
+
+"What do you mean?" said Mrs. Nimmo, and a horrible suspicion entered
+her mind.
+
+"Narcisse was hungry--in the boat--" stammered the boy. "He nibbled but
+a little of the picture. He could not bite the Englishman long."
+
+Mrs. Nimmo shuddered. She had never been hungry in her life. "Come here,
+you poor child. You shall have a bath in my room as soon as I finish.
+Give me a kiss."
+
+Narcisse's sensitive spirit immediately became bathed with light. "Shall
+I kiss you as your son the Englishman kissed my mother?"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Nimmo, bravely, and she held out her arms.
+
+"But you must not do so," said Narcisse, drawing back. "You must now
+cry, and hide your face like this,"--and his slender, supple fingers
+guided her head into a distressed position,--"and when I approach, you
+must wave your hands."
+
+"Did your mother do that?" asked Mrs. Nimmo, eagerly.
+
+"Yes,--and your son lifted her hand like this," and Narcisse bent a
+graceful knee before her.
+
+"Did she not throw her arms around his neck and cling to him?" inquired
+the lady, in an excess of jealous curiosity.
+
+"No, she ran from us up the bank."
+
+"Your mother is a wicked woman to cause my son pain," said Mrs. Nimmo,
+in indignant and rapid French.
+
+"My mother is not wicked," said Narcisse, vehemently. "I wish to see
+her. I do not like you."
+
+They were on the verge of another disagreement, and Mrs. Nimmo, with a
+soothing caress, hurried him from the room. What a curious boy he was!
+And as she dressed herself she sometimes smiled and sometimes frowned at
+her reflection in the glass, but the light in her eyes was always a
+happy one, and there was an unusual color in her cheeks.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX.
+
+                          AN INTERRUPTED MASS.
+
+     "Here is our dearest theme where skies are blue and brightest,
+       To sing a single song in places that love it best;
+     Freighting the happy breeze when snowy clouds are lightest;
+       Making a song to cease not when the singer is dumb in rest."
+
+                                                            J. F. H.
+
+
+Away up the Bay, past Sleeping Water and Church Point, past historic
+Piau's Isle and Belliveau's Cove and the lovely Sissiboo River, past
+Weymouth and the Barrens, and other villages stretched out along this
+highroad, between Yarmouth and Digby, is Bleury,--beautiful Bleury,
+which is the final outpost in the long-extended line of Acadien
+villages. Beyond this, the Bay--what there is of it, for it soon ends
+this side of Digby--is English.
+
+But beautiful Bleury, which rejoices in a high bluff, a richly wooded
+shore, swelling hills, and an altogether firmer, bolder outlook than
+flat Sleeping Water, is not wholly French. Some of its inhabitants are
+English. Here the English tide meets the French tide, and, swelling up
+the Bay and back in the woods, they overrun the land, and form curious
+contrasts and results, unknown and unfelt in the purely Acadien
+districts nearer the sea.
+
+In Bleury there is one schoolhouse common to both races, and on a
+certain afternoon, three weeks after little Narcisse's adventurous
+voyage in search of the Englishman, the children were tumultuously
+pouring out from it. Instinctively they formed themselves into four
+distinct groups. The groups at last resolved themselves into four
+processions, two going up the road, two down. The French children took
+one side of the road, the English the other, and each procession kept
+severely to its own place.
+
+Heading the rows of English children who went up the Bay was a
+red-haired girl of some twelve summers, whose fiery head gleamed like a
+torch, held at the head of the procession. As far as the coloring of her
+skin was concerned, and the exquisite shading of her velvety brown eyes,
+and the shape of her slightly upturned nose, she might have been
+English. But her eager gestures, her vivacity, her swiftness and
+lightness of manner, marked her as a stranger and an alien among the
+English children by whom she was surrounded.
+
+This was Bidiane LeNoir, Agapit's little renegade, and just now she was
+highly indignant over a matter of offended pride. A French girl had
+taken a place above her in a class, and also, secure in the fortress of
+the schoolroom, had made a detestable face at her.
+
+"I hate them,--those Frenchies," she cried, casting a glance of defiance
+at the Acadien children meekly filing along beyond her. "I sha'n't walk
+beside 'em. Go on, you ----," and she added an offensive epithet.
+
+The dark-faced, shy Acadiens trotted soberly on, swinging their books
+and lunch-baskets in their hands. They would not go out of their way to
+seek a quarrel.
+
+"Run," said Bidiane, imperiously.
+
+The little Acadiens would not run, they preferred to walk, and Bidiane
+furiously called to her adherents, "Let's sing mass."
+
+This was the deepest insult that could be offered to the children across
+the road. Sometimes in their childish quarrels aprons and jackets were
+torn, and faces were slapped, but no bodily injury ever equalled in
+indignity that put upon the Catholic children when their religion was
+ridiculed.
+
+However, they did not retaliate, but their faces became gloomy, and they
+immediately quickened their steps.
+
+"Holler louder," Bidiane exhorted her followers, and she broke into a
+howling "_Pax vobiscum_," while a boy at her elbow groaned, "_Et cum
+spiritu tuo_," and the remainder of the children screamed in an
+irreverent chorus, that ran all up and down the scale, "_Gloria tibi
+Domine_."
+
+The Acadien children fled now, some of them with fingers in their ears,
+others casting bewildered looks of horror, as if expecting to see the
+earth open and swallow up their sacrilegious tormentors, who stood
+shrieking with delight at the success of their efforts to rid themselves
+of their undesired companions.
+
+"Shut up," said Bidiane, suddenly, and at once the laughter was stilled.
+There was a stranger in their midst. He had come gliding among them on
+one of the bright shining wheels that went up and down the Bay in such
+large numbers. Before Bidiane had spoken he had dismounted, and his
+quick eye was surveying them with a glance like lightning.
+
+The children stared silently at him. Ridicule cuts sharply into the
+heart of a child, and a sound whipping inflicted on every girl and boy
+present would not have impressed on them the burden of their iniquity as
+did the fine sarcasm and disdainful amusement with which this handsome
+stranger regarded them.
+
+One by one they dropped away, and Bidiane only remained rooted to the
+spot by some magic incomprehensible to her.
+
+"Your name is Bidiane LeNoir," he said, quietly.
+
+"It ain't," she said, doggedly; "it's Biddy Ann Black."
+
+"Really,--and there are no LeNoirs about here, nor Corbineaus?"
+
+"Down the Bay are LeNoirs and Corbineaus," said the little girl,
+defiantly; then she burst out with a question, "You ain't the Englishman
+from Boston?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"Gosh!" she said, in profound astonishment; then she lowered her eyes,
+and traced a serpent in the dust with her great toe. All up and down the
+Bay had flashed the news of this wonderful stranger who had come to
+Sleeping Water in quest of an heir or heiress to some vast fortune. The
+heir had been found in the person of herself,--small, red-haired Biddy
+Ann Black, and it had been firmly believed among her fellow playmates
+that at any moment the prince might appear in a golden chariot and whisk
+her away with him to realms of bliss, where she would live in a gorgeous
+palace and eat cakes and sweetmeats all day long, sailing at intervals
+in a boat of her own over a bay of transcendent loveliness, in which she
+would catch codfish as big as whales. This story had been believed until
+very recently, when it had somewhat died away by reason of the
+non-appearance of the prince.
+
+Now he had arrived, and Bidiane's untrained mind and her little wild
+beast heart were in a tumult. She felt that he did not approve of her,
+and she loved and hated him in a breath. He was smooth, and dignified,
+and sleek, like a priest. He was dark, too, like the French people, and
+she scowled fiercely. He would see that her cotton gown was soiled; why
+had she not worn a clean one to-day, and also put on her shoes? Would he
+really want her to go away with him? She would not do so; and a lump
+arose in her throat, and with a passionate emotion that she did not
+understand she gazed across the Bay towards the purple hills of Digby
+Neck.
+
+Vesper, perfectly aware of what was passing in her mind, waited for her
+to recover herself. "I would like to see your uncle and aunt," he said,
+at last. "Will you take me to them?"
+
+She responded by a gesture in the affirmative, and, still with eyes bent
+obstinately on the ground, led the way towards a low brown house
+situated in a hollow between two hills, and surrounded by a grove of
+tall French poplars, whose ancestors had been nourished by the sweet
+waters of the Seine.
+
+Vesper's time was limited, and he was anxious to gain the confidence of
+the little maid, if possible, but she would not talk to him.
+
+"Do you like cocoanuts?" he said, presently, on seeing in the distance a
+negro approaching, with a load of this foreign fruit, that he had
+probably obtained from some schooner.
+
+"You bet," said Bidiane, briefly.
+
+Vesper stopped the negro, and bought as many nuts at five cents apiece
+as he and Bidiane could carry. Then, trying to make her smile by
+balancing one on the saddle of his wheel, he walked slowly beside her.
+
+Bidiane solemnly watched him. She would not talk, she would not smile,
+but she cheerfully dropped her load when one of his cocoanuts rolled in
+the ditch, and, at the expense of a scratched face from an inquisitive
+rose-bush that bent over to see what she was doing, she restored it to
+him.
+
+"Your cheek is bleeding," said Vesper.
+
+"No odds," she remarked, with Indian-like fortitude, and she preceded
+him into a grassy dooryard, that was pervaded by a powerful smell of
+frying doughnuts.
+
+Mirabelle Marie, her fat, good-natured young aunt, stood in the kitchen
+doorway with a fork in her hand, and seeing that the stranger was
+English, she beamed a joyous, hearty welcome on him.
+
+"Good day, sir; you'll stop to supper? That's right. Shove your wheel
+ag'in that fence, and come right in. Biddy, git the creamer from the
+well and give the genl'man a glass of milk. You won't?--All right, sir,
+walk into the settin'-room. What! you'd rather set under the trees? All
+right. My man's up in the barn, fussin' with a sick cow that's lost her
+cud. He's puttin' a rind of bacon on her horns. What d'ye say,
+Biddy?"--this latter in an undertone to the little girl, who was pulling
+at her dress. "This is the Englishman from Boston--_sakerjé_!" and,
+dropping her fork, she wiped her hands on her dress and darted out to
+offer Vesper still more effusive expressions of hospitality.
+
+He smiled amiably on her, and presently she returned to the kitchen,
+silly and distracted in appearance, and telling Bidiane that she felt
+like a hen with her head cut off. The stranger who was to do so much for
+them had come. She could have prostrated herself in the dust before him.
+"Scoot, Biddy, scoot," she exclaimed; "borry meat of some kind. Go to
+the Maxwells or to the Whites. Tell 'em he's come, and we've got nothin'
+but fish and salt pork, and they know the English hate that like pizen.
+And git a junk of butter with only a mite of salt in it. Mine's salted
+heavy for the market. And skip to the store and ask 'em to score us for
+a pound of cheese and some fancy crackers."
+
+Bidiane ran away, and, as she ran, her ill humor left her, and she felt
+herself to be a very important personage. Vivaciously and swiftly she
+exclaimed, "He's come!" to several children whom she met, and with a
+keen and exquisite sense of pleasure looked back to see them standing
+open-mouthed in the road, impressed in a most gratifying way by the news
+communicated.
+
+In the meantime Mirabelle Marie began to make frantic and ludicrous
+preparations to set a superfine meal before the stranger, who was now
+entitled to a double share of honor. In her extreme haste everything
+went wrong. She upset her pot of lard; the cat and dog got at her plate
+of doughnuts, and stole half of them; the hot biscuits that she hastily
+mixed burnt to a cinder, and the jar of preserved berries that she
+opened proved to have been employing their leisure time in the cellar by
+fermenting most viciously.
+
+However, she did not lose her temper, and, as she was not a woman to be
+cast down by trifles, she seated herself in a rocking-chair, fanned
+herself vigorously with her apron, and laughed spasmodically.
+
+Bidiane found her there on her return. The little girl possessed a
+keener sense of propriety than her careless relative; she was also more
+moody and variable, and immediately falling into a rage, she conveyed
+some plain truths to Mirabelle Marie, in inelegant language.
+
+The woman continued to laugh, and to stare through the window at Vesper,
+who sat motionless under the trees. One arm was thrown over the back of
+his seat, and his handsome head was turned away from the house.
+
+"Poor calf," said Mirabelle Marie, "he looks down the Bay; he is a very
+divil for good looks. Rose à Charlitte is one big fool."
+
+"We shall have only slops for supper," said Bidiane, in a fury, and
+swearing under her breath at her.
+
+Mirabelle Marie at this bestirred herself, and tried to evolve a meal
+from the ruin of her hopes, and the fresh supply of food that her niece
+had obtained.
+
+The little girl meantime found a clean cloth, and spread it on the
+table. She carefully arranged on it their heavy white dishes and
+substantial knives and spoons. Then she blew a horn, which made Claude à
+Sucre, her strapping great uncle, suddenly loom against the horizon, in
+the direction of the barn.
+
+He came to the house, and was about to ask a question, but closed his
+mouth when he saw the stranger in the yard.
+
+"Go change," said Bidiane, pouncing upon him.
+
+Claude knew what she meant, and glanced resignedly from his homespun
+suit to her resolved face. There was no appeal, so he went to his
+bedroom to don his Sunday garments. He had not without merit gained his
+nickname of Sugar Claude; for he was, if possible, more easy-going than
+his wife.
+
+Bidiane next attacked her aunt, whose face was the color of fire, from
+bending over the stove. "Go put on clean duds; these are dirty."
+
+"Go yourself, you little cat," said Mirabelle Marie, shaking her
+mountain of flesh with a good-natured laugh.
+
+"I'm going--I ain't as dirty as you, anyway--and take off those sneaks."
+
+Mirabelle Marie stuck out one of the flat feet encased in rubber-soled
+shoes. "My land! if I do, I'll go barefoot."
+
+Bidiane subsided and went to the door to look for her two boy cousins.
+Where were they? She shaded her eyes with her two brown hands, and her
+gaze swept the land and the water. Where were those boys? Were they back
+in the pasture, or down by the river, or playing in the barn, or out in
+the boat? A small schooner beating up the Bay caught her eye. That was
+Johnny Maxwell's schooner. She knew it by the three-cornered patch on
+the mainsail. And in Captain Johnny's pockets, when he came from Boston,
+were always candy, nuts, and raisins,--and the young Maxwells were of a
+generous disposition, and the whole neighborhood knew it. Her cousins
+would be on the wharf below the house, awaiting his arrival. Well, they
+should come to supper first; and, like a bird of prey, she swooped down
+the road upon her victims, and, catching them firmly by the shoulders,
+marched them up to the house.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX.
+
+                          WITH THE WATERCROWS.
+
+                       "Her mouth was ever agape,
+                        Her ears were ever ajar;
+                        If you wanted to find a sweeter fool,
+                        You shouldn't have come this far."
+
+                                                     --_Old Song._
+
+
+When the meal was at last prepared, and the whole family were assembled
+in the sitting-room, where the table had been drawn from the kitchen,
+they took a united view of Vesper's back; then Claude à Sucre was sent
+to escort him to the house.
+
+With a rapturous face Mirabelle Marie surveyed the steaming dish of
+_soupe à la patate_ (potato soup), the mound of buttered toast, the
+wedge of tough fried steak, the strips of raw dried codfish, the pink
+cake, and fancy biscuits. Surely the stranger would be impressed by the
+magnificence of this display, and she glanced wonderingly at Bidiane,
+whose eyes were lowered to the floor. The little girl had enjoyed
+advantages superior to her own, in that she mingled freely in English
+society, where she herself--Mirabelle Marie--was strangely shunned.
+Could it be that she was ashamed of this board? Certainly she could
+never have seen anything much grander; and, swelling with gratified
+pride and ambition, the mistress of the household seated herself behind
+her portly teapot, from which vantage-ground she beamed, huge and silly,
+like a full-grown moon upon the occupants of the table.
+
+Her guest was not hungry, apparently, for he scarcely touched the dishes
+that she pressed upon him. However, he responded so gracefully and with
+such well-bred composure to her exhortations that he should eat his
+fill, for there was more in the cellar, that she was far from resenting
+his lack of appetite. He was certainly a "boss young man;" and as she
+sat, delicious visions swam through her brain of new implements for the
+farm, a new barn, perhaps, new furniture for the house, with possibly an
+organ, a spick and span wagon, and a horse, or even a pair, and the
+eventual establishment of her two sons in Boston,--the El Dorado of her
+imagination,--where they would become prosperous merchants, and make
+heaps of gold for their mother to spend.
+
+In her excitement she began to put her food in her mouth with both
+hands, until reminded that she was flying in the face of English
+etiquette by a vigorous kick administered under the table by Bidiane.
+
+Vesper, with an effort, called back his painful wandering thoughts,
+which had indeed gone down the Bay, and concentrated them upon this
+picturesquely untidy family. This was an entirely different
+establishment from that of the Sleeping Water Inn. Fortunately there was
+no grossness, no clownishness of behavior, which would have irreparably
+offended his fastidious taste. They were simply uncultured, scrambling,
+and even interesting with the background of this old homestead, which
+was one of the most ancient that he had seen on the Bay, and which had
+probably been built by some of the early settlers.
+
+While he was quietly making his observations, the family finished their
+meal, and seeing that they were waiting for him to give the signal for
+leaving the table, he politely rose and stepped behind his chair.
+
+Mirabelle Marie scurried to her feet and pushed the table against the
+wall. Then the whole family sat down in a semicircle facing a large open
+fireplace heaped high with the accumulated rubbish of the summer, and
+breathlessly waited for the stranger to tell them of his place of birth,
+the amount of his fortune, his future expectations and hopes, his
+intentions with regard to Bidiane, and of various and sundry other
+matters that might come in during the course of their conversation.
+
+Vesper, with his usual objection to having any course of action mapped
+out for him, sat gazing imperturbably at them. He was really sorry for
+Mirabelle Marie, who was plainly bursting with eagerness. Her husband
+was more reserved, yet he, too, was suffering from suppressed curiosity,
+and timidly and wistfully handled his pipe, that he longed to and yet
+did not dare to smoke.
+
+His two small boys sat dangling their legs from seats that were
+uncomfortably high for them. They were typical Acadien children,--shy,
+elusive, and retreating within themselves in the presence of strangers;
+and if, by chance, Vesper caught a stealthy glance from one of them, the
+little fellow immediately averted his glossy head, as if afraid that the
+calm eyes of the stranger might lay bare the inmost secrets of his
+youthful soul.
+
+Bidiane was the most interesting of the group. She was evidently a born
+manager and the ruling spirit in the household, for he could see that
+they all stood in awe of her. She must possess some force of will to
+enable her to subdue her natural eagerness and vivacity, so as to appear
+sober and reserved. His presence was evidently a constraint to the
+little red-haired witch, and he could scarcely have understood her
+character, if Agapit had not supplied him with a key to it.
+
+Young as she was, she acutely appreciated the racial differences about
+her. There were two worlds in her mind,--French and English. The
+careless predilections of her aunt had become fierce prejudices with
+her, and, at present, although she was proud to have an Englishman under
+their roof, she was at the same time tortured by the contrast that she
+knew he must find between the humble home of her relatives and the more
+prosperous surroundings of the English people with whom he was
+accustomed to mingle.
+
+"She is a clever little imp," Agapit had said, "and wise beyond her
+years."
+
+Vesper, when his unobtrusive examination of her small resolved face was
+over, glanced about the low, square room in which they sat. The sun was
+just leaving it. The family would soon be thinking of going to bed. All
+around the room were other rooms evidently used as sleeping apartments,
+for through a half-open door he saw an unmade bed, and he knew, from the
+construction of the house, that there was no upper story.
+
+After a time the silence became oppressive, and Mirabelle Marie, seeing
+that the stranger would not entertain her, set herself to the task of
+entertaining him, and with an ingratiating and insinuating smile
+informed him that the biggest liar on the Bay lived in Bleury.
+
+"His name's Bill," she said, "Blowin' Bill Duckfoot, an' the boys git
+'round him an' say, 'Give us a yarn.' He says, 'Well, give me a chaw of
+'baccy,' then he starts off. 'Onct when I went to sea'--he's never bin
+off the Bay, you know--'it blowed as hard as it could for ten days. Then
+it blowed ten times harder. We had to lash the cook to the mast.' 'What
+did you do when you wanted grub?' says the boys. 'Oh, we unlashed him
+for awhile,' says Bill. 'One day the schooner cracked from stern to
+stem. Cap'en and men begun to holler and says we was goin' to the
+bottom.' 'Cheer up,' says Bill, 'I'll fix a way.' So he got 'em to lash
+the anchor chains 'roun' the schooner, an' that hold 'em together till
+they got to Boston, and there was nothin' too good for Bill. It was
+cousin Duckfoot, an' brother Duckfoot, and good frien' Duckfoot, and
+lots of treatin'."
+
+Vesper in suppressed astonishment surveyed Mirabelle Marie, who, at the
+conclusion of her story, burst into a fit of such hearty laughter that
+she seemed to be threatened there and then with a fit of apoplexy. Her
+face grew purple, tears ran down her cheeks, and through eyes that had
+become mere slits in her face she looked at Claude, who too was
+convulsed with amusement, at her two small boys, who giggled behind
+their hands, and at Bidiane, who only smiled sarcastically.
+
+Vesper at once summoned an expression of interest to his face, and
+Mirabelle Marie, encouraged by it, caught her breath with an explosive
+sound, wiped the tears from her eyes, and at once continued. "Here's
+another daisy one. 'Onct,' says Bill, 'all han's was lost 'cept me an' a
+nigger. I went to the stern as cap'en, and he to the bow as deck-han'. A
+big wave struck the schooner, and when we righted, wasn't the nigger at
+stern as cap'en, an' I was at bow as deck-han'!'"
+
+While Vesper was waiting for the conclusion of the story, a burst of
+joyous cachinnation assured him that it had already come. Mirabelle
+Marie was again rocking herself to and fro in immoderate delight, her
+head at each dip forward nearly touching her knees, while her husband
+was slapping his side vigorously.
+
+Vesper laughed himself. Truly there were many different orders of mind
+in the universe. He saw nothing amusing in the reported exploits of the
+liar Duckfoot. They also would not have brought a smile to the face of
+his beautiful Rose, yet the Corbineaus, or Watercrows, as they
+translated their name in order to make themselves appear English, found
+these stories irresistibly comical. It was a blessing for them that they
+did so, otherwise the whole realm of humor might be lost to them; and he
+was going off in a dreamy speculation with regard to their other mental
+proclivities, when he was roused by another story from his hostess.
+
+"Duckfoot is a mason by trade, an' onct he built a chimbley for a woman.
+'Make a good draught,' says she. 'You bet,' says he, an' he built his
+chimbley an' runs away; as he runs he looks back, an' there was the
+woman's duds that was hangin' by the fire goin' up the chimbley. He had
+built such a draught that nothin' could stay in the kitchen, so she had
+to go down on her knees an' beg him to change it."
+
+"To beg him to change it," vociferated Claude, and he soundly smacked
+his unresisting knee. "Oh, Lord, 'ow funny!" and he roared with laughter
+so stimulating that he forgot his fear of Vesper and Bidiane, and,
+boldly lighting his pipe, put it between his lips.
+
+Mirabelle Marie, whose flow of eloquence it was difficult to check,
+related several other tales of Duckfoot Bill. Many times, before the
+railway in this township of Clare had been built, he had told them of
+his uncle, who had, he said, a magnificent residence in Louisiana, with
+a park full of valuable animals called skunks. These animals he had
+never fully described, and they were consequently enveloped in a cloud
+of admiration and mystery, until a horde of them came with the railroad
+to the Bay, when the credulous Acadiens learned for themselves what they
+really were.
+
+During the recital of this tale, Bidiane's face went from disapproval to
+disgust, and at last, diving under the table, she seized a basket and
+went to work vigorously, as if the occupation of her fingers would ease
+the perturbation of her mind.
+
+Vesper watched her closely. She was picking out the threads of old
+cotton and woollen garments that had been cut into small pieces. These
+threads would be washed, laid out on the grass to dry, and then be
+carded, and spun, and woven over again, according to a thrifty custom of
+the Acadiens, and made into bedcovers, stockings, and cloth. The child
+must possess some industry, for this work--"pickings," as it was
+called--was usually done by the women. In brooding silence the little
+girl listened to Mirabelle Marie's final tale of Duckfoot Bill, whose
+wife called out to him, one day, from the yard, that there was a flock
+of wild geese passing over the house. Without troubling to go out, he
+merely discharged his gun up the chimney beside which he sat, and the
+ramrod, carelessly being left in, killed a certain number of geese.
+
+"How many do you guess that ramrod run through?"
+
+Vesper good-naturedly guessed two.
+
+"No,--seven," she shrieked; "they was strung in a row like dried
+apples," and she burst into fresh peals of laughter, until suddenly
+plunged into the calmness of despair by a few words from Bidiane, who
+leaned over and whispered angrily to her.
+
+Mirabelle Marie trembled, and gazed at the stranger. Was it true,--did
+he wish to commend her to a less pleasant place than Bleury for teasing
+him with these entrancing stories?
+
+She could gather nothing from his face; so she entered tremulously into
+a new subject of conversation, and, pointing to Claude's long legs,
+assured him that his heavy woollen stockings had been made entirely by
+Bidiane. "She's smart,--as smart as a steel trap," said the aunt. "She
+can catch the sheeps, hold 'em down, shear the wool, an' spin it."
+
+Bidiane immediately pushed her basket under the table with so fiery and
+resentful a glance that the unfortunate Mirabelle Marie relapsed into
+silence.
+
+"Have you ever gone to sea?" asked Vesper, of the silently smoking
+Claude.
+
+"Yessir, we mos' all goes to sea when we's young."
+
+"Onct he was wrecked," interrupted his wife.
+
+"Yessir, I was. Off Arichat we got on a ledge. We thump up an' down. We
+was all on deck but the cook. The cap'en sends me to the galley for 'im.
+'E come up, we go ashore, an' the schooner go to pieces."
+
+"Tell him about the mouse," said Bidiane, abruptly.
+
+"The mouse?--oh, yess, when I go for the cook I find 'im in the corner,
+a big stick in his 'and. I dunno 'ow 'e stan'. 'Is stove was upside
+down, an' there was an awful wariwarie" (racket). "'E seem not to think
+of danger. ''Ist,' says 'e. 'Don' mek a noise,--I wan' to kill that
+mouse.'"
+
+Vesper laughed at this, and Mirabelle Marie's face cleared.
+
+"Tell the Englishman who was the cap'en of yous," she said, impulsively,
+and she resolutely turned her back on Bidiane's terrific frown.
+
+"Well, 'e was smart," said Claude, apologetically. "'E always get on
+though 'e not know much. One day when 'e fus' wen' to sea 'is wife says,
+'All the cap'ens' wives talk about their charts, an' you ain't gut none.
+I buy one.' So she wen' to Yarmouth, an' buy 'im a chart. She also buy
+some of that shiny cloth for kitchen table w'at 'as blue scrawly lines
+like writin' on it. The cap'en leave the nex' mornin' before she was up,
+an' 'e takes with 'im the oilcloth instid of the chart, an' 'e 'angs it
+in 'is cabin; 'e didn't know no differ. 'E never could write,--that man.
+He mek always a pictur of 'is men when 'e wan' to write the fish they
+ketch. But 'e was smart, very smart. 'E mek also money. Onct 'e was
+passenger on a schooner that smacks ag'in a steamer in a fog. All 'an's
+scuttle, 'cause that mek a big scare. They forgit 'im. 'E wake; 'e find
+'imself lonely. Was 'e frightful? Oh, no; 'e can't work sails, but 'e
+steer that schooner to Boston, an' claim salvage."
+
+"Tell also the name of the cap'en," said Mirabelle Marie.
+
+Claude moved uneasily in his chair, and would not speak.
+
+"What was it?" asked Vesper.
+
+"It was Crispin," said Mirabelle Marie, solemnly. "Crispin, the brother
+of Charlitte."
+
+Vesper calmly took a cigarette from his pocket, and lighted it.
+
+"It is a nice place down the Bay," said Mirabelle Marie, uneasily.
+
+"Very nice," responded her guest.
+
+"Rose à Charlitte has a good name," she continued, "a very good name."
+
+Vesper fingered his cigarette, and gazed blankly at her.
+
+"They speak good French there," she said.
+
+Her husband and Bidiane stared at her. They had never heard such a
+sentiment from her lips before. However, they were accustomed to her
+ways, and they soon got over their surprise.
+
+"Do you not speak French?" asked Vesper.
+
+Mrs. Watercrow shrugged her shoulders. "It is no good. We are all
+English about here. How can one be French? Way back, when we went to
+mass, the priest was always botherin'--'Talk French to your young ones.
+Don't let them forgit the way the old people talked.' One day I come
+home and says to my biggest boy, '_Va ramasser des écopeaux_'" (Go pick
+up some chips). "He snarl at me, 'Do you mean potatoes?' He didn't like
+it."
+
+"Did he not understand you?" asked Vesper.
+
+"Naw, naw," said Claude, bitterly. "We 'ave French nebbors, but our
+young ones don' play with. They don' know French. My wife she speak it
+w'en we don' want 'em to know w'at we say."
+
+"You always like French," said his wife, contemptuously. "I guess you
+gut somethin' French inside you."
+
+Claude, for some reason or other, probably because, usually without an
+advocate, he now knew that he had one in Vesper, was roused to unusual
+animation. He snatched his pipe from his mouth and said, warmly, "It's
+me 'art that's French, an' sometimes it's sore. I speak not much, but I
+think often we are fools. Do the Eenglish like us? No, only a few come
+with us; they grin 'cause we put off our French speakin' like an ole
+coat. A man say to me one day, 'You 'ave nothin'. You do not go to mass,
+you preten' to be Protestan', w'en you not brought up to it. You big
+fool, you don' know w'at it is. If you was dyin' to-morrer you'd sen'
+for the priest.'"
+
+Mirabelle Marie opened her eyes wide at her husband's eloquence.
+
+He was not yet through. "An' our children, they are silly with it. They
+donno' w'at they are. All day Sunday they play; sometimes they say cuss
+words. I say, 'Do it not,' 'an' they ast me w'y. I cannot tell. They are
+not French, they are not Eenglish. They 'ave no religion. I donno' w'ere
+they go w'en they die."
+
+Mirabelle Marie boldly determined to make confidences to the Englishman
+in her turn.
+
+"The English have loads of money. I wish I could go to Boston. I could
+make it there,--yes, lots of it."
+
+Claude was not to be put down. "I like our own langwidge, oh, yes," he
+said, sadly. "W'en I was a leetle boy I wen' to school. All was
+Eenglish. They put in my 'and an Eenglish book. I'd lef my mother, I was
+stoopid. I thought all the children's teeth was broke, 'cause they spoke
+so strange. Never will I forgit my firs' day in school. W'y do they
+teach Eenglish to the French? The words was like fish 'ooks in my
+flesh."
+
+"Would you be willing to send that little girl down the Bay to a French
+convent?" said Vesper, waving his cigarette towards Bidiane.
+
+"We can't pay that," said Mirabelle Marie, eagerly.
+
+"But I would."
+
+While she was nodding her head complacently over this, the first of the
+favors to be showered on them, Claude said, slowly, "Down the Bay is
+like a bad, bad place to my children; they do not wish to go, not even
+to ride. They go towards Digby. Biddy Ann would not go to the
+convent,--would she, Biddy?"
+
+The little girl threw up her head angrily. "I hate Frenchtown, and that
+black spider, Agapit LeNoir."
+
+Claude's face darkened, and his wife chuckled. Surely now there would be
+nothing left for the Englishman to do but to transplant them all to
+Boston.
+
+"Would you not go?" asked Vesper, addressing Bidiane.
+
+"Not a damn step," said the girl, in a fury, and, violently pushing back
+her chair, she rushed from the room. If this young man wished to make a
+French girl of her, he might go on his way. She would have nothing to do
+with him. And with a rebellious and angry heart at this traitor to his
+race, as she regarded him, she climbed up a ladder in the kitchen that
+led to a sure hiding-place under the roof.
+
+Her aunt clutched her head in despair. Bidiane would ruin everything.
+"She's all eaten up to go to Boston," she gasped.
+
+"I am not a rich man," said Vesper, coldly. "I don't feel able at
+present to propose anything further for her than to give her a year or
+two in a convent."
+
+Mirabelle Marie gaped speechlessly at him. In one crashing ruin her new
+barn, and farming implements, the wagon and horses, and trunks full of
+fine clothes fell into the abyss of lost hopes. The prince had not the
+long purse that she supposed he would have. And yet such was her
+good-nature that, when she recovered from the shock, she regarded him
+just as kindly and as admiringly as before, and if he had been in the
+twinkling of an eye reduced to want she would have been the first to
+relieve him, and give what aid she could. Nothing could destroy her
+deep-rooted and extravagant admiration for the English race.
+
+Her fascinated glance followed him as he got up and sauntered to the
+open door.
+
+"You'll stop all night?" she said, hospitably, shuffling after him. "We
+have one good bed, with many feathers."
+
+He did not hear her, for in a state of extreme boredom, and slight
+absent-mindedness, he had stepped out under the poplars.
+
+"Better leave 'im alone, I guess," said Claude; then he slipped off his
+coat. "I'll go milk."
+
+"An' I'll make up the bed," said his wife; and taking the hairpins out
+of the switch that Bidiane had made her attach to her own thick lump of
+hair, she laid it on the shelf by the clock, and allowed her own brown
+wave to stream freely down her back. Then she unfastened her corsets,
+which she did not dare to take off, as no woman in Bleury who did not
+wear that article of dress tightly enfolding her chest and waist was
+considered to have reached the acme of respectability. However, she
+could for a time allow them to gape slightly apart, and having by this
+proceeding added much to her comfort, she entered one of the small rooms
+near by.
+
+Vesper meanwhile walked slowly towards the gate, while Bidiane watched
+him through a loophole in the roof. His body only was in Bleury; his
+heart was in Sleeping Water. Step by step he was following Rose about
+her daily duties. He knew just at what time of day her slender feet
+carried her to the stable, to the duck-yard, to the hen-house. He knew
+the exact hour that she entered her kitchen in the morning, and went
+from it to the pantry. He could see her beautiful face at the cool
+pantry window, as she stood mixing various dishes, and occasionally
+glancing at the passers-by on the road. Sometimes she sang gently to
+herself, "Rose of the cross, thou mystic flower," or "Dear angel ever at
+my side," or some of the Latin hymns to the Virgin.
+
+At this present moment her tasks would all be done. If there were guests
+who desired her presence, she might be seated with them in the little
+parlor. If there were none, she was probably alone in her room. Of what
+was she thinking? The blood surged to his face, there was a beating in
+his ears, and he raised his suffering glance to the sky. "O God! now I
+know why I suffered when my father died. It was to prepare me for this."
+
+Then his mind went back to Rose. Had she succeeded in driving his image
+from her pure mind and imagination? Alas! he feared not,--he would like
+to know. He had heard nothing of her since leaving Sleeping Water.
+Agapit had written once, but he had not mentioned her.
+
+This inaction was horrible,--this place wearied him insufferably. He
+glanced towards his wheel, and a sentence from one of Agapit's books
+came into his mind. It contained the advice of an old monk to a
+penitent, "My son, when in grievous temptation from trouble of the mind,
+engage violently in some exercise of the body."
+
+He was a swift rider, and there was no need for him to linger longer
+here. These people were painfully subservient. If at any time anything
+came into his mind to be done for the little girl, they would readily
+agree to it; that is, if the small tigress concurred; at present there
+was nothing to be done for her.
+
+He laid his hand on his bicycle and went towards the house again. There
+was no one to be seen, so he hurried up to the rickety barn where Claude
+sat on a milking-stool, trying to keep his long legs out of the way of a
+frisky cow.
+
+The Frenchman was overcome with stolid dismay when Vesper briefly bade
+him good-by, and going to the barn door, he stared regretfully after
+him.
+
+Mirabelle Marie, in blissful unconsciousness of the sudden departure,
+went on with her bed-making, but Bidiane, through the crack in the roof,
+saw him go, and in childish contradiction of spirit shed tears of anger
+and disappointment at the sight.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI.
+
+                            A SUPREME ADIEU.
+
+             "How reads the riddle of our life,
+               That mortals seek immortal joy,
+               That pleasures here so quickly cloy,
+             And hearts are e'en with yearnings rife?
+               That love's bright morn no midday knows,
+               And darkness comes ere even's close,
+             And fondest hopes bear seeds of strife.
+
+             "Let fools deride; Faith's God-girt breast
+               Their puny shafts can turn aside,
+               And mock with these their sin-born pride.
+             Our souls were made for God the Best;
+               'Tis He alone can satisfy
+               Their every want, can still each cry;
+             In Him alone shall they find rest."
+
+                           CORNELIUS O'BRIEN, _Archbishop of Halifax_.
+
+
+The night was one of velvety softness, and the stars, as if suspecting
+his mission, blinked delicately and discreetly down upon him, while
+Vesper, who knew every step of the way, went speeding down the Bay with
+a wildly beating heart.
+
+Several Acadiens recognized him as he swept past them on the road, but
+he did not stop to parley with them, for he wished to reach Yarmouth as
+soon as possible. His brain was tortured, and it seemed to him that, at
+every revolution of his wheels, a swift, subtle temptation assaulted him
+more insidiously and more fiercely. He would pass right by the Sleeping
+Water Inn. Why should he not pause there for a few minutes and make some
+arrangement with Rose about Narcisse, who was still in Boston? He
+certainly had a duty to perform towards the child. Would it not be
+foolish for him to pass by the mother's door without speaking to her of
+him? What harm could there be in a conversation of five minutes'
+duration?
+
+His head throbbed, his muscles contracted. Only this afternoon he had
+been firm, as firm as a rock. He had sternly resolved not to see her
+again, not to write to her, not to meet her, not to send her a message,
+unless he should hear that she had been released from the bond of her
+marriage. What had come over him now? He was as weak as a child. He had
+better stop and think the matter over; and he sprang from his wheel and
+threw himself down on a grassy bank, covered with broad leaves that
+concealed the dead and withered flowers of the summer.
+
+Somewhere in the darkness behind him was lonely Piau's Isle, where
+several of the Acadien forefathers of the Bay lay buried. What courage
+and powers of endurance they had possessed! They had bravely borne
+their burdens, lived their day, and were now at rest. Some day,--in a
+few years, perhaps,--he, too, would be a handful of dust, and he, too,
+would leave a record behind him; what would his record be?
+
+He bit his lip and set his teeth savagely. He was a fool and a coward.
+He would not go to Sleeping Water, but would immediately turn his back
+on temptation, and go to Weymouth. He could stay at a hotel there all
+night, and take the train in the morning.
+
+The soft air caressed his weary head; for a long time he lay staring up
+at the stars through the interlaced branches of an apple-tree over him,
+then he slowly rose. His face was towards the head of the Bay; he no
+longer looked towards Sleeping Water, but for a minute he stood
+irresolutely, and in that brief space of time his good resolution was
+irrevocably lost.
+
+Some girls were going to a merrymaking, and, as they went, they laughed
+gaily and continuously. One of them had clear, silvery tones like those
+of Rose. The color again surged to his face, the blood flew madly
+through his veins. He must see her, if only for an instant; and,
+hesitating no longer, he turned and went careering swiftly through the
+darkness.
+
+A short time later he had reached the inn. There was a light in Rose's
+window. She must have gone to bed. Célina only was in the kitchen, and,
+with a hasty glance at her, he walked to the stable.
+
+A terrible quacking in the duck-yard advised him who was there, and he
+was further assured by hearing an irritable voice exclaim, "If fowls
+were hatched dumb, there would not be this distracting tumult!"
+
+Agapit was after a duck. It fell to his lot to do the killing for the
+household, and it was so great a trial to his kind heart that, if the
+other members of the family had due warning, they usually, at such
+times, shut themselves up to be out of reach of his lamentable outcries
+when he was confronted by a protesting chicken, an innocent lamb, a
+tumultuous pig, or a trusting calf.
+
+Just now he emerged from the yard, holding a sleepy drake by the wing.
+
+"_Miséricorde!_" he exclaimed, when he almost ran into Vesper, "who is
+it? You--you?" and he peered at him through the darkness.
+
+"Yes, it is I."
+
+"Confiding fool," said Agapit, impatiently tossing the drake back among
+his startled comrades, "I will save thy neck once more."
+
+Vesper marked the emphasis. "I am on my way to Yarmouth," he said,
+calmly, "and I have stopped to see your cousin about Narcisse."
+
+"Ah!--he is well, I trust."
+
+"He is better than when he was here."
+
+"His mother has gone to bed."
+
+"I will wait, then, until the morning."
+
+"Ah!" said Agapit again; then he laughed recklessly and seized Vesper's
+hand. "I cannot pretend. You see that I am rejoiced to have you again
+with us."
+
+"I, too, am glad to be here."
+
+"But you will not stay?"
+
+"Oh, no, Agapit--you know me better than that."
+
+Vesper's tone was confident, yet Agapit looked anxiously at him through
+the gathering gloom. "It would be better for Rose not to see you."
+
+"Agapit--we are not babies."
+
+"No, you are worse,--it is well said that only our Lord loves lovers. No
+other would have patience."
+
+Vesper held his straight figure a little straighter, and his manner
+warned the young Acadien to be careful of what he said, but he dashed
+on, "Words are brave; actions are braver."
+
+"How is Madame de Forêt?" asked Vesper, shortly.
+
+"What do you expect--joyous, riotous health? Reflect only that she has
+been completely overthrown about her child. I hope that madame, your
+mother, is well."
+
+"She has not been in such good health for years. She is greatly
+entertained by Narcisse," and Vesper smiled at some reminiscence.
+
+"It is one of the most charming of nights," said Agapit, insinuatingly.
+"Toochune would be glad to have a harness on his back. We could fly over
+the road to Yarmouth. It would be more agreeable than travelling by
+day."
+
+"Thank you, Agapit--I do not wish to go to-night."
+
+"Oh, you self-willed one--you Lucifer!" said Agapit, wildly. "You
+dare-all, you conquer-all! Take care that you are not trapped."
+
+"Come, show me a room," said Vesper, who was secretly gratified with the
+irrepressible delight of the Acadien in again seeing him,--a delight
+that could not be conquered by his anxiety.
+
+"This evening the house is again full," said Agapit. "Rose is quite
+wearied; come softly up-stairs. I can give you but the small apartment
+next her own, but you must not rise early in the morning, and seek an
+interview with her."
+
+Two angry red spots immediately appeared in Vesper's cheeks, and he
+stared haughtily at him.
+
+Agapit snapped his fingers. "I trust you not that much, though if you
+had not come back, my confidence would have reached to eternity. You are
+unfortunately too nobly human,--why were you not divine? But I must not
+reproach. Have I not too been a lover? You are capable of all, even of
+talking through the wall with your beloved. You should have stayed away,
+you should have stayed away!" and, grumbling and shaking his head, he
+ushered his guest up-stairs, and into a tiny and exquisitely clean room,
+that contained only a bed, a table, a wash-stand, and one chair.
+
+Agapit motioned Vesper to the chair, and sprawled himself half over the
+foot of the bed, half out the open window, while he talked to his
+companion, whose manner had a new and caressing charm that attracted him
+even more irresistibly than his former cool and somewhat careless one
+had done.
+
+"Ah, why is life so?" he at last exclaimed, springing up, with a sigh.
+"Under all is such sadness. Your presence gives such joy. Why should it
+be denied us?"
+
+Vesper stared at his shoes to hide the nervous tears that sprang to his
+eyes.
+
+Agapit immediately averted his sorrowful glance. "You are not angry with
+me for my free speech?"
+
+"Good heavens, no!" said Vesper, irritably turning his back on him, "but
+I would thank you to leave me."
+
+"Good night," said the Acadien, softly. "May the blessed Virgin give you
+peace. Remember that I love you, for I prophesy that we on the morrow
+shall quarrel," and with this cheerful assurance he gently closed the
+door, and went to the next room.
+
+Rose threw open the door to him, and Agapit, though he was prepared for
+any change in her, yet for an instant could not conceal his
+astonishment. Where was her pallor,--her weariness? Gone, like the mists
+of the morning before the glory of the sun. Her face was delicately
+colored, her blue eyes were flooded with the most exquisite and tender
+light that he had ever seen in them. She had heard her lover's step, and
+Agapit dejectedly reflected that he should have even more trouble with
+her than with Vesper.
+
+"Surely, I am to see him to-night?" she murmured.
+
+"Surely not," growled Agapit. "For what do you wish to see him?"
+
+"Agapit,--should not a mother hear of her little one?"
+
+"Is it for that only you wish to see him?"
+
+"For that,--also for other things. Is he changed, Agapit? Has his face
+grown more pale?"
+
+Agapit broke into vigorous French. "He is more foolish than ever, that I
+assure thee. Such a simpleton, and thou lovest him!"
+
+"If he is a fool, then there are no wise men in the world; but thou art
+only teasing. Ah, Agapit, dear Agapit," and she clasped her hands, and
+extended them towards him. "Tell me only what he says of Narcisse."
+
+"He is well; he will tell thee in the morning of a plan he has. Go now
+to bed,--and Rose, to-morrow be sensible, be wise. Thou wert so
+noteworthy these three weeks ago, what has come to thee now?"
+
+"Agapit, thou dost remember thy mother a very little, is it not so?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"Thou couldst part from her; but suppose she came back from the dead.
+Suppose thou couldst hear her voice in the hall, what wouldst thou do?"
+
+"I would run to greet her," he said, rashly. "I would be mad with
+pleasure."
+
+"That man was as one dead," she said, with an eloquent gesture towards
+the next room. "I did not think of seeing him again. How can I cease
+from joy?"
+
+"Give me thy promise," he said, abruptly, "not to see him without me.
+Otherwise, thou mayst be prowling in the morning, when I oversleep
+myself, and thou wilt talk about me to this charming stranger."
+
+"Agapit," she said, in amazement, "wouldst thou insult me?"
+
+"No, little rabbit,--I would only prevent thee from insulting me."
+
+"It is like jailorizing. I shall not be a naughty child in a cell."
+
+"But thou wilt," he said, with determination. "Give me thy promise."
+
+Rose became indignant, and Agapit, who was watching her keenly, stepped
+inside her room, lest he should be overheard. "Rose," he said, swiftly,
+and with a deep, indrawn breath, "have I not been a brother to thee?"
+
+"Yes, yes,--until now."
+
+"Now, most of all,--some day thou wilt feel it. Would I do anything to
+injure thee? I tell thee thou art like a weak child now. Have I not been
+in love? Do not I know that for a time one's blood burns, and one is
+mad?"
+
+"But what do you fear?" she asked, proudly, drawing back from him.
+
+"I fear nothing, little goose," he exclaimed, catching her by the wrist,
+"for I take precautions. I have talked to this young man,--do not I also
+esteem him? I tell thee, as I told him,--he is capable of all, and when
+thou seest him, a word, a look, and he will insist upon thy leaving thy
+husband to go with him."
+
+"Agapit, I am furious with thee. Would I do a wrong thing?"
+
+"Not of thyself; but think, Rose, thou art weak and nervous. Thy
+strength has been tried; when thou seest thy lover thou wilt be like a
+silly sheep. Trust me,--when thy father, on his dying bed, pointed to
+thee, I knew his meaning. Did not I say 'Yes, yes, I will take care of
+her, for she is beautiful, and men are wicked.'"
+
+"But thou didst let me marry Charlitte," she said, with a stifled cry.
+
+Agapit was crushed by her accusation. He made a despairing gesture. "I
+have expected this, but, Rose, I was younger. I did not know the hearts
+of women. We thought it well,--your stepmother and I. He begged for
+thee, and we did not dream--young girls sometimes do well to settle. He
+seemed a wise man--"
+
+"Forgive me," cried Rose, wildly, and suddenly pushing him towards the
+door, "and go away. I will not talk to Mr. Nimmo without thee."
+
+"Some day thou wilt thank me," said Agapit. "It is common to reproach
+those who favor us. Left alone, thou wouldst rise early in the
+morning,--thy handsome Vesper would whisper in thy ear, and I, rising,
+might find thee convinced that there is nothing for thee but to submit
+to the sacrilege of a divorce."
+
+Rose was not touched by his wistful tones. Her pretty fingers even
+assisted him gently from the room, and, philosophically shrugging his
+shoulders, he went to bed.
+
+Rose, left alone, pressed her empty arms and palpitating heart against
+the bare walls of the next room. "You are good and noble,--you would do
+nothing wrong. That wicked Agapit, he thinks evil of thee--" and, with
+other fond and foolish words, she stood mutely caressing the wall until
+fatigue overpowered her, when she undressed and crept into her lonely
+bed.
+
+Agapit, who possessed a warm heart, an ardent imagination, and a lively
+regard for the other sex, was at present without a love-affair of his
+own, and his mind was therefore free to dwell on the troubles of Rose
+and Vesper. All night long he dreamed of lovers. They haunted him,
+tortured him with their griefs, misunderstandings, and afflictions, and,
+rather glad than sorry to awake from his disturbed sleep, he lifted his
+shaggy head from the pillow early in the morning and, vehemently shaking
+it, muttered, "The devil himself is in those who make love."
+
+Then, with his protective instinct keenly alive, he sprang up and went
+to the window, where he saw something that made him again mutter a
+reference to the evil one. His window was directly over that of his
+cousin, and although it was but daybreak, she was up and dressed, and
+leaning from it to look at Vesper, who stood on the grass below. They
+were not carrying on a conversation; she was true to the letter of her
+promise, but this mute, unspoken dialogue was infinitely more
+dangerous.
+
+Agapit groaned, and surveyed Vesper's glowing face. Who would dream that
+he, so dignified, would condescend to this? Was it arranged through the
+wall, or did he walk under her window and think of her until his
+influence drew her from her bed? "I also have done such things," he
+muttered; "possibly I may again, therefore I must be merciful."
+
+Vesper at this instant caught sight of his dishevelled head. Rose also
+looked up, and Agapit retreated in dismay at the sound of their stifled
+but irresistible laughter.
+
+"Ah, you do not cry all the time," he ejaculated, in confusion; then he
+made haste to attire himself and to call for Rose, who demurely went
+down-stairs with him and greeted Vesper with quiet and loving reserve.
+
+The two young men went with her to the kitchen, where she touched a
+match to the fire. While it was burning she sat down and talked to them,
+or, rather, they talked to her. The question was what to do with
+Narcisse.
+
+"Madame de Forêt," said Vesper, softly, "I will tell you what I have
+already told your cousin. I returned home unexpectedly a fortnight ago,
+having in the interval missed a telegram from my mother, telling me that
+your boy was in Boston. When I reached my own door, I saw to my surprise
+the child of--of--"
+
+"Of the woman you love," thought Agapit, grimly.
+
+"Your child," continued Vesper, in some confusion, "who was kneeling on
+the pavement before our house. He had dug a hole in the narrow circle of
+earth left around the tree, and he was thrusting porridge and cream down
+it, while the sparrows on the branches above watched him with interest.
+Here in Sleeping Water we had about stopped that feeding of the trees;
+but my mother, I found, indulged him in everything. He was glad to see
+me, and I--I had dreaded the solitude of my home, and I quickly
+discovered that it had been banished by his presence. He has effected a
+transformation in my mother, and she wishes me to beg you that we may
+keep him for a time."
+
+Agapit had never before heard Vesper speak at such length. He himself
+was silent, and waited for some expression of opinion from Rose.
+
+She turned to him. "You remember what our doctor says when he looks over
+my little one,--that he is weak, and the air of the Bay is too strong
+for him?"
+
+"The doctors in Boston also say it," responded Vesper. "Mrs. Nimmo has
+taken him to them."
+
+Rose flashed a glance of inexpressible gratitude at Vesper.
+
+"You wish him to remain in Boston?" said Agapit.
+
+"Yes, yes,--if they will be so kind, and if it is right that we allow
+that they keep him for a time."
+
+Agapit reflected a minute. Could Rose endure the double blow of a
+separation from her child and from her lover? Yes, he knew her well
+enough to understand that, although her mother heart and her woman's
+heart would be torn, she would, after the first sharp pang was over,
+cheerfully endure any torture in order to contribute to the welfare of
+the two beings that she loved best on earth. Narcisse would be benefited
+physically by the separation, Vesper would be benefited mentally. He
+knew, in addition, that a haunting dread of Charlitte possessed her.
+Although he was a fickle, unfaithful man, the paternal instinct might
+some day awake in him, and he would return and demand his child. Agapit
+would not himself be surprised to see him reappear at any time in
+Sleeping Water, therefore he said, shortly, "It is a good plan."
+
+"We can at least try it," said Vesper. "I will report how it works."
+
+"And while he is with you, you will have some instruction in his own
+religion given him?" said Rose, timidly.
+
+"You need not mention that," said Vesper; "it goes without saying."
+
+Rose took a crucifix from her breast and handed it to him. "You will
+give him that from his mother," she said, with trembling lips.
+
+Vesper held it in his hand for a minute, then he silently put it in his
+pocket.
+
+There was a long pause, broken at last by Agapit, who said, "Will you
+get the breakfast, Rose? Mr. Nimmo assured me that he wished to start at
+once. Is it not so?"
+
+"Yes," said Vesper, shortly.
+
+Rose got up and went to the pantry.
+
+"Will you put the things on this table?" said Vesper. "And will not you
+and Agapit have breakfast with me?"
+
+Rose nodded her head, and, with a breaking heart, she went to and fro,
+her feet touching the hardwood floor and the rugs as noiselessly as if
+there had been a death in the house.
+
+The two young men sat and stared at the stove or out the windows. Agapit
+was anathematizing Vesper for returning to settle a matter that could
+have been arranged by writing, and Vesper was alternately in a dumb fury
+with Agapit for not leaving him alone with Rose, or in a state of
+extravagant laudation because he did not do so. What a watch-dog he
+was,--what a sure guardian to leave over his beautiful sweetheart!
+
+Dispirited and without appetite, the three at last assembled around the
+table. Rose choked over every morsel that she ate, until, unable longer
+to endure the trial, she left the table, and contented herself with
+waiting upon them.
+
+Vesper was famished, having eaten so little the evening before, yet he
+turned away from the toast and coffee and chops that Rose set before
+him.
+
+"I will go now; Agapit, come to the gate with me. I want to speak to
+you."
+
+Rose started violently. It seemed to her that her whole agitated,
+overwrought soul had gone out to her lover in a shriek of despair, yet
+she had not uttered a sound.
+
+Vesper could not endure the agony of her eyes. "Rose," he said,
+stretching out his hands to her, "will you do as I wish?"
+
+"No," said Agapit, stepping between them.
+
+"Rose," said Vesper, caressingly, "shall I go to see Charlitte?"
+
+"Yes, yes," she moaned, desperately, and sinking to a chair, she dropped
+her swimming head on the table.
+
+"No," said Agapit, again, "you shall not break God's laws. Rose is
+married to Charlitte."
+
+Vesper tried to pass him, to assist Rose, who was half fainting, but
+Agapit's burly form was immovable, and the furious young American lifted
+his arm to strike him.
+
+"_Nâni_," said Agapit, tossing his arm in the air, "two blows from no
+man for me," and he promptly knocked Vesper down.
+
+Rose, shocked and terrified, instantly recovered. She ran to her fallen
+hero, bent over him with fond and distracted words, and when he
+struggled to his feet, and with a red and furious face would have flown
+at Agapit, she restrained him, by clinging to his arm.
+
+"Dear fools," said Agapit, "I would have saved you this humbling, but
+you would not listen. It is now time to part. The doctor comes up the
+road."
+
+Vesper made a superhuman effort at self-control, and passed his hand
+over his eyes, to clear away the mists of passion. Then he looked
+through the kitchen window. The doctor was indeed driving up to the inn.
+
+"Good-by, Rose," he exclaimed, "and do you, Agapit," and he surveyed the
+Acadien in bitter resentment, "treat Charlitte as you have treated me,
+if he comes for her."
+
+Even in her despair Rose reflected that they were parting in anger.
+
+"Vesper, Vesper,--most darling of men," she cried, wildly, detaining
+him, "shake hands, at least."
+
+"I will not," he muttered, then he gently put her from him, and flung
+himself from the room.
+
+"One does not forget those things," said Agapit, gloomily, and he
+followed her out-of-doors.
+
+Vesper, staggering so that he could hardly mount his wheel, was just
+about to leave the yard. Rose clung to the doorpost, and watched him;
+then she ran to the gate.
+
+Down, down the Bay he went; farther, farther, always from her. First the
+two shining wheels disappeared, then his straight blue back, then the
+curly head with the little cap. She had lost him,--perhaps forever; and
+this time she fainted in earnest, and Agapit carried her to the kitchen,
+where the English doctor, who had been the one to attend Vesper, stood,
+with a shrewd and pitying look on his weather-beaten face.
+
+
+
+
+                                BOOK II.
+
+                                BIDIANE
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+                    A NEW ARRIVAL AT SLEEPING WATER.
+
+                 "But swift or slow the days will pass,
+                    The longest night will have a morn,
+                    And to each day is duly born
+                  A night from Time's inverted glass."
+
+                                                     --_Aminta._
+
+
+Five years have passed away,--five long years. Five times the Acadien
+farmers have sown their seeds. Five times they have gathered their
+crops. Five times summer suns have smiled upon the Bay, and five times
+winter winds have chilled it. And five times five changes have there
+been in Sleeping Water, though it is a place that changes little.
+
+Some old people have died, some new ones have been born, but chief among
+all changes has been the one effected by the sometime presence, and now
+always absence, of the young Englishman from Boston, who had come so
+quietly among the Acadiens, and had gone so quietly, and yet whose
+influence had lingered, and would always linger among them.
+
+In the first place, Rose à Charlitte had given up the inn. Shortly
+after the Englishman had gone away, her uncle had died, and had left
+her, not a great fortune, but a very snug little sum of money--and with
+a part of it she had built herself a cottage on the banks of Sleeping
+Water River, where she now lived with Célina, her former servant, who
+had, in her devotion to her mistress, taken a vow never to marry unless
+Rose herself should choose a husband. This there seemed little
+likelihood of her doing. She had apparently forsworn marriage when she
+rejected the Englishman. All the Bay knew that he had been violently in
+love with her, all the Bay knew that she had sent him away, but none
+knew the reason for it. She had apparently loved him,--she had certainly
+never loved any other man. It was suspected that Agapit LeNoir was in
+the secret, but he would not discuss the Englishman with any one, and,
+gentle and sweet as Rose was, there were very few who cared to broach
+the subject to her.
+
+Another change had been the coming to Sleeping Water of a family from up
+the Bay. They kept the inn now, and they were _protégés_ of the
+Englishman, and relatives of a young girl that he and his mother had
+taken away--away across the ocean to France some four years
+before--because she was a badly brought up child, who did not love her
+native tongue nor her father's people.
+
+It had been a wonderful thing that had happened to these Watercrows in
+the coming of the Englishman to the Bay. His mission had been to search
+for the heirs of Etex LeNoir, who had been murdered by his
+great-grandfather at the time of the terrible expulsion, and he had
+found a direct one in the person of this naughty little Bidiane.
+
+She had been a great trouble to him at first, it was said, but, under
+his wise government, she had soon sobered down; and she had also brought
+him luck, as much luck as a pot of gold, for, directly after he had
+discovered her he--who had not been a rich young man, but one largely
+dependent on his mother--had fallen heir to a large fortune, left to him
+by a distant relative. This relative had been a great-aunt, who had
+heard of his romantic and dutiful journey to Acadie, and, being touched
+by it, and feeling assured that he was a worthy young man, she had
+immediately made a will, leaving him all that she possessed, and had
+then died.
+
+He had sought to atone for the sins of his forefathers, and had reaped a
+rich reward.
+
+A good deal of the Englishman's money had been bestowed on these
+Watercrows. With kindly tolerance, he had indulged a whim of theirs to
+go to Boston when they were obliged to leave their heavily mortgaged
+farm. It was said that they had expected to make vast sums of money
+there. The Englishman knew that they could not do so, but that they
+might cease the repinings and see for themselves what a great city
+really was for poor people, he had allowed them to make a short stay in
+one.
+
+The result had been that they were horrified; yes, absolutely
+horrified,--this family transported from the wide, beautiful Bay,--at
+the narrowness of the streets in the large city of Boston, at the rush
+of people, the race for work, the general crowding and pushing, the
+oppression of the poor, the tiny rooms in which they were obliged to
+live, and the foul air which fairly suffocated them.
+
+They had begged the Englishman to let them come back to the Bay, even if
+they lived only in a shanty. They could not endure that terrible city.
+
+He generously had given them the Sleeping Water Inn that he had bought
+when Rose à Charlitte had left it, and there they had tried to keep a
+hotel, with but indifferent success, until Claudine, the widow of
+Isidore Kessy, had come to assist them.
+
+The Acadiens in Sleeping Water, with their keen social instincts, and
+sympathetically curious habit of looking over, and under, and into, and
+across every subject of interest to them, were never tired of discussing
+Vesper Nimmo and his affairs. He had still with him the little Narcisse
+who had run from the Bay five years before, and, although the Englishman
+himself never wrote to Rose à Charlitte, there came every week to the
+Bay a letter addressed to her in the handwriting of the young Bidiane
+LeNoir, who, according to the instructions of the Englishman, gave Rose
+a full and minute account of every occurrence in her child's life. In
+this way she was kept from feeling lonely.
+
+These letters were said to be delectable, yes, quite delectable. Célina
+said so, and she ought to know.
+
+The white-headed, red-coated mail-driver, who never flagged in his
+admiration for Vesper, was just now talking about him. Twice a day
+during the long five years had Emmanuel de la Rive flashed over the long
+road to the station. Twice a day had this descendant of the old French
+nobleman courteously taken off his hat to the woman who kept the
+station, and then, placing it on his knee, had sat down to discuss
+calmly and impartially the news of the day with her, in the ten minutes
+that he allowed himself before the train arrived. He in the village, she
+at the station, could most agreeably keep the ball of gossip rolling, so
+that on its way up and down the Bay it might not make too long a
+tarrying at Sleeping Water.
+
+On this particular July morning he was on his favorite subject. "Has it
+happened to come to your ears," he said in his shrill, musical voice to
+Madame Thériault, who, as of old, was rocking a cradle with her foot,
+and spinning with her hands, "that there is talk of a great scheme that
+the Englishman has in mind for having cars that will run along the
+shores of the Bay, without a locomotive?"
+
+"Yes, I have heard."
+
+"It would be a great thing for the Bay, as we are far from these
+stations in the woods."
+
+"It is my belief that he will some day return, and Rose will then marry
+him," said the woman, who, true to the traditions of her sex, took a
+more lively interest in the affairs of the heart than in those connected
+with means of transportation.
+
+"It is evident that she does not wish to marry now," he said, modestly.
+
+"She lives like a nun. It is incredible; she is young, yet she thinks
+only of good works."
+
+"At least, her heart is not broken."
+
+"Hearts do not break when one has plenty of money," said Madame
+Thériault, wisely.
+
+"If it were not for the child, I daresay that she would become a holy
+woman. Did you hear that the family with typhoid fever can at last leave
+her house?"
+
+"Yes, long ago,--ages."
+
+"I heard only this morning," he said, dejectedly, then he brightened,
+"but it was told to me that it is suspected that the young Bidiane
+LeNoir will come back to the Bay this summer."
+
+"Indeed,--can that be so?"
+
+"It is quite true, I think. I had it from the blacksmith, whose wife
+Perside heard it from Célina."
+
+"Who had it from Rose--_eh bonn! eh bonn! eh bonn!_" (_Eh bien!_--well,
+well, well). "The young girl is now old enough to marry. Possibly the
+Englishman will marry her."
+
+Emmanuel's fine face flushed, and his delicate voice rose high in
+defence of his adored Englishman. "No, no; he does not change, that
+one,--not more so than the hills. He waits like Gabriel for Evangeline.
+This is also the opinion of the Bay. You are quite alone--but hark! is
+that the train?" and clutching his mail-bag by its long neck, he slipped
+to the kitchen door, which opened on the platform of the station.
+
+Yes; it was indeed the Flying Bluenose, coming down the straight track
+from Pointe à l'Eglise, with a shrill note of warning.
+
+Emmanuel hurried to the edge of the platform, and extended his mail-bag
+to the clerk in shirt-sleeves, who leaned from the postal-car to take
+it, and to hand him one in return. Then, his duty over, he felt himself
+free to take observations of any passengers that there might be for
+Sleeping Water.
+
+There was just one, and--could it be possible--could he believe the
+evidence of his eyesight--had the little wild, red-haired apostate from
+up the Bay at last come back, clothed and in her right mind? He made a
+mute, joyous signal to the station woman who stood in the doorway, then
+he drew a little nearer to the very composed and graceful girl who had
+just been assisted from the train, with great deference, by a youthful
+conductor.
+
+"Are my trunks all out?" she said to him, in a tone of voice that
+assured the mail-man that, without being bold or immodest, she was quite
+well able to take care of herself.
+
+The conductor pointed to the brakemen, who were tumbling out some
+luggage to the platform.
+
+"I hope that they will be careful of my wheel," said the girl.
+
+"It's all right," replied the conductor, and he raised his arm as a
+signal for the train to move on. "If anything goes wrong with it, send
+it to this station, and I will take it to Yarmouth and have it mended
+for you."
+
+"Thank you," said the girl, graciously; then she turned to Emmanuel, and
+looked steadfastly at his red jacket.
+
+He, meanwhile, politely tried to avert his eyes from her, but he could
+not do so. She was fresh from the home of the Englishman in Paris, and
+he could not conceal his tremulous eager interest in her. She was not
+beautiful, like flaxen-haired Rose à Charlitte, nor dark and statuesque,
+like the stately Claudine; but she was _distinguée_, yes,
+_très-distinguée_, and her manner was just what he had imagined that of
+a true Parisienne would be like. She was small and dainty, and
+possessed a back as straight as a soldier's, and a magnificent bust. Her
+round face was slightly freckled, her nose was a little upturned, but
+the hazy, fine mass of hair that surrounded her head was most
+beauteous,--it was like the sun shining through the reddish meadow
+grass.
+
+He was her servant, her devoted slave, and Emmanuel, who had never
+dreamed that he possessed patrician instincts, bowed low before her,
+"Mademoiselle, I am at your service."
+
+"_Merci, monsieur_" (thank you, sir), she said, with conventional
+politeness; then in rapid and exquisite French, that charmed him almost
+to tears, she asked, mischievously, "But I have never been here before,
+how do you know me?"
+
+He bowed again. "The name of Mademoiselle Bidiane LeNoir is often on our
+lips. Mademoiselle, I salute your return."
+
+[Illustration: "'MADEMOISELLE, I SALUTE YOUR RETURN.'"]
+
+"You are very kind, Monsieur de la Rive," she said, with a frank smile;
+then she precipitated herself on a bed of yellow marigolds growing
+beside the station house. "Oh, the delightful flowers!"
+
+"Is she not charming?" murmured Emmanuel, in a blissful undertone, to
+Madame Thériault. "What grace, what courtesy!--and it is due to the
+Englishman."
+
+Madame Thériault's black eyes were critically running over Bidiane's
+tailor-made gown. "The Englishman will marry her," she said,
+sententiously. Then she asked, abruptly, "Have you ever seen her
+before?"
+
+"Yes, once, years ago; she was a little hawk, I assure you."
+
+"She will do now," and the woman approached her. "Mademoiselle, may I
+ask for your checks."
+
+Bidiane sprang up from the flower bed and caught her by both hands.
+"You are Madame Thériault--I know of you from Mr. Nimmo. Ah, it is
+pleasant to be among friends. For days and days it has been
+strangers--strangers--only strangers. Now I am with my own people," and
+she proudly held up her red head.
+
+The woman blushed in deep gratification. "Mademoiselle, I am more than
+glad to see you. How is the young Englishman who left many friends on
+the Bay?"
+
+"Do you call him young? He is at least thirty."
+
+"But he was young when here."
+
+"True, I forgot that. He is well, very well. He is never ill now. He is
+always busy, and such a good man--oh, so good!" and Bidiane clasped her
+hands, and rolled her lustrous, tawny eyes to the sky.
+
+"And the child of Rose à Charlitte?" said Emmanuel, eagerly.
+
+"A little angel,--so calm, so gentle, so polite. If you could see him
+bow to the ladies,--it is ravishing, I assure you. And he is always
+spoiled by Mrs. Nimmo, who adores him."
+
+"Will he come back to the Bay?"
+
+"I do not know," and Bidiane's vivacious face grew puzzled. "I do not
+ask questions--alas! have I offended you?--I assure you I was thinking
+only of myself. I am curious. I talk too much, but you have seen Mr.
+Nimmo. You know that beyond a certain point he will not go. I am
+ignorant of his intentions with regard to the child. I am ignorant of
+his mother's intentions; all I know is that Mr. Nimmo wishes him to be a
+forester."
+
+"A forester!" ejaculated Madame Thériault, "and what is that trade?"
+
+Bidiane laughed gaily. "But, my dear madame, it is not a trade. It is a
+profession. Here on the Bay we do not have it, but abroad one hears
+often of it. Young men study it constantly. It is to take care of trees.
+Do you know that if they are cut down, water courses dry up? In Clare we
+do not think of that, but in other countries trees are thought useful
+and beautiful, and they keep them."
+
+"Hold--but that is wonderful," said Emmanuel.
+
+Bidiane turned to him with a winning smile. "Monsieur, how am I to get
+to the shore? I am eaten up with impatience to see Madame de Forêt and
+my aunt."
+
+"But there is my cart, mademoiselle," and he pointed to the shed beyond
+them. "I shall feel honored to conduct you."
+
+"I gladly accept your offer, monsieur. _Au revoir_, madame."
+
+Madame Thériault reluctantly watched them depart. She would like to keep
+this gay, charming creature with her for an hour longer.
+
+"It is wonderful that they did not come to meet you," said Emmanuel,
+"but they did not expect you naturally."
+
+"I sent a telegram from Halifax," said Bidiane, "but can you believe
+it?--I was so stupid as to say Wednesday instead of Tuesday. Therefore
+Madame de Forêt expects me to-morrow."
+
+"You advised her rather than Mirabelle Marie, but wherefore?"
+
+Bidiane shook her shining head. "I do not know. I did not ask; I did
+simply as Mr. Nimmo told me. He arranges all. I was with friends until
+this morning. Only that one thing did I do alone on the journey,--that
+is to telegraph,--and I did it wrong," and a joyous, subdued peal of
+laughter rang out on the warm morning air.
+
+Emmanuel reverently assisted her into his cart, and got in beside her.
+His blood had been quickened in his veins by this unexpected occurrence.
+He tried not to look too often at this charming girl beside him, but,
+in spite of his best efforts, his eyes irresistibly and involuntarily
+kept seeking her face. She was so eloquent, so well-mannered; her
+clothes were smooth and sleek like satin; there was a faint perfume of
+lovely flowers about her,--she had come from the very heart and centre
+of the great world into which he had never ventured. She was charged
+with magic. What an acquisition to the Bay she would be!
+
+He carefully avoided the ruts and stones of the road. He would not for
+the world give her an unnecessary shock, and he ardently wished that
+this highway from the woods to the Bay might be as smooth as his desire
+would have it.
+
+"And this is Sleeping Water," she said, dreamily.
+
+Emmanuel assured her that it was, and she immediately began to ply him
+with questions about the occupants of the various farms that they were
+passing, until a sudden thought flashed into her mind and made her
+laughter again break out like music.
+
+"I am thinking--ah, me! it is really too absurd for anything--of the
+astonishment of Madame de Forêt when I walk in upon her. Tell me, I beg
+you, some particulars about her. She wrote not very much about herself."
+
+Emmanuel had a great liking for Rose, and he joyfully imparted to
+Bidiane the most minute particulars concerning her dress, appearance,
+conduct, daily life, her friends and surroundings. He talked steadily
+for a mile, and Bidiane, whose curiosity seemed insatiable on the
+subject of Rose, urged him on until he was forced to pause for breath.
+
+Bidiane turned her head to look at him, and immediately had her
+attention attracted to a new subject. "That red jacket is charming,
+monsieur," she said, with flattering interest. "If it is quite
+agreeable, I should like to know where you got it."
+
+"Mademoiselle, you know that in Halifax there are many soldiers."
+
+"Yes,--English ones. There were French ones in Paris. Oh, I adore the
+short blue capes of the military men."
+
+"The English soldiers wear red coats."
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"Sometimes they are sold when their bright surface is soiled. Men buy
+them, and, after cleaning, sell them in the country. It is cheerful to
+see a farmer working in a field clad in red."
+
+"Ah! this is one that a soldier used to wear."
+
+"No, mademoiselle,--not so fast. I had seen these red coats,--Acadiens
+have always loved that color above others. I wished to have one;
+therefore, when asked to sing at a concert many years ago, I said to my
+sister, 'Buy red cloth and make me a red coat. Put trimmings on it.'"
+
+"And you sang in this?"
+
+"No, mademoiselle,--you are too fast again," and he laughed delightedly
+at her precipitancy. "I sang in one long years ago, when I was young.
+Afterwards, to save,--for we Acadiens do not waste, you know,--I wore it
+to drive in. In time it fell to pieces."
+
+"And you liked it so much that you had another made?"
+
+"Exactly, mademoiselle. You have guessed it now," and his tones were
+triumphant.
+
+Her curiosity on the subject of the coat being satisfied, she returned
+to Rose, and finally asked a series of questions with regard to her
+aunt.
+
+Her chatter ceased, however, when they reached the Bay, and, overcome
+with admiration, she gazed silently at the place where
+
+     From shore to shore the shining waters lay,
+     Beneath the sun, as placid as a cheek.
+
+Emmanuel, discovering that her eyes were full of tears, delicately
+refrained from further conversation until they reached the corner, when
+he asked, softly, "To the inn, or to Madame de Forêt's?"
+
+Bidiane started. "To Madame de Forêt's--no, no, to the inn, otherwise my
+aunt might be offended."
+
+He drew up before the veranda, where Mirabelle Marie and Claude both
+happened to be standing. There were at first incredulous glances, then a
+great burst of noise from the woman and an amazed grunt from the man.
+
+Bidiane flew up the steps and embraced them, and Emmanuel lingered on in
+a trance of ecstasy. He could not tear himself away, and did not attempt
+to do so until the trio vanished into the house.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+
+               BIDIANE GOES TO CALL ON ROSE À CHARLITTE.
+
+                 "Love duty, ease your neighbor's load,
+                  Learn life is but an episode,
+                  And grateful peace will fill your mind."
+
+                                         AMINTA. ARCHBISHOP O'BRIEN.
+
+
+Mirabelle Marie and her husband seated themselves in the parlor with
+Bidiane close beside them.
+
+"You're only a mite of a thing yet," shrieked Mrs. Watercrow, "though
+you've growed up; but _sakerjé_! how fine, how fine,--and what a shiny
+cloth in your coat! How much did that cost?"
+
+"Do not scream at me," said Bidiane, good-humoredly. "I still hear
+well."
+
+Claude à Sucre roared in a stentorian voice, and clapped his knee. "She
+comes home Eenglish,--quite Eenglish."
+
+"And the Englishman,--he is still rich," said Mirabelle Marie, greedily,
+and feeling not at all snubbed. "Does he wear all the time a collar with
+white wings and a split coat?"
+
+"But you took much money from him," said Bidiane, reproachfully.
+
+"Oh, that Boston,--that divil's hole!" vociferated Mirabelle Marie. "We
+did not come back some first-class Yankees _whitewashés_. No, no, we are
+French now,--you bet! When I was a young one my old mother used to ketch
+flies between her thumb and finger. She'd say, '_Je te squeezerai_'" (I
+will squeeze you). "Well, we were the flies, Boston was my old mother.
+But you've been in cities, Biddy Ann; you know 'em."
+
+"Ah! but I was not poor. We lived in a beautiful quarter in Paris,--and
+do not call me Biddy Ann; my name is Bidiane."
+
+"Lord help us,--ain't she stylish!" squealed her delighted aunt. "Go on,
+Biddy, tell us about the fine ladies, and the elegant frocks, and the
+dimens; everythin' shines, ain't that so? Did the Englishman shove a
+dollar bill in yer hand every day?"
+
+"No, he did not," said Bidiane, with dignity. "I was only a little girl
+to him. He gave me scarcely any money to spend."
+
+"Is he goin' to marry yer,--say now, Biddy, ain't that so?"
+
+Bidiane's quick temper asserted itself. "If you don't stop being so
+vulgar, I sha'n't say another word to you."
+
+"Aw, shut up, now," said Claude, remonstratingly, to his wife.
+
+Mrs. Watercrow was slightly abashed. "I don't go for to make yeh mad,"
+she said, humbly.
+
+"No, no, of course you did not," said the girl, in quick compunction,
+and she laid one of her slim white hands on Mirabelle Marie's fat brown
+ones. "I should not have spoken so hastily."
+
+"Look at that,--she's as meek as a cat," said the woman, in surprise,
+while her husband softly caressed Bidiane's shoulder.
+
+"The Englishman, as you call him, does not care much for women," Bidiane
+went on, gently. "Now that he has money he is much occupied, and he
+always has men coming to see him. He often went out with his mother, but
+rarely with me or with any ladies. He travels, too, and takes Narcisse
+with him; and now, tell me, do you like being down the Bay?"
+
+Her aunt shrugged her shoulders. "A long sight more'n Boston."
+
+"Why did you give up the farm?" said the girl to Claude; "the old farm
+that belonged to your grandfather."
+
+"I be a fool, an' I don' know it teel long after," said Claude, slowly.
+
+"And you speak French here,--the boys, have they learned it?"
+
+"You bet,--they learned in Boston from _Acajens_. Biddy, what makes yeh
+come back? Yer a big goose not to stay with the Englishman."
+
+Bidiane surveyed her aunt disapprovingly. "Could I live always depending
+on him? No, I wish to work hard, to earn some money,--and you, are you
+not going to pay him for this fine house?"
+
+"God knows, he has money enough."
+
+"But we mus' pay back," said Claude, smiting the table with his fist. "I
+ain't got much larnin', but I've got a leetle idee, an' I tell you,
+maw,--don' you spen' the money in that stockin'."
+
+His wife's fat shoulders shook in a hearty laugh.
+
+His face darkened. "You give that to Biddy."
+
+"Yes," said his niece, "give it to me. Come now, and get it, and show me
+the house."
+
+Mrs. Watercrow rose resignedly, and preceded the girl to the kitchen.
+"Let's find Claudine. She's a boss cook, mos' as good as Rose à
+Charlitte. Biddy, be you goin' to stay along of us?"
+
+"I don't know," said the girl, gaily. "Will you have me?"
+
+"You bet! Biddy,"--and she lowered her voice,--"you know 'bout Isidore?"
+
+The girl shuddered. "Yes."
+
+"It was drink, drink, drink, like a fool. One day, when he works back in
+the woods with some of those Frenchmen out of France, he go for to do
+like them, an' roast a frog on the biler in the mill ingine. His brain
+overswelled, overfoamed, an' he fell agin the biler. Then he was dead."
+
+"Hush,--don't talk about him; Claudine may hear you."
+
+"How,--you know her?"
+
+"I know everybody. Mr. Nimmo and his mother talked so often of the Bay.
+They do not wish Narcisse to forget."
+
+"That's good. Does the Englishman's maw like the little one?"
+
+"Yes, she does."
+
+"Claudine ain't here," and Mirabelle Marie waddled through the kitchen,
+and directed her sneaks to the back stairway. "We'll skip up to her
+room."
+
+Bidiane followed her, but when Mrs. Watercrow would have pushed open the
+door confronting them, she caught her hand.
+
+"The divil," said her surprised relative, "do you want to scare the life
+out of me?"
+
+"Knock," said Bidiane, "always, always at the door of a bedroom or a
+private room, but not at that of a public one such as a parlor."
+
+"Am I English?" exclaimed Mirabelle Marie, drawing back and regarding
+her in profound astonishment.
+
+"No, but you are going to be,--or rather you are going to be a polite
+Frenchwoman," said Bidiane, firmly.
+
+Mirabelle Marie laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks. She had just
+had presented to her, in the person of Bidiane, a delicious and
+first-class joke.
+
+Claudine came out of her room, and silently stared at them until Bidiane
+took her hand, when her handsome, rather sullen face brightened
+perceptibly.
+
+Bidiane liked her, and some swift and keen perception told her that in
+the young widow she would find a more apt pupil and a more congenial
+associate than in her aunt. She went into the room, and, sitting down by
+the window, talked at length to her of Narcisse and the Englishman.
+
+At last she said, "Can you see Madame de Forêt's house from here?"
+
+Mirabelle Marie, who had squatted comfortably on the bed, like an
+enormous toad, got up and toddled to the window. "It's there ag'in those
+pines back of the river. There's no other sim'lar."
+
+Bidiane glanced at the cool white cottage against its green background.
+"Why, it is like a tiny Grand Trianon!"
+
+"An' what's that?"
+
+"It is a villa near Paris, a very fine one, built in the form of a
+horseshoe."
+
+"Yes,--that's what we call it," interrupted her aunt. "We ain't blind.
+We say the horseshoe cottage."
+
+"One of the kings of France had the Grand Trianon built for a woman he
+loved," said Bidiane, reverently. "I think Mr. Nimmo must have sent the
+plan for this from Paris,--but he never spoke to me about it."
+
+"He is not a man who tells all," said Claudine, in French.
+
+Bidiane and Mirabelle Marie had been speaking English, but they now
+reverted to their own language.
+
+"When do you have lunch?" asked Bidiane.
+
+"Lunch,--what's that?" asked her aunt. "We have dinner soon."
+
+"And I must descend," said Claudine, hurrying down-stairs. "I smell
+something burning."
+
+Bidiane was about to follow her, when there was a clattering heard on
+the stairway.
+
+"It's the young ones," cried Mirabelle Marie, joyfully. "Some fool has
+told 'em. They'll wring your neck like the blowpipe of a chicken."
+
+The next minute two noisy, rough, yet slightly shy boys had taken
+possession of their returned cousin and were leading her about the inn
+in triumph.
+
+Mirabelle Marie tried to keep up with them, but could not succeed in
+doing so. She was too excited to keep still, too happy to work, so she
+kept on waddling from one room to another, to the stable, the garden,
+and even to the corner,--to every spot where she could catch a glimpse
+of the tail of Bidiane's gown, or the heels of her twinkling shoes. The
+girl was indefatigable; she wished to see everything at once. She would
+wear herself out.
+
+Two hours after lunch she announced her determination to call on Rose.
+
+"I'll skip along, too," said her aunt, promptly.
+
+"I wish to be quite alone when I first see this wonderful woman," said
+Bidiane.
+
+"But why is she wonderful?" asked Mirabelle Marie.
+
+Bidiane did not hear her. She had flitted out to the veranda, wrapping a
+scarf around her shoulders as she went. While her aunt stood gazing
+longingly after her, she tripped up the village street, enjoying
+immensely the impression she created among the women and children, who
+ran to the doorways and windows to see her pass.
+
+There were no houses along the cutting in the hill through which the
+road led to the sullen stream of Sleeping Water. Rose's house stood
+quite alone, and at some distance from the street, its gleaming, freshly
+painted front towards the river, its curved back against a row of
+pine-trees.
+
+It was very quiet. There was not a creature stirring, and the warm July
+sunshine lay languidly on some deserted chairs about a table on the
+lawn.
+
+Bidiane went slowly up to the hall door and rang the bell.
+
+Rosy-cheeked Célina soon stood before her; and smiling a welcome, for
+she knew very well who the visitor was, she gently opened the door of a
+long, narrow blue and white room on the right side of the hall.
+
+Bidiane paused on the threshold. This dainty, exquisite apartment,
+furnished so simply, and yet so elegantly, had not been planned by an
+architect or furnished by a decorator of the Bay. This bric-à-brac, too,
+was not Acadien, but Parisian. Ah, how much Mr. Nimmo loved Rose à
+Charlitte! and she drew a long breath and gazed with girlish and
+fascinated awe at the tall, beautiful woman who rose from a low seat,
+and slowly approached her.
+
+Rose was about to address her, but Bidiane put up a protesting hand.
+"Don't speak to me for a minute," she said, breathlessly. "I want to
+look at you."
+
+Rose smiled indulgently, and Bidiane gazed on. She felt herself to be a
+dove, a messenger sent from a faithful lover to the woman he worshipped.
+What a high and holy mission was hers! She trembled blissfully, then,
+one by one, she examined the features of this Acadien beauty, whose
+quiet life had kept her from fading or withering in the slightest
+degree. She was, indeed, "a rose of dawn."
+
+These were the words written below the large painting of her that hung
+in Mr. Nimmo's room. She must tell Rose about it, although of course
+the picture and the inscription must be perfectly familiar to her,
+through Mr. Nimmo's descriptions.
+
+"Madame de Forêt," she said at last, "it is really you. Oh, how I have
+longed to see you! I could scarcely wait."
+
+"Won't you sit down?" said her hostess, just a trifle shyly.
+
+Bidiane dropped into a chair. "I have teased Mrs. Nimmo with questions.
+I have said again and again, 'What is she like?'--but I never could tell
+from what she said. I had only the picture to go by."
+
+"The picture?" said Rose, slightly raising her eyebrows.
+
+"Your painting, you know, that is over Mr. Nimmo's writing-table."
+
+"Does he have one of me?" asked Rose, quietly.
+
+"Yes, yes,--an immense one. As broad as that,"--and she stretched out
+her arms. "It was enlarged from a photograph."
+
+"Ah! when he was here I missed a photograph one day from my album, but I
+did not know that he had taken it. However, I suspected."
+
+"But does he not write you everything?"
+
+"You only are my kind little correspondent,--with, of course, Narcisse."
+
+"Really, I thought that he wrote everything to you. Dear Madame de
+Forêt, may I speak freely to you?"
+
+"As freely as you wish, my dear child."
+
+Bidiane burst into a flood of conversation. "I think it is so
+romantic,--his devotion to you. He does not talk of it, but I can't help
+knowing, because Mrs. Nimmo talks to me about it when she gets too
+worked up to keep still. She really loves you, Madame de Forêt. She
+wishes that you would allow her son to marry you. If you only knew how
+much she admires you, I am sure you would put aside your objection to
+her son."
+
+Rose for a few minutes seemed lost in thought, then she said, "Does Mrs.
+Nimmo think that I do not care for her son?"
+
+"No, she says she thinks you care for him, but there is some objection
+in your mind that you cannot get over, and she cannot imagine what it
+is."
+
+"Dear little mademoiselle, I will also speak freely to you, for it is
+well for you to understand, and I feel that you are a good friend,
+because I have received so many letters from you. It is impossible that
+I should marry Mr. Nimmo, therefore we will not speak of it, if you
+please. There is an obstacle,--he knows and agrees to it. Years ago, I
+thought some day this obstacle might be taken away. Now, I think it is
+the will of our Lord that it remain, and I am content."
+
+"Oh, oh!" said Bidiane, wrinkling her face as if she were about to cry,
+"I cannot bear to hear you say this."
+
+Rose smiled gently. "When you are older, as old as I am, you will
+understand that marriage is not the chief thing in life. It is good, yet
+one can be happy without. One can be pushed quietly further and further
+apart from another soul. At first, one cries out, one thinks that the
+parting will kill, but it is often the best thing for the two souls. I
+tell you this because I love you, and because I know Mr. Nimmo has taken
+much care in your training, and wishes me to be an elder sister. Do not
+seek sorrow, little one, but do not try to run from it. This dear, dear
+man that you speak of, was a divine being, a saint to me. I did wrong to
+worship him. To separate from me was a good thing for him. He is now
+more what I then thought him, than he was at the time. Do you
+understand?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said Bidiane, breaking into tears, and impulsively throwing
+herself on her knees beside her, "but you dash my pet scheme to pieces.
+I wish to see you two united. I thought perhaps if I told you that,
+although no one knows it but his mother, he just wor--wor--ships you--"
+
+Rose stroked her head. "Warm-hearted child,--and also loyal. Our Lord
+rewards such devotion. Nothing is lost. Your precious tears remind me of
+those I once shed."
+
+Bidiane did not recover herself. She was tired, excited, profoundly
+touched by Rose's beauty and "sweet gravity of soul," and her perfect
+resignation to her lot. "But you are not happy," she exclaimed at last,
+dashing away her tears; "you cannot be. It is not right. I love to read
+in novels, when Mr. Nimmo allows me, of the divine right of passion. I
+asked him one day what it meant, and he explained. I did not know that
+it gave him pain,--that his heart must be aching. He is so quiet,--no
+one would dream that he is unhappy; yet his mother knows that he is, and
+when she gets too worried, she talks to me, although she is not one-half
+as fond of me as she is of Narcisse."
+
+A great wave of color came over Rose's face at the mention of her child.
+She would like to speak of him at once, yet she restrained herself.
+
+"Dear little girl," she said, in her low, soothing voice, "you are so
+young, so delightfully young. See, I have just been explaining to you,
+yet you do not listen. You will have to learn for yourself. The
+experience of one woman does not help another. Yet let me read to you,
+who think it so painful a thing to be denied anything that one wants, a
+few sentences from our good archbishop."
+
+Bidiane sprang lightly to her feet, and Rose went to a bookcase, and,
+taking out a small volume bound in green and gold, read to her:
+"'Marriage is a high and holy state, and intended for the vast majority
+of mankind, but those who expand and merge human love in the divine,
+espousing their souls to God in a life of celibacy, tread a higher and
+holier path, and are better fitted to do nobler service for God in the
+cause of suffering humanity.'"
+
+"Those are good words," said Bidiane, with twitching lips.
+
+"It is of course a Catholic view," said Rose; "you are a Protestant, and
+you may not agree perfectly with it, yet I wish only to convince you
+that if one is denied the companionship of one that is beloved, it is
+not well to say, 'Everything is at an end. I am of no use in the
+world.'"
+
+"I think you are the best and the sweetest woman that I ever saw," said
+Bidiane, impulsively.
+
+"No, no; not the best," said Rose, in accents of painful humility. "Do
+not say it,--I feel myself the greatest of sinners. I read my books of
+devotion, I feel myself guilty of all,--even the blackest of crimes. It
+seems that there is nothing I have not sinned in my thoughts. I have
+been blameless in nothing, except that I have not neglected the baptism
+of children in infancy."
+
+"You--a sinner!" said Bidiane, in profound scepticism. "I do not believe
+it."
+
+"None are pure in the sight of our spotless Lord," said Rose, in
+agitation; "none, none. We can only try to be so. Let me repeat to you
+one more line from our archbishop. It is a poem telling of the struggle
+of souls, of the search for happiness that is not to be found in the
+world. This short line is always with me. I cannot reach up to it, I can
+only admire it. Listen, dear child, and remember it is this only that is
+important, and both Protestant and Catholic can accept it--'Walking on
+earth, but living with God.'"
+
+Bidiane flung her arms about her neck. "Teach me to be good like you and
+Mr. Nimmo. I assure you I am very bad and impatient."
+
+"My dear girl, my sister," murmured Rose, tenderly, "you are a gift and
+I accept you. Now will you not tell me something of your life in Paris?
+Many things were not related in your letters."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+
+                            TAKEN UNAWARES.
+
+                 "Who can speak
+            The mingled passions that surprised his heart?"
+
+                                                            THOMSON.
+
+
+Bidiane nothing loath, broke into a vivacious narrative. "Ah, that Mr.
+Nimmo, I just idolize him. How much he has done for me! Just figure to
+yourself what a spectacle I must have been when he first saw me. I was
+ignorant,--as ignorant as a little pig. I knew nothing. He asked me if I
+would go down the Bay to a convent. I said, quite violently, 'No, I will
+not.' Then he went home to Boston, but he did not give me up. I soon
+received a message. Would I go to France with him and his mother, for it
+had been decided that a voyage would be good for the little Narcisse?
+That dazzled me, and I said 'yes.' I left the Bay, but just fancy how
+utterly stupid, how frightfully from out of the woods I was. I will give
+one instance: When my uncle put me on the steamer at Yarmouth it was
+late, he had to hurry ashore. He did not show me the stateroom prepared
+for me, and I, dazed owl, sat on the deck shivering and drawing my
+cloak about me. I thought I had paid for that one tiny piece of the
+steamer and I must not move from it. Then a kind woman came and took me
+below."
+
+"But you were young, you had never travelled, mademoiselle."
+
+"Don't say mademoiselle, say Bidiane,--please do, I would love it."
+
+"Very well, Bidiane,--dear little Bidiane."
+
+The girl leaned forward, and was again about to embrace her hostess with
+fervent arms, but suddenly paused to exclaim, "I think I hear wheels!"
+
+She ran to one of the open windows. "Who drives a black buggy,--no, a
+white horse with a long tail?"
+
+"Agapit LeNoir," said Rose, coming to stand beside her.
+
+"Oh, how is he? I hate to see him. I used to be so rude, but I suppose
+he has forgiven me. Mrs. Nimmo says he is very good, still I do not
+think Mr. Nimmo cares much for him."
+
+Rose sighed. That was the one stain on the character of the otherwise
+perfect Vesper. He had never forgiven Agapit for striking him.
+
+"Why he looks quite smart," Bidiane rattled on. "Does he get on well
+with his law practice?"
+
+"Very well; but he works hard--too hard. This horse is his only
+luxury."
+
+"I detest white horses. Why didn't he get a dark one?"
+
+"I think this one was cheaper."
+
+"Is he poor?"
+
+"Not now, but he is economical. He saves his money."
+
+"Oh, he is a screw, a miser."
+
+"No, not that,--he gives away a good deal. He has had a hard life, has
+my poor cousin, and now he understands the trials of others."
+
+"Poverty is tiresome, but it is sometimes good for one," said Bidiane,
+wisely.
+
+Rose's white teeth gleamed in sudden amusement. "Ah, the dear little
+parrot, she has been well trained."
+
+Bidiane leaned out the window. There was Agapit, peering eagerly forward
+from the hood of his carriage, and staring up with some of the old
+apprehensiveness with which he used to approach her.
+
+"What a dreadful child I was," reflected Bidiane, with a blush of shame.
+"He is yet afraid of me."
+
+Agapit, with difficulty averting his eyes from her round, childish face
+and its tangle of reddish hair, sprang from his seat and fastened his
+horse to the post sunk in the grass at the edge of the lawn, while Rose,
+followed by Bidiane, went out to meet him.
+
+"How do you do, Rose," he murmured, taking her hand in his own, while
+his eyes ran behind to the waiting Bidiane.
+
+The girl, ladylike and modest, and full of contrition for her former
+misdeeds, was yet possessed by a mischievous impulse to find out whether
+her power over the burly, youthful, excitable Agapit extended to this
+thinner, more serious-looking man, with the big black mustache and the
+shining eye-glasses.
+
+"Ah, fanatic, Acadien imbecile," she said, coolly extending her fingers,
+"I am glad to see you again."
+
+Though her tone was reassuring, Agapit still seemed to be overcome by
+some emotion, and for a few seconds did not recover himself. Then he
+smiled, looked relieved, and, taking a step nearer her, bowed
+profoundly. "When did you arrive, mademoiselle?"
+
+"But you knew I was here," she said, gaily, "I saw it in your face when
+you first appeared."
+
+Agapit dropped his eyes nervously. "He is certainly terribly afraid of
+me," reflected Bidiane again; then she listened to what he was saying.
+
+"The Bay whispers and chatters, mademoiselle; the little waves that kiss
+the shores of Sleeping Water take her secrets from her and carry them up
+to the mouth of the Weymouth River--"
+
+"You have a telephone, I suppose," said Bidiane, in an eminently
+practical tone of voice.
+
+"Yes, I have," and he relapsed into silence.
+
+"Here we are together, we three," said Bidiane, impulsively. "How I wish
+that Mr. Nimmo could see us."
+
+Rose lost some of her beautiful color. These continual references to her
+lover were very trying. "I will leave you two to amuse each other for a
+few minutes, while I go and ask Célina to make us some tea _à
+l'anglaise_."
+
+"I should not have said that," exclaimed Bidiane, gazing after her; "how
+easy it is to talk too much. Each night, when I go to bed, I lie awake
+thinking of all the foolish things I have said during the day, and I con
+over sensible speeches that I might have uttered. I suppose you never do
+that?"
+
+"Why not, mademoiselle?"
+
+"Oh, because you are older, and because you are so clever. Really, I am
+quite afraid of you," and she demurely glanced at him from under her
+curly eyelashes.
+
+"Once you were not afraid," he remarked, cautiously.
+
+"No; but now you must be very learned."
+
+"I always was fond of study."
+
+"Mr. Nimmo says that some day you will be a judge, and then probably you
+will write a book. Will you?"
+
+"Some day, perhaps. At present, I only write short articles for
+magazines and newspapers."
+
+"How charming! What are they about?"
+
+"They are mostly Acadien and historical."
+
+"Do you ever write stories--love stories?"
+
+"Sometimes, mademoiselle."
+
+"Delicious! May I read them?"
+
+"I do not know," and he smiled. "You would probably be too much amused.
+You would think they were true."
+
+"And are they not?"
+
+"Oh, no, although some have a slight foundation of fact."
+
+Bidiane stared curiously at him, opened her lips, closed them again, set
+her small white teeth firmly, as if bidding them stand guard over some
+audacious thought, then at last burst out with it, for she was still
+excited and animated by her journey, and was bubbling over with delight
+at being released from the espionage of strangers to whom she could not
+talk freely. "You have been in love, of course?"
+
+Agapit modestly looked at his boots.
+
+"You find me unconventional," cried Bidiane, in alarm. "Mrs. Nimmo says
+I will never get over it. I do not know what I shall do,--but here, at
+least, on the Bay, I thought it would not so much matter. Really, it was
+a consolation in leaving Paris."
+
+"Mademoiselle, it is not that," he said, hesitatingly. "I assure you,
+the question has been asked before, with not so much delicacy--But with
+whom should I fall in love?"
+
+"With any one. It must be a horrible sensation. I have never felt it,
+but I cry very often over tales of lovers. Possibly you are like Madame
+de Forêt, you do not care to marry."
+
+"Perhaps I am waiting until she does, mademoiselle."
+
+"I suppose you could not tell me," she said, in the dainty, coaxing
+tones of a child, "what it is that separates your cousin from Mr.
+Nimmo?"
+
+"No, mademoiselle, I regret to say that I cannot."
+
+"Is it something she can ever get over?"
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"You don't want to be teased about it. I will talk of something else;
+people don't marry very often after they are thirty. That is the
+dividing line."
+
+Agapit dragged at his mustache with restless fingers.
+
+"You are laughing at me, you find me amusing," she said, with a sharp
+look at him. "I assure you I don't mind being laughed at. I hate dull
+people--oh, I must ask you if you know that I am quite Acadien now?"
+
+"Rose has told me something of it."
+
+"Yes, I know. She says that you read my letters, and I think it is
+perfectly sweet in you. I know what you have done for me. I know, you
+need not try to conceal it. It was you that urged Mr. Nimmo not to give
+me up, it is to you that I am indebted for my glimpse of the world. I
+assure you I am grateful. That is why I speak so freely to you. You are
+a friend and also a relative. May we not call ourselves cousins?"
+
+"Certainly, mademoiselle,--I am honored," said Agapit, in a stumbling
+voice.
+
+"You are not used to me yet. I overcome you, but wait a little, you will
+not mind my peculiarities, and let me tell you that if there is anything
+I can do for you, I shall be so glad. I could copy papers or write
+letters. I am only a mouse and you are a lion, yet perhaps I could bite
+your net a little."
+
+Agapit straightened himself, and stepped out rather more boldly as they
+went to and fro over the grass.
+
+"I seem only like a prattling, silly girl to you," she said, humbly,
+"yet I have a little sense, and I can write a good hand--a good round
+hand. I often used to assist Mr. Nimmo in copying passages from books."
+
+Agapit felt like a hero. "Some day, mademoiselle, I may apply to you for
+assistance. In the meantime, I thank you."
+
+They continued their slow walk to and fro. Sometimes they looked across
+the river to the village, but mostly they looked at each other, and
+Agapit, with acute pleasure, basked in the light of Bidiane's admiring
+glances.
+
+"You have always stayed here," she exclaimed; "you did not desert your
+dear Bay as I did."
+
+"But for a short time only. You remember that I was at Laval University
+in Quebec."
+
+"Oh, yes, I forgot that. Madame de Forêt wrote me. Do you know, I
+thought that perhaps you would not come back. However, Mr. Nimmo was not
+surprised that you did."
+
+"There are a great many young men out in the world, mademoiselle. I
+found few people who were interested in me. This is my home, and is not
+one's home the best place to earn one's living?"
+
+"Yes; and also you did not wish to go too far away from your cousin. I
+know your devotion, it is quite romantic. She adores you, I easily saw
+that in her letters. Do you know, I imagined"--and she lowered her
+voice, and glanced over her shoulder--"that Mr. Nimmo wrote to her,
+because he never seemed curious about my letters from her."
+
+"That is Mr. Nimmo's way, mademoiselle."
+
+"It is a pity that they do not write. It would be such a pleasure to
+them both. I know that. They cannot deceive me."
+
+"But she is not engaged to him."
+
+"If you reject a man, you reject him," said Bidiane, with animation,
+"but you know there is a kind of lingering correspondence that decides
+nothing. If the affair were all broken off, Mr. Nimmo would not keep
+Narcisse."
+
+Agapit wrinkled his forehead. "True; yet I assure you they have had no
+communication except through you and the childish scrawls of Narcisse."
+
+Bidiane was surprised. "Does he not send her things?"
+
+"No, mademoiselle."
+
+"But her furniture is French."
+
+"There are French stores in the States, and Rose travels occasionally,
+you know."
+
+"Hush,--she is coming back. Ah! the adorable woman."
+
+Agapit threw his advancing cousin a glance of affectionate admiration,
+and went to assist her with the tea things.
+
+Bidiane watched him putting the tray on the table, and going to meet
+Célina, who was bringing out a teapot and cups and saucers. "Next to Mr.
+Nimmo, he is the kindest man I ever saw," she murmured, curling herself
+up in a rattan chair. "But we are not talking," she said, a few minutes
+later.
+
+Rose and Agapit both smiled indulgently at her. Neither of them talked
+as much as in former days. They were quieter, more subdued.
+
+"Let me think of some questions," said the girl. "Are you, Mr. LeNoir,
+as furious an Acadien as you used to be?"
+
+Agapit fixed his big black eyes on her, and began to twist the ends of
+his long mustache. "Mademoiselle, since I have travelled a little, and
+mingled with other men, I do not talk so loudly and vehemently, but my
+heart is still the same. It is Acadie forever with me."
+
+"Ah, that is right," she said, enthusiastically. "Not noisy talk, but
+service for our countrymen."
+
+"Will you not have a cup of tea, and also tell us how you became an
+Acadien?" said Agapit, who seemed to divine her secret thought.
+
+"Thank you, thank you,--yes, I will do both," and Bidiane's round face
+immediately became transfigured,--the freckles almost disappeared. One
+saw only "the tiger dusk and gold" of her eyes, and her reddish crown of
+hair. "I will tell you of that noblest of men, that angel, who swept
+down upon the Bay, and bore away a little owl in his pinions,--or
+talons, is it?--to the marvellous city of Paris, just because he wished
+to inspire the stupid owl with love for its country."
+
+"But the great-grandfather of the eagle, or, rather, the angel, killed
+the great-grandfather of the owl," said Agapit; "do not forget that,
+mademoiselle. Will you have a biscuit?"
+
+"Thank you,--suppose he did, that does not alter the delightfulness of
+his conduct. Who takes account of naughty grandfathers in this prosaic
+age? No one but Mr. Nimmo. And do we not put away from us--that is,
+society people do--all those who are rough and have not good manners?
+Did Mr. Nimmo do this? No, he would train his little Acadien owl. The
+first night we arrived in Paris he took me with Narcisse for a fifteen
+minutes' stroll along the Arcades of the Rue de Rivoli. I was overcome.
+We had just arrived, we had driven through lighted streets to a
+magnificent hotel. The bridges across the river gleamed with lights. I
+thought I must be in heaven. You have read the descriptions of it?"
+
+"Of Paris,--yes," said Agapit, dreamily.
+
+"Every one was speaking French,--the language that I detested. I was
+dumb. Here was a great country, a great people, and they were French. I
+had thought that all the world outside the Bay was English, even though
+I had been taught differently at school. But I did not believe my
+teachers. I told stories, I thought that they also did. But to return to
+the Rue de Rivoli,--there were the shops, there were the merchants. Now
+that I have seen so much they do not seem great things to me, but
+then--ah! then they were palaces, the merchants were kings and princes
+offering their plate and jewels and gorgeous robes for sale.
+
+"'Choose,' said Mr. Nimmo to Narcisse and to me, 'choose some souvenir
+to the value of three francs.' I stammered, I hesitated, I wished
+everything, I selected nothing. Little Narcisse laid his finger on a
+sparkling napkin-ring. I could not decide. I was intoxicated, and Mr.
+Nimmo calmly conducted us home. I got nothing, because I could not
+control myself. The next day, and for many days, Mr. Nimmo took us about
+that wonderful city. It was all so ravishing, so spotless, so immense.
+We did not visit the ugly parts. I had neat and suitable clothes. I was
+instructed to be quiet, and not to talk loudly or cry out, and in time I
+learned,--though at first I very much annoyed Mrs. Nimmo. Never, never,
+did her son lose patience. Madame de Forêt, it is charming to live in a
+peaceful, splendid home, where there are no loud voices, no unseemly
+noises,--to have servants everywhere, even to push the chair behind you
+at the table."
+
+"Yes, if one is born to it," said Rose, quietly.
+
+"But one gets born to it, dear madame. In a short time, I assure you, I
+put on airs. I straightened my back, I no longer joked with the
+servants. I said, quietly, 'Give me this. Give me that,'--and I disliked
+to walk. I wished always to step in a carriage. Then Mr. Nimmo talked to
+me."
+
+"What did he say?" asked Agapit, jealously and unexpectedly.
+
+"My dear sir," said Bidiane, drawing herself up, and speaking in her
+grandest manner, "I beg permission to withhold from you that
+information. You, I see, do not worship my hero as wildly as I do. I
+address my remarks to your cousin," and she turned her head towards
+Rose.
+
+They both laughed, and she herself laughed merrily and excitedly. Then
+she hurried on: "I had a governess for a time, then afterwards I was
+sent every day to a boarding-school near by the hotel where we lived. I
+was taught many things about this glorious country of France, this land
+from which my forefathers had gone to Acadie. Soon I began to be less
+ashamed of my nation. Later on I began to be proud. Very often I would
+be sent for to go to the _salon_ (drawing-room). There would be
+strangers,--gentlemen and ladies to whom Mrs. Nimmo would introduce me,
+and her son would say, 'This is a little girl from Acadie.' Immediately
+I would be smiled on, and made much of, and the fine people would say,
+'Ah, the Acadiens were courageous,--they were a brave race,' and they
+would address me in French, and I could only hang my head and listen to
+Mr. Nimmo, who would remark, quietly, 'Bidiane has lived among the
+English,--she is just learning her own language.'
+
+"Ah, then I would study. I took my French grammar to bed, and one day
+came the grand revelation. I of course had always attended school here
+on the Bay, but you know, dear Madame de Forêt, how little Acadien
+history is taught us. Mr. Nimmo had given me a history of our own people
+to read. Some histories are dull, but this one I liked. It was late one
+afternoon; I sat by my window and read, and I came to a story. You, I
+daresay, know it," and she turned eagerly to Agapit.
+
+"I daresay, mademoiselle, if I were to hear it--"
+
+"It is of those three hundred Acadiens, who were taken from Prince
+Edward Island by Captain Nichols. I read of what he said to the
+government, 'My ship is leaking, I cannot get it to England.' Yet he was
+forced to go, you know,--yet let me have the sad pleasure of telling you
+that I read of their arrival to within a hundred leagues of the coast of
+England. The ship had given out, it was going down, and the captain sent
+for the priest on board,--at this point I ran to the fire, for daylight
+faded. With eyes blinded by tears I finished the story,--the priest
+addressed his people. He said that the captain had told him that all
+could not be saved, that if the Acadiens would consent to remain quiet,
+he and his sailors would seize the boats, and have a chance for their
+lives. 'You will be quiet, my dear people,' said the priest. 'You have
+suffered much,--you will suffer more,' and he gave them absolution. I
+shrieked with pain when I read that they were quiet, very quiet,--that
+one Acadien, who ventured in a boat, was rebuked by his wife so that he
+stepped contentedly back to her side. Then the captain and sailors
+embarked, they set out for the shore, and finally reached it; and the
+Acadiens remained calmly on board. They went calmly to the bottom of the
+sea, and I flung the book far from me, and rushed down-stairs,--I must
+see Mr. Nimmo. He was in the _salon_ with a gentleman who was to dine
+with him, but I saw only my friend. I precipitated myself on a chair
+beside him. 'Ah, tell me, tell me!' I entreated, 'is it all true? Were
+they martyrs,--these countrymen of mine? Were they patient and
+afflicted? Is it their children that I have despised,--their religion
+that I have mocked?'
+
+"'Yes, yes,' he said, gently, 'but you did not understand.'
+
+"'I understand,' I cried, 'and I hate the English. I will no longer be a
+Protestant. They murdered my forefathers and mothers.'
+
+"He did not reason with me then,--he sent me to bed, and for six days I
+went every morning to mass in the Madeleine. Then I grew tired, because
+I had not been brought up to it, and it seemed strange to me. That was
+the time Mr. Nimmo explained many things to me. I learned that, though
+one must hate evil, there is a duty of forgiveness--but I weary you,"
+and she sprang up from her chair. "I must also go home; my aunt will
+wonder where I am. I shall soon see you both again, I hope," and waving
+her hand, she ran lightly towards the gate.
+
+"An abrupt departure," said Agapit, as he watched her out of sight.
+
+"She is nervous, and also homesick for the Nimmos," said Rose; "but what
+a dear child. Her letters have made her seem like a friend of years'
+standing. Perhaps we should have kept her from lingering on those
+stories of the old time."
+
+"Do not reproach yourself," said Agapit, as he took another piece of
+cake, "we could not have kept her from it. She was just about to
+cry,--she is probably crying now," and there was a curious satisfaction
+in his voice.
+
+"Are you not well to-day, Agapit?" asked Rose, anxiously.
+
+"_Mon Dieu_, yes,--what makes you think otherwise?"
+
+"You seem subdued, almost dull."
+
+Agapit immediately endeavored to take on a more sprightly air. "It is
+that child,--she is overcoming. I was not prepared for such life, such
+animation. She cannot write as she speaks."
+
+"No; her letters were stiff."
+
+"Without doubt, Mr. Nimmo has sent her here to be an amiable distraction
+for you," said Agapit. "He is afraid that you are getting too holy, too
+far beyond him. He sends this Parisian butterfly to amuse you. He has
+plenty of money, he can indulge his whims."
+
+His tone was bitter, and Rose forbore to answer him. He was so good,
+this cousin of hers, and yet his poverty and his long-continued struggle
+to obtain an education had somewhat soured him, and he had not quite
+fulfilled the promise of his earlier years. He was also a little jealous
+of Vesper.
+
+If Vesper had been as generous towards him as he was towards other
+people, Agapit would have kept up his old admiration for him. As it was,
+they both possessed indomitable pride along different lines, and all
+through these years not a line of friendly correspondence had passed
+between them,--they had kept severely apart.
+
+But for this pride, Rose would have been allowed to share all that she
+had with her adopted brother, and would not have been obliged to stand
+aside and, with a heart wrung with compassion, see him suffer for the
+lack of things that she might easily have provided.
+
+However, he was getting on better now. He had a large number of clients,
+and was in a fair way to make a good living for himself.
+
+They talked a little more of Bidiane's arrival, that had made an unusual
+commotion in their quiet lives, then Agapit, having lingered longer than
+usual, hurried back to his office and his home, in the town of
+Weymouth, that was some miles distant from Sleeping Water.
+
+A few hours later, Bidiane laid her tired, agitated head on her pillow,
+after putting up a very fervent and Protestant petition that something
+might enable her to look into the heart of her Catholic friend, Rose à
+Charlitte, and discover what the mysterious obstacle was that prevented
+her from enjoying a happy union with Mr. Nimmo.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+
+                          AN UNKNOWN IRRITANT.
+
+     "Il est de ces longs jours d'indicible malaise
+      Où l'on voudrait dormir du lourd sommeil des morts,
+      De ces heures d'angoisse où l'existence pèse
+      Sur l'âme et sur le corps."
+
+
+Two or three weeks went by, and, although Bidiane's headquarters were
+nominally at the inn, she visited the horseshoe cottage morning, noon,
+and night.
+
+Rose always smiled when she heard the rustling of her silk-lined skirts,
+and often murmured:
+
+     "Sa robe fait froufrou, froufrou,
+      Ses petits pieds font toc, toc, toc."
+
+"I wonder how long she is going to stay here?" said Agapit, one day, to
+his cousin.
+
+"She does not know,--she obeys Mr. Nimmo blindly, although sometimes she
+chatters of earning her own living."
+
+"I do not think he would permit that," said Agapit, hastily.
+
+"Nor I, but he does not tell her so."
+
+"He is a kind of _Grand Monarque_ among you women. He speaks, and you
+listen; and now that Bidiane has broken the ice and we talk more freely
+of him, I may say that I do not approve of his keeping your boy any
+longer, although it is a foolish thing for me to mention, since you have
+never asked my advice on the subject."
+
+"My dear brother," said Rose, softly, "in this one thing I have not
+agreed with you, because you are not a mother, and cannot understand. I
+feared to bring back my boy when he was delicate, lest he should die of
+the separation from Mr. Nimmo. It was better for me to cry myself to
+sleep for many nights than for me to have him for a few weeks, and then,
+perhaps, lay his little body in the cold ground. Where would then be my
+satisfaction? And now that he is strong, I console myself with the
+thought of the fine schools that he attends, I follow him every hour of
+the day, through the letters that Mr. Nimmo sends to Bidiane. As I dust
+my room in the morning, I hold conversations with him.
+
+"I say, 'How goes the Latin, little one, and the Greek? They are hard,
+but do not give up. Some day thou wilt be a clever man.' All the time I
+talk to him. I tell him of every happening on the Bay. Naturally I
+cannot put all this in my letters to him, that are few and short on
+account of--well you know why I do not write too much. Agapit, I do not
+dare to bring him back. He gives that dear young man an object in life;
+he also interests his mother, who now loves me, through my child. I
+speak of the schools, and yet it is not altogether for that, for have we
+not a good college for boys here on the Bay? It is something higher. It
+is for the good of souls that he stays away. Not yet, not yet, can I
+recall him. It would not seem right, and I cannot do what is wrong; also
+there is his father."
+
+Agapit, with a resigned gesture, drew on his gloves. He had been making
+a short call and was just about to return home.
+
+"Are you going to the inn?" asked Rose.
+
+"Why should I call there?" he said, a trifle irritably. "I have not the
+time to dance attendance on young girls."
+
+Rose was lost in gentle amazement at Agapit's recent attitude towards
+Bidiane. Her mind ran back to the long winter and summer evenings when
+he had come to her house, and had sat for hours reading the letters from
+Paris. He had taken a profound interest in the little renegade. Step by
+step he had followed her career. He had felt himself in a measure
+responsible for the successful issue of the venture in taking her
+abroad. And had he not often spoken delightedly of her return, and her
+probable dissemination among the young people of the stock of new ideas
+that she would be sure to bring with her?
+
+This was just what she had done. She had enlarged the circle of her
+acquaintance, and every one liked her, every one admired her. Day after
+day she flashed up and down the Bay, on the bicycle that she had brought
+with her from Paris, and, as she flew by the houses, even the old women
+left their windows and hobbled to the door to catch a gay salutation
+from her.
+
+Only Agapit was dissatisfied, only Agapit did not praise her, and Rose
+on this day, as she stood wistfully looking into his face, carried on an
+internal soliloquy. It must be because she represents Mr. Nimmo. She has
+been educated by him, she reveres him. He has only lent her to the Bay,
+and will some day take her away, and Agapit, who feels this, is jealous
+because he is rich, and because he will not forgive. It is strange that
+the best of men and women are so human; but our dear Lord will some day
+melt their hearts; and Rose, who had never disliked any one and had not
+an enemy in the world, checked a sigh and endeavored to turn her
+thoughts to some more agreeable subject.
+
+Agapit, however, still stood before her, and while he was there it was
+difficult to think of anything else. Then he presently asked a
+distracting question, and one that completely upset her again, although
+it was put in a would-be careless tone of voice.
+
+"Does the Poirier boy go much to the inn?"
+
+Rose tried to conceal her emotion, but it was hard for her to do so, as
+she felt that she had just been afforded a painful lightning glance into
+Agapit's mind. He felt that he was growing old. Bidiane was associating
+with the girls and young men who had been mere children five years
+before. The Poirier boy, in particular, had grown up with amazing
+rapidity and precociousness. He was handsomer, far handsomer than Agapit
+had ever been, he was also very clever, and very much made of on account
+of his being the most distinguished pupil in the college of Sainte-Anne,
+that was presided over by the Eudist fathers from France.
+
+"Agapit," she said, suddenly, and in sweet, patient alarm, "are we
+getting old, you and I?"
+
+"We shall soon be thirty," he said, gruffly, and he turned away.
+
+Rose had never before thought much on the subject of her age. Whatever
+traces the slow, painful years had left on her inner soul, there were no
+revealing marks on the outer countenance of her body. Her glass showed
+her still an unruffled, peaceful face, a delicate skin, an eye undimmed,
+and the same beautiful abundance of shining hair.
+
+"But, Agapit," she said, earnestly, "this is absurd. We are in our
+prime. Only you are obliged to wear glasses. And even if we were old, it
+would not be a terrible thing--there is too much praise of youth. It is
+a charming time, and yet it is a time of follies. As for me, I love the
+old ones. Only as we grow older do we find rest."
+
+"The follies of youth," repeated Agapit, sarcastically, "yes, such
+follies as we have had,--the racking anxiety to find food to put in
+one's mouth, to find sticks for the fire, books for the shelf. Yes, that
+is fine folly. I do not wonder that you sigh for age."
+
+Rose followed him to the front door, where he stood on the threshold and
+looked down at the river.
+
+"Some days I wish I were there," he said, wearily.
+
+Rose had come to the end of her philosophy, and in real alarm she
+examined his irritated, disheartened face. "I believe that you are
+hungry," she said at last.
+
+"No, I am not,--I have a headache. I was up all last night reading a
+book on Commercial Law. I could not eat to-day, but I am not hungry."
+
+"You are starving--come, take off your gloves," she said, peremptorily.
+"You shall have such a fine little dinner. I know what Célina is
+preparing, and I will assist her so that you may have it soon. Go lie
+down there in the sitting-room."
+
+"I do not wish to stay," said Agapit, disagreeably; "I am like a bear."
+
+"The first true word that you have spoken," she said, shaking a finger
+at him. "You are not like my good Agapit to-day. See, I will leave you
+for a time--Jovite, Jovite," and she went to the back door and waved
+her hand in the direction of the stable. "Go take out Monsieur LeNoir's
+horse. He stays to dinner."
+
+After dinner she persuaded him to go down to the inn with her. Bidiane
+was in the parlor, sitting before a piano that Vesper had had sent from
+Boston for her. Two young Acadien girls were beside her, and when they
+were not laughing and exchanging jokes, they sang French songs, the
+favorite one being "_Un Canadien Errant_," to which they returned over
+and over again.
+
+Several shy young captains from schooners in the Bay were sitting tilted
+back on chairs on the veranda, each one with a straw held between his
+teeth to give him countenance. Agapit joined them, while Rose went in
+the parlor and assisted the girls with their singing. She did not feel
+much older than they did. It was curious how this question of age
+oppressed some people; and she glanced through the window at Agapit's
+now reasonably contented face.
+
+"I am glad you came with him," whispered Bidiane, mischievously. "He
+avoids me now, and I am quite afraid of him. The poor man, he thought to
+find me a blue-stocking, discussing dictionaries and encyclopædias; he
+finds me empty-headed and silly, so he abandons me to the younger set,
+although I admire him so deeply. You, at least, will never give me up,"
+and she sighed and laughed at the same time, and affectionately squeezed
+Rose's hand.
+
+Rose laughed too. She was becoming more light-hearted under Bidiane's
+half-nonsensical, half-sensible influence, and the two young Acadien
+girls politely averted their surprised eyes from the saint who would
+condescend to lay aside for a minute her crown of martyrdom. All the Bay
+knew that she had had some trouble, although they did not know what it
+was.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+
+                       BIDIANE PLAYS AN OVERTURE.
+
+          "I've tried the force of every reason on him,
+           Soothed and caressed, been angry, soothed again."
+
+                                                        ADDISON.
+
+
+A few days later, Bidiane happened to be caught in a predicament, when
+none of her new friends were near, and she was forced to avail herself
+of Agapit's assistance.
+
+She had been on her wheel nearly to Weymouth to make a call on one of
+her numerous and newly acquired girl friends. Merrily she was gliding
+homeward, and being on a short stretch of road bounded by hay-fields
+that contained no houses, and fancying that no one was near her, she
+lifted up her voice in a saucy refrain, "_L'homme qui m'aura, il n'aura
+pas tout ce qu'il voudra_" (The man that gets me, will not get all he
+wants).
+
+"_La femme qui m'aura, elle n'aura pas tout ce qu'elle voudra_" (The
+woman that gets me, she'll not get all she wants), chanted Agapit, who
+was coming behind in his buggy.
+
+Suddenly the girl's voice ceased; in the twinkling of an eye there had
+been a rip, a sudden evacuation of air from one of the rubber tubes on
+her wheel, and she had sprung to the road.
+
+"Good afternoon," said Agapit, driving up, "you have punctured a tire."
+
+"Yes," she replied, in dismay, "the wretched thing! If I knew which
+wicked stone it was that did it, I would throw it into the Bay."
+
+"What will you do?"
+
+"Oh, I do not know. I wish I had leather tires."
+
+"I will take you to Sleeping Water, mademoiselle, if you wish."
+
+"But I do not care to cause you that trouble," and she gazed
+mischievously and longingly up and down the road.
+
+"It will not be a trouble," he said, gravely.
+
+"Anything is a trouble that one does not enjoy."
+
+"But there is duty, mademoiselle."
+
+"Ah, yes, duty, dear duty," she said, making a face. "I have been
+instructed to love it, therefore I accept your offer. How fortunate for
+me that you happened to be driving by! Almost every one is haying. What
+shall we do with the wheel?"
+
+"We can perhaps lash it on behind. I have some rope. No, it is too
+large. Well, we can at least wheel it to the post-office in Belliveau's
+Cove,--or stay, give me your wrench. I will take off the wheel, carry
+it to Meteghan River, and have it mended. I am going to Chéticamp
+to-night. To-morrow I will call for it and bring it to you."
+
+"Oh, you are good,--I did not know that there is a repair shop at
+Meteghan River."
+
+"There is,--they even make wheels."
+
+"But the outside world does not know that. The train conductor told that
+if anything went wrong with my bicycle, I would have to send it to
+Yarmouth."
+
+"The outside world does not know of many things that exist in Clare.
+Will you get into the buggy, mademoiselle? I will attend to this."
+
+Bidiane meekly ensconced herself under the hood, and took the reins in
+her hands. "What are you going to do with the remains?" she asked, when
+Agapit put the injured wheel in beside her.
+
+"We might leave them at Madame LeBlanc's," and he pointed to a white
+house in the distance. "She will send them to you by some passing cart."
+
+"That is a good plan,--she is quite a friend of mine."
+
+"I will go on foot, if you will drive my horse."
+
+They at once set out, Bidiane driving, and Agapit walking silently along
+the grassy path at the side of the road.
+
+The day was tranquil, charming, and a perfect specimen of "the divine
+weather" that Saint-Mary's Bay is said to enjoy in summer. Earlier in
+the afternoon there had been a soft roll of pearl gray fog on the Bay,
+in and out of which the schooners had been slipping like phantom ships.
+Now it had cleared away, and the long blue sweep of water was open to
+them. They could plainly see the opposite shores of long Digby
+Neck,--each fisherman's cottage, each comfortable farmhouse, each bit of
+forest sloping to the water's edge. Over these hills hung the sun, hot
+and glowing, as a sun should be in haying time. On Digby Neck the people
+were probably making hay. Here about them there had been a general
+desertion of the houses for work in the fields. Men, women, and children
+were up on the slopes on their left, and down on the banks on their
+right, the women's cotton dresses shining in gay spots of color against
+the green foliage of the evergreen and hardwood trees that grew singly
+or in groups about the extensive fields of grass.
+
+Madame LeBlanc was not at home, so Agapit pinned a note to the bicycle,
+and left it standing outside her front gate with the comfortable
+assurance that, although it might be the object of curious glances, no
+one would touch it until the return of the mistress of the house.
+
+Then he entered the buggy, and, with one glance into Bidiane's eyes,
+which were dancing with merriment, he took the reins from her and drove
+on briskly.
+
+She stared at the magnificent panorama of purple hills and shining water
+spread out before them, and, remembering the company that she was in,
+tried to concentrate her attention on the tragic history of her
+countrymen. Her most earnest effort was in vain; she could not do so,
+and she endeavored to get further back, and con over the romantic
+exploits of Champlain and De Monts, whose oddly shaped ships had
+ploughed these waters; but here again she failed. Her mind came back,
+always irresistibly back, from the ancient past to the man of modern
+times seated beside her.
+
+She was sorry that he did not like her; she had tried hard to please
+him. He really was wiser than any one she knew; could she not bring
+about a better understanding with him? If he only knew how ignorant she
+felt, how anxious she was to learn, perhaps he would not be so hard on
+her.
+
+It was most unfortunate that she should have had on her bicycling dress.
+She had never heard him speak against the wheel as a means of exercise,
+yet she felt intuitively that he did not like it. He adored modest
+women, and in bicycling they were absolutely forced to occasionally show
+their ankles. Gradually and imperceptibly she drew her trim-gaitered
+feet under her blue skirt; then she put up a cautious hand to feel that
+her jaunty sailor hat was set straight on her coils of hair. Had he
+heard, she wondered, that six other Acadien girls, inspired by her
+example, were to have wheels? He would think that she had set the Bay
+crazy. Perhaps he regarded it as a misfortune that she had ever come
+back to it.
+
+If he were any other man she would be furiously angry with him. She
+would not speak to him again. And, with an abrupt shrug of her
+shoulders, she watched the squawking progress of a gull from the Bay
+back to the woods, and then said, impulsively, "It is going to rain."
+
+Agapit came out of his reverie and murmured an assent. Then he looked
+again into her yellowish brown, certainly charming eyes when full of
+sunlight, as they were at present from their unwinking stare at the
+bright sky.
+
+"Up the Bay, Digby Neck was our barometer," she said, thoughtfully.
+"When it grew purple, we were to have rain. Here one observes the gulls,
+and the sign never fails,--a noisy flight is rain within twenty-four
+hours. The old gull is telling the young ones to stay back by the lake
+in the forest, I suppose."
+
+Agapit tried to shake off his dreaminess and to carry on a conversation
+with her, but failed dismally, until he discovered that she was choking
+with suppressed laughter.
+
+"Oh, pardon, pardon, monsieur; I was thinking--ah! how delicious is
+one's surprise at some things--I am thinking how absurd. You that I
+fancied would be a brother--you almost as angelic as Mr. Nimmo--you do
+not care for me at all. You try so hard, but I plague you, I annoy. But
+what will you? I cannot make myself over. I talk all the Acadienism that
+I can, but one cannot forever linger on the old times. You yourself say
+that one should not."
+
+"So you think, mademoiselle, that I dislike you?"
+
+"Think it, my dear sir,--I know it. All the Bay knows it."
+
+"Then all the Bay is mistaken; I esteem you highly."
+
+"Actions speak louder than words," and her teasing glance played about
+his shining glasses. "In order to be polite you perjure yourself."
+
+"Mademoiselle!"
+
+"I am sorry to be so terribly plain-spoken," she said, nodding her head
+shrewdly, yet childishly. "But I understand perfectly that you think I
+have a feather for a brain. You really cannot stoop to converse with me.
+You say, 'Oh, that deceived Mr. Nimmo! He thinks he has accomplished a
+wonderful thing. He says, "Come now, see what I have done for a child of
+the Bay; I will send her back to you. Fall down and worship her."'"
+
+Agapit smiled despite himself. "Mademoiselle, you must not make fun of
+yourself."
+
+"But why not? It is my chief amusement. I am the most ridiculous mortal
+that ever lived, and I know how foolish I am; but why do you not
+exercise your charity? You are, I hear, kind and forbearing with the
+worst specimens of humanity on the Bay. Why should you be severe with
+me?"
+
+Agapit winced as if she had pinched him. "What do you wish me to do?"
+
+"Already it is known that you avoid me," she continued, airily; "you who
+are so much respected. I should like to have your good opinion, and,
+ridiculous as I am, you know that I am less so than I used to be."
+
+She spoke with a certain dignity, and Agapit was profoundly touched.
+"Mademoiselle," he said, in a low voice, "I am ashamed of myself. You do
+not understand me, and I assert again that I do not dislike you."
+
+"Then why don't you come to see me?" she asked, pointedly.
+
+"I cannot tell you," he said, and his eyes blazed excitedly. "Do not
+urge the question. However, I will come--yes, I will. You shall not
+complain of me in future."
+
+Bidiane felt slightly subdued, and listened in silence to his energetic
+remarks suddenly addressed to the horse, who had taken advantage of his
+master's wandering attention by endeavoring to draw the buggy into a
+ditch where grew some luscious bunches of grass.
+
+"There comes Pius Poirier," she said, after a time.
+
+The young Acadien was on horseback. His stolid, fine-featured face was
+as immovable as marble, as he jogged by, but there was some play between
+his violet eyes and Bidiane's tawny ones that Agapit did not catch, but
+strongly suspected.
+
+"Do you wish to speak to him?" he inquired, coldly, when Bidiane
+stretched her neck outside the buggy to gaze after him.
+
+"No," she said, composedly, "I only want to see how he sits his horse.
+He is my first admirer," she added, demurely, but with irrepressible
+glee.
+
+"Indeed,--I should fancy that mademoiselle might have had several."
+
+"What,--and I am only seventeen? You are crazy, my dear sir,--I am only
+beginning that sort of thing. It is very amusing to have young men come
+to see you; although, of course," she interpolated, modestly, "I shall
+not make a choice for some years yet."
+
+"I should hope not," said her companion, stiffly.
+
+"I say I have never had an admirer; yet sometimes gay young men would
+stare at me in the street,--I suppose on account of this red hair,--and
+Mr. Nimmo would be very much annoyed with them."
+
+"A city is a wicked place; it is well that you have come home."
+
+"With that I console myself when I am sometimes lonely for Paris," said
+Bidiane, wistfully. "I long to see those entrancing streets and parks,
+and to mingle with the lively crowds of people; but I say to myself what
+Mr. Nimmo often told me, that one can be as happy in one place as in
+another, and home is the best of all to keep the heart fresh. 'Bidiane,'
+he said, one day, when I was extolling the beauties of Paris, 'I would
+give it all for one glimpse of the wind-swept shores of your native
+Bay.'"
+
+"Ah, he still thinks that!"
+
+"Yes, yes; though I never after heard him say anything like it. I only
+know his feelings through his mother."
+
+Agapit turned the conversation to other subjects. He never cared to
+discuss Vesper Nimmo for any length of time.
+
+When they reached the Sleeping Water Inn, Bidiane hospitably invited him
+to stay to supper.
+
+"No, thank you,--I must hurry on to Chéticamp."
+
+"Good-by, then; you were kind to bring me home. Shall we not be better
+friends in future?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said Agapit, hurriedly. "I apologize, mademoiselle," and
+jumping into his buggy, he drove quickly away.
+
+Bidiane's gay face clouded. "You are not very polite to me, sir.
+Sometimes you smile like a sunbeam, and sometimes you glower like a
+rain-cloud, but I'll find out what is the matter with you, if it takes
+me a year. It is very discomposing to be treated so."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+ A SNAKE IN THE GRASS INTERFERES WITH THE EDUCATION OF MIRABELLE MARIE.
+
+             "Fair is the earth and fair is the sky;
+              God of the tempest, God of the calm,
+              What must be heaven when here is such balm?"
+
+                                                             --_Aminta._
+
+
+Bidiane, being of a practical turn of mind, and having a tremendous fund
+of energy to bestow upon the world in some way or other, was doing her
+best to follow the hint given her by Vesper Nimmo, that she should, as a
+means of furthering her education, spend some time at the Sleeping Water
+Inn, with the object of imparting to Mirabelle Marie a few ideas
+hitherto outside her narrow range of thought.
+
+Sometimes the girl became provoked with her aunt, sometimes she had to
+check herself severely, and rapidly mutter Vesper's incantation, "Do not
+despise any one; if you do, it will be at a great loss to yourself."
+
+At other times Bidiane had no need to think of the incantation. Her aunt
+was so good-natured, so forgiving, she was so full of pride in her
+young niece, that it seemed as if only the most intense provocation
+could justify any impatience with her.
+
+Mirabelle Marie loved Bidiane almost as well as she loved her own
+children, and it was only some radical measure, such as the changing of
+her sneaks at sundown for a pair of slippers, or the sitting in the
+parlor instead of the kitchen, that excited her rebellion. However, she
+readily yielded,--these skirmishes were not the occurrences that vexed
+Bidiane's soul. The renewed battles were the things that discouraged
+her. No victory was sustained. Each day she must contend for what had
+been conceded the day before, and she was tortured by the knowledge that
+so little hold had she on Mirabelle Marie's slippery soul that, if she
+were to leave Sleeping Water on any certain day, by the next one matters
+would at once slip back to their former condition.
+
+"Do not be discouraged," Vesper wrote her. "The Bay was not built in a
+day. Some of your ancestors lived in camps in the woods."
+
+This was an allusion on his part to the grandmother of Mrs. Watercrow,
+who had actually been a squaw, and Bidiane, as a highly civilized being,
+winced slightly at it. Very little of the Indian strain had entered her
+veins, except a few drops that were exhibited in a passion for rambling
+in the woods. She was more like her French ancestors, but her aunt had
+the lazy, careless blood, as had also her children.
+
+One of the chief difficulties that Bidiane had to contend with, in her
+aunt, was her irreligion. Mirabelle Marie had weak religious instincts.
+She had as a child, and as a very young woman, been an adherent of the
+Roman Catholic Church, and had obtained some grasp of its doctrines.
+When, in order to become "stylish," she had forsaken this church, she
+found herself in the position of a forlorn dog who, having dropped his
+substantial bone, finds himself groping for a shadow. Protestantism was
+an empty word to her. She could not comprehend it; and Bidiane, although
+a Protestant herself, shrewdly made up her mind that there was no hope
+for her aunt save in the church of her forefathers. However, in what way
+to get her back to it,--that was the question. She scolded, entreated,
+reasoned, but all in vain. Mirabelle Marie lounged about the house all
+day Sunday, very often, strange to say, amusing herself with
+declamations against the irreligion of the people of Boston.
+
+Bidiane's opportunity to change this state of affairs at last came, and
+all unthinkingly she embraced it.
+
+The opportunity began on a hot and windy afternoon, a few days after her
+drive with Agapit. She sat on the veranda reading, until struck by a
+sudden thought which made her close her book, and glance up and down the
+long road, to see if the flying clouds of dust were escorting any
+approaching traveller to the inn. No one was coming, so she hastily left
+the house and ran across the road to the narrow green field that lay
+between the inn and the Bay.
+
+The field was bounded by straggling rows of raspberry bushes, and over
+the bushes hung a few apple-trees,--meek, patient trees, their backs
+bent from stooping before the strong westerly winds, their short, stubby
+foliage blown all over their surprised heads.
+
+There was a sheep-pen in the corner of the field next the road, and near
+it was a barred gate, opening on a winding path that led down to the
+flat shore. Bidiane went through the gate, frowned slightly at a
+mowing-machine left out-of-doors for many days by the careless Claude,
+then laughed at the handle of its uplifted brake, that looked like a
+disconsolate and protesting arm raised to the sky.
+
+All the family were in the hay field. Two white oxen drew the hay wagon
+slowly to and fro, while Claudine and the two boys circled about it,
+raking together scattered wisps left from the big cocks that Claude
+threw up to Mirabelle Marie.
+
+The mistress of the house was in her element. She gloried in haying,
+which was the only form of exercise that appealed in the least to her.
+Her face was overspread by a grin of delight, her red dress fluttered in
+the strong breeze, and she gleefully jumped up and down on top of the
+load, and superimposed her fat jolly weight on the masses of hay.
+
+Bidiane ran towards them, dilating her small nostrils as she ran to
+catch the many delicious odors of the summer air. The strong perfume of
+the hay overpowered them all, and, in an intoxication of delight, she
+dropped on a heap of it, and raised an armful to her face.
+
+A squeal from Claudine roused her. Her rake had uncovered a mouse's
+nest, and she was busily engaged in killing every one of the tiny
+velvety creatures.
+
+"But why do you do it?" asked Bidiane, running up to her.
+
+Claudine stared at her. She was a magnificent specimen of womanhood as
+she stood in the blazing light of the sun, and Bidiane, even in the
+midst of her subdued indignation, thought of some lines in the
+Shakespeare that she had just laid down:
+
+     "'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,
+      Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream,
+      That can entame my spirits to your worship."
+
+Claudine was carrying on a vigorous line of reasoning. She admired
+Bidiane intensely, and she quietly listened with pleasure to what she
+called her _rocamboles_ of the olden times, which were Bidiane's tales
+of Acadien exploits and sufferings. She was a more apt pupil than the
+dense and silly Mirabelle Marie.
+
+"If I was a mouse I wouldn't like to be killed," she said, presently,
+going on with her raking; and Bidiane, having made her think, was
+satisfied.
+
+"Now, Claudine," she said, "you must be tired. Give me your rake, and do
+you go up to the house and rest."
+
+"Yes, go, Claudine," said Mirabelle Marie, from her height, "you look
+drug out."
+
+"I am not tired," said Claudine, in French, "and I shall not give my
+rake to you, Bidiane. You are not used to work."
+
+Bidiane bubbled over into low, rippling laughter. "I delicate,--ah, that
+is good! Give me your rake, Claude. You go up to the barn now, do you
+not?"
+
+Claude nodded, and extended a strong hand to assist his wife in sliding
+to the ground. Then, accompanied by his boys, he jogged slowly after the
+wagon to the barn, where the oxen would be unyoked, and the grasping
+pitcher would lift the load in two or three mouthfuls to the mows.
+
+Bidiane threw down her rake and ran to the fence for some raspberries,
+and while her hands were busy with the red fruit, her bright eyes kept
+scanning the road. She watched a foot-passenger coming slowly from the
+station, pausing at the corner, drifting in a leisurely way towards the
+inn, and finally, after a glance at Mirabelle Marie's conspicuous gown,
+climbing the fence, and moving deliberately towards her.
+
+"H'm--a snake in the grass," murmured Bidiane, keeping an eye on the new
+arrival, and presently she, too, made her way towards her aunt and
+Claudine, who had ceased work and were seated on the hay.
+
+"This is Nannichette," said Mirabelle Marie, somewhat apprehensively,
+when Bidiane reached them.
+
+"Yes, I know," said the girl, and she nodded stiffly to the woman, who
+was almost as fat and as easy-going as Mirabelle Marie herself.
+
+Nannichette was half Acadien and half English, and she had married a
+pure Indian who lived back in the woods near the Sleeping Water Lake.
+She was not a very desirable acquaintance for Mirabelle Marie, but she
+was not a positively bad woman, and no one would think of shutting a
+door against her, although her acquaintance was not positively sought
+after by the scrupulous Acadiens.
+
+"We was gabbin' about diggin' for gold one day, Nannichette and I," said
+Mirabelle Marie, insinuatingly. "She knows a heap about good places, and
+the good time to dig. You tell us, Biddy,--I mean Bidiane,--some of yer
+yarns about the lake. Mebbe there's some talk of gold in 'em."
+
+Bidiane sat down on the hay. If she talked, it would at least prevent
+Nannichette from pouring her nonsense into her aunt's ear, so she
+began. "I have not yet seen this lake of _L'Eau Dormante_, but I have
+read of it. Long, long ago, before the English came to this province,
+and even before the French came, there was an Indian encampment on the
+shores of this deep, smooth, dark lake. Many canoes shot gaily across
+its glassy surface, many camp-fires sent up their smoke from among the
+trees to the clear, blue sky. The encampment was an old, old one. The
+Indians had occupied it for many winters; they planned to occupy it for
+many more, but one sweet spring night, when they were dreaming of summer
+roamings, a band of hostile Indians came slipping behind the
+tree-trunks. A bright blaze shot up to the clear sky, and the bosom of
+Sleeping Water looked as if some one had drawn a bloody finger across
+it. Following this were shrieks and savage yells, and afterward a
+profound silence. The Indians left, and the shuddering trees grew closer
+together to hide the traces of the savage invaders--no, the marks of
+devastation," she said, stopping suddenly and correcting herself, for
+she had a good memory, and at times was apt to repeat verbatim the words
+of some of her favorite historians or story-tellers.
+
+"The green running vines, also," she continued, "made haste to spread
+over the blackened ground, and the leaves fell quietly over the dead
+bodies and warmly covered them. Years went by, the leaf-mould had
+gathered thick over the graves of the Indians, and then, on a memorable
+day, the feast of Sainte-Anne's, the French discovered the lovely,
+silent Sleeping Water, the gem of the forest, and erected a fort on its
+banks. The royal flag floated over the trees, a small space of ground
+was cleared for the planting of corn, and a garden was laid out, where
+seeds from old France grew and flourished, for no disturbing gales from
+the Bay ever reached this sanctuary of the wildwood.
+
+"All went merrily as a marriage bell until one winter night, when the
+bosom of the lake was frosted with ice, and the snow-laden branches of
+the trees hung heavily earthward. Then, in the hush before morning, a
+small detachment of men on snowshoes, arrayed in a foreign uniform, and
+carrying hatchets in their hands--"
+
+"More Injuns!" gasped Mirabelle Marie, clapping her hand to her mouth in
+lively distress at Bidiane's tragic manner.
+
+"No, no! I didn't say tomahawks," said Bidiane, who started nervously at
+the interruption; "the hatchets weren't for killing,--they were to cut
+the branches. These soldiers crept stealthily and painfully through the
+underbrush, where broken limbs and prickly shrubs stretched out
+detaining arms to hold them back; but they would not be held, for the
+lust of murder was in their hearts. When they reached the broad and open
+lake--"
+
+"You jist said it was frozen," interrupted the irrepressible Mirabelle
+Marie.
+
+"I beg your pardon,--the ice-sealed sheet of water,--the soldiers threw
+away their hatchets and unslung their guns, and again a shout of horror
+went up to the clear vault of heaven. White men slew white men, for the
+invaders were not Indians, but English soldiers, and there were streaks
+of crimson on the snow where the French soldiers laid themselves down to
+die.
+
+"There seemed to be a curse on the lake, and it was deserted for many
+years, until a band of sorrowing Acadien exiles was forced to take
+refuge in the half-ruined fort. They summered and wintered there, until
+they all died of a strange sickness and were buried by one man who,
+only, survived. He vowed that the lake was haunted, and would never be
+an abode for human beings; so he came to the shore and built himself a
+log cabin, that he occupied in fear and trembling until at last the time
+came when the French were no longer persecuted."
+
+"Agapit LeNoir also says that the lake is haunted," exclaimed Claudine,
+in excited French. "He hates the little river that comes stealing from
+it. He likes the Bay, the open Bay. There is no one here that loves the
+river but Rose à Charlitte."
+
+"But dere is gold dere,--heaps," said the visitor, in English, and her
+eyes glistened.
+
+"Only foolish people say that," remarked Claudine, decidedly, "and even
+if there should be gold there, it would be cursed."
+
+"You not think that," said Nannichette, shrinking back.
+
+"Oh, how stupid all this is!" said Bidiane. "Up the Bay I used to hear
+this talk of gold. You remember, my aunt?"
+
+Mirabelle Marie's shoulders shook with amusement. "_Mon jheu_, yes, on
+the stony Dead Man's Point, where there ain't enough earth to _fricasser
+les cailloux_" (fricassee the pebbles); "it's all dug up like
+graveyards. Come on, Nannichette, tell us ag'in of yer fantome."
+
+Nannichette became suddenly shy, and Mirabelle Marie took it upon
+herself to be spokeswoman. "She was rockin' her baby, when she heard a
+divil of a noise. The ceiling gapped at her, jist like you open yer
+mouth, and a fantome voice says--"
+
+"'Dere is gole in Sleepin' Water Lake,'" interrupted Nannichette,
+hastily. "'Only women shall dig,--men cannot fine.'"
+
+"An' Nannichette was squshed,--she fell ag'in the floor with her baby."
+
+"And then she ran about to see if she could find some women foolish
+enough to believe this," said Bidiane, with fine youthful disdain.
+
+A slow color crept into Nannichette's brown cheek. "Dere is gole dere,"
+she said, obstinately. "De speerit tell me where to look."
+
+"That was Satan who spoke to you, Nannichette," said Claudine,
+seriously; "or maybe you had had a little rum. Come now, hadn't you?"
+
+Nannichette scowled, while Mirabelle Marie murmured, with reverent
+admiration, "I dessay the divil knows where there is lots of gold."
+
+"It drives me frantic to hear you discuss this subject," said Bidiane,
+suddenly springing to her feet. "Oh, if you knew how ignorant it sounds,
+how way back in the olden times! What would the people in Paris say if
+they could hear you? Oh, please, let us talk of something else; let us
+mention art."
+
+"What's dat?" asked Nannichette, pricking up her ears.
+
+"It is all about music, and writing poetry, and making lovely pictures,
+and all kinds of elegant things,--it elevates your mind and soul. Don't
+talk about hateful things. What do you want to live back in the woods
+for? Why don't you come out to the shore?"
+
+"Dat's why I wan' de gole," said Nannichette, triumphantly. "Of'en I use
+to hunt for some of Cap'en Kidd's pots."
+
+"Good gracious!" said Bidiane, with an impatient gesture, "how much
+money do you suppose that man had? They are searching for his treasure
+all along the coast. I don't believe he ever had a bit. He was a wicked
+old pirate,--I wouldn't spend his money if I found it--"
+
+Mirabelle Marie and Nannichette surveyed each other's faces with
+cunning, glittering eyes. There was a secret understanding between them;
+no speech was necessary, and they contemplated Bidiane as two benevolent
+wild beasts might survey an innocent and highly cultured lamb who
+attempted to reason with them.
+
+Bidiane dimly felt her powerlessness, and, accompanied by Claudine, went
+back to her raking, and left the two sitting on the hay.
+
+While the girl was undressing that night, Claudine tapped at her door.
+"It is all arranged, Bidiane. They are going to dig."
+
+Bidiane impatiently shook her hanging mass of hair, and stamped her foot
+on the floor. "They shall not."
+
+"Nannichette did not go away," continued Claudine. "She hung about the
+stable, and Mirabelle Marie took her up some food. I was feeding the
+pig, and I overheard whispering. They are to get some women together,
+and Nannichette will lead them to the place the spirit told her of."
+
+"Oh, the simpleton! She shall not come here again, and my aunt shall not
+accompany her--but where do they wish to go?"
+
+"To the Sleeping Water Lake."
+
+"Claudine, you know there is no gold there. The Indians had none, the
+French had none,--where would the poor exiles get it?"
+
+"All this is reasonable, but there are people who are foolish,--always
+foolish. I tell you, this seeking for gold is like a fever. One catches
+it from another. I had an uncle who thought there was a treasure hid on
+his farm; he dug it all over, then he went crazy."
+
+Bidiane's head, that, in the light of her lamp, had turned to a dull
+red-gold, sank on her breast. "I have it," she said at last, flinging it
+up, and choking with irrepressible laughter. "Let them go,--we will play
+them a trick. Nothing else will cure my aunt. Listen,--" and she laid a
+hand on the shoulder of the young woman confronting her, and earnestly
+unfolded a primitive plan.
+
+Claudine at once fell in with it. She had never yet disapproved of a
+suggestion of Bidiane, and after a time she went chuckling to bed.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+
+                       GHOSTS BY SLEEPING WATER.
+
+                 "Which apparition, it seems, was you."
+
+                                                 --_Tatler._
+
+
+The next day Claudine's left eyelid trembled in Bidiane's direction.
+
+The girl followed her to the pantry, where she heard, murmured over a
+pan of milk, "They go to-night, as soon as it is dark,--Mirabelle Marie,
+Suretta, and Mosée-Délice."
+
+"Very well," said Bidiane, curling her lip, "we will go too."
+
+Accordingly, that evening, when Mirabelle Marie clapped her rakish hat
+on her head,--for nothing would induce her to wear a handkerchief,--and
+said that she was going to visit a sick neighbor, Bidiane demurely
+commended her thoughtfulness, and sent an affecting message to the
+invalid.
+
+However, the mistress of the inn had no sooner disappeared than her
+younger helpmeets tied black handkerchiefs on their heads, and slipped
+out to the yard, each carrying a rolled-up sheet and a paper of pins.
+With much suppressed laughter they glided up behind the barn, and
+struck across the fields to the station road. When half-way there,
+Bidiane felt something damp and cold touch her hand, and, with a start
+and a slight scream, discovered that her uncle's dog, Bastarache, in
+that way signified his wish to join the expedition.
+
+"Come, then, good dog," she said, in French, for he was a late
+acquisition and, having been brought up in the woods, understood no
+English, "thou, too, shalt be a ghost."
+
+It was a dark, furiously windy night, for the hot gale that had been
+blowing over the Bay for three days was just about dying away with a
+fiercer display of energy than before.
+
+The stars were out, but they did not give much light, and Bidiane and
+Claudine had only to stand a little aside from the road, under a group
+of spruces, in order to be completely hidden from the three women as
+they went tugging by. They had met at the corner, and, in no fear of
+discovery, for the night was most unpleasant and there were few people
+stirring, they trudged boldly on, screaming neighborhood news at the top
+of their voices, in order to be heard above the noise of the wind.
+
+Bidiane and Claudine followed them at a safe distance. "_Mon Dieu_, but
+Mirabelle Marie's fat legs will ache to-morrow," said Claudine, "she
+that walks so little."
+
+"If it were an honest errand that she was going on, she would have asked
+for the horse. As it is, she was ashamed to do so."
+
+The three women fairly galloped over the road to the station, for, at
+first, both tongues and heels were excited, and even Mirabelle Marie,
+although she was the only fat one of the party, managed to keep up with
+the others.
+
+To Claudine, Bidiane, and the dog, the few miles to the station were a
+mere bagatelle. However, after crossing the railway track, they were
+obliged to go more slowly, for the three in front had begun to flag.
+They also had stopped gossiping, and when an occasional wagon
+approached, they stepped into the bushes beside the road until it had
+passed by.
+
+The dog, in great wonderment of mind, chafed at the string that Bidiane
+took from her pocket and fastened around his neck. He scented his
+mistress on ahead, and did not understand why the two parties might not
+be amicably united.
+
+A mile beyond the station, the three gold-seekers left the main road and
+plunged into a rough wood-track that led to the lake. Here the darkness
+was intense; the trees formed a thick screen overhead, through which
+only occasional glimpses of a narrow lane of stars could be obtained.
+
+"This is terrible," gasped Bidiane, as her foot struck a root; "lift
+your feet high, Claudine."
+
+Claudine gave her a hand. She was almost hysterical from listening to
+the groaning on ahead. "Since the day of my husband's death, I have not
+laughed so much," she said, winking away the nervous tears in her eyes.
+"I do not love fun as much as some people, but when I laugh, I laugh
+hard."
+
+"My aunt will be in bed to-morrow," sighed Bidiane; "what a pity that
+she is such a goose."
+
+"She is tough," giggled Claudine, "do not disturb yourself. It is you
+that I fear for."
+
+At last, the black, damp, dark road emerged on a clearing. There stood
+the Indian's dwelling,--small and yellow, with a fertile garden before
+it, and a tiny, prosperous orchard at the back.
+
+"You must enter this house some day," whispered Claudine. "Everything
+shines there, and they are well fixed. Nannichette has a sewing-machine,
+and a fine cook-stove, and when she does not help her husband make
+baskets, she sews and bakes."
+
+"Will her husband approve of this expedition?"
+
+"No, no, he must have gone to the shore, or Nannichette would not
+undertake it,--listen to what Mirabelle Marie says."
+
+The fat woman had sunk exhausted on the doorstep of the yellow house.
+"Nannichette, I be _dèche_ if I go a step furder, till you gimme
+_checque chouse pour mouiller la langue_" (give me something to wet my
+tongue).
+
+"All right," said Nannichette, in the soft, drawling tones that she had
+caught from the Indians, and she brought her out a pitcher of milk.
+
+Mirabelle Marie put the pitcher to her lips, and gurgled over the milk a
+joyful thanksgiving that she had got away from the rough road, and the
+rougher wind, that raged like a bull; then she said, "Your husband is
+away?"
+
+"No," said Nannichette, in some embarrassment, "he ain't, but come in."
+
+Mirabelle Marie rose, and with her companions went into the house, while
+Bidiane and Claudine crept to the windows.
+
+"Dear me, this is the best Indian house that I ever saw," said Bidiane,
+taking a survey, through the cheap lace curtains, of the sewing-machine,
+the cupboard of dishes, and the neat tables and chairs inside. Then she
+glided on in a voyage of discovery around the house, skirting the
+diminutive bedrooms, where half a dozen children lay snoring in
+comfortable beds, and finally arriving outside a shed, where a tall,
+slight Indian was on his knees, planing staves for a tub by the light of
+a lamp on a bracket above him.
+
+His wife's work lay on the floor. When not suffering from the gold
+fever, she twisted together the dried strips of maple wood and scented
+grasses, and made baskets that she sold at a good price.
+
+The Indian did not move an eyelid, but he plainly saw Bidiane and
+Claudine, and wondered why they were not with the other women, who, in
+some uneasiness of mind, stood in the doorway, looking at him over each
+other's shoulders.
+
+After his brief nod and taciturn "Hullo, ladies," his wife said, "We go
+for walk in woods."
+
+"What for you lie?" he said, in English, for the Micmacs of the Bay are
+accomplished linguists, and make use of three languages. "You go to dig
+gold," and he grunted contemptuously.
+
+No one replied to him, and he continued, "Ladies, all religions is good.
+I cannot say, you go hell 'cause you Catholic, an' I go heaven 'cause I
+Protestant. All same with God, if you believe your religion. But your
+priesties not say to dig gold."
+
+He took up the stave that he had laid down, and went on with his work of
+smoothing it, while the four "ladies," Mirabelle Marie, Suretta,
+Mosée-Délice, and his wife, appeared to be somewhat ashamed of
+themselves.
+
+"'Pon my soul an' body, there ain't no harm in diggin' gold," said
+Mirabelle Marie. "That gives us fun."
+
+"How many you be?" he asked.
+
+"Four," said Nannichette, who was regarding her lord and master with
+some shyness; for stupid as she was, she recognized the fact that he
+was the more civilized being, and that the prosperity of their family
+was largely due to him.
+
+The Indian's liquid eyes glistened for an instant towards the window,
+where stood Bidiane and Claudine. "Take care, ladies, there be ghosties
+in the woods."
+
+The four women laughed loudly, but in a shaky manner; then taking each a
+handful of raspberries, from a huge basketful that Nannichette offered
+them, and that was destined for the preserve pot on the morrow, they
+once more plunged into the dark woods.
+
+Bidiane and Claudine restrained the leaping dog, and quietly followed
+them. The former could not conceal her delight when they came suddenly
+upon the lake. It lay like a huge, dusky mirror, turned up to the sky
+with a myriad stars piercing its glassy bosom.
+
+"Stop," murmured Claudine.
+
+The four women had paused ahead of them. They were talking and
+gesticulating violently, for all conversation was forbidden while
+digging. One word spoken aloud, and the charm would be broken, the
+spirit would rush angrily from the spot.
+
+Therefore they were finishing up their ends of talk, and Nannichette was
+assuring them that she would take them to the exact spot revealed to her
+in the vision.
+
+Presently they set off in Indian file, Nannichette in front, as the one
+led by the spirit, and carrying with her a washed and polished spade,
+that she had brought from her home.
+
+Claudine and Bidiane were careful not to speak, for there was not a word
+uttered now by the women in front, and the pursuers needed to follow
+them with extreme caution. On they went, climbing silently over the
+grassy mounds that were now the only reminders of the old French fort,
+or stumbling unexpectedly and noisily into the great heap of clam
+shells, whose contents had been eaten by the hungry exiles of long ago.
+
+At last they stopped. Nannichette stared up at the sky, down at the
+ground, across the lake on her right, and into the woods on her left,
+and then pointed to a spot in the grass, and with a magical flourish of
+the spade began to dig.
+
+Having an Indian husband, she was accustomed to work out-of-doors, and
+was therefore able to dig for a long time before she became sensible of
+fatigue, and was obliged mutely to extend the spade to Suretta.
+
+Not so enduring were the other women. Their ancestors had ploughed and
+reaped, but Acadiennes of the present day rarely work on the farms,
+unless it is during the haying season. Suretta soon gave out.
+Mosée-Délice took her place, and Mirabelle Marie hung back until the
+last.
+
+Bidiane and Claudine withdrew among the trees, stifling their laughter
+and trying to calm the dog, who had finally reached a state of frenzy at
+this mysterious separation.
+
+"My unfortunate aunt!" murmured Bidiane; "do let us put an end to this."
+
+Claudine was snickering convulsively. She had begun to array herself in
+one of the sheets, and was transported with amusement and anticipation.
+
+Meanwhile, doubt and discord had reared their disturbing heads among the
+members of the digging party. Mirabelle Marie persisted in throwing up
+the spade too soon, and the other women, regarding her with glowing,
+eloquent looks, quietly arranged that the honorable agricultural
+implement, now perverted to so unbecoming a use, should return to her
+hands with disquieting frequency.
+
+The earth was soft here by the lake, yet it was heavy to lift out, for
+the hole had now become quite deep. Suddenly, to the horror and anger of
+Nannichette and the other two women, both of whom were beginning to have
+mysterious warnings and impressions that they were now on the brink of
+discovery of one pot of gold, and perhaps two, there was an impatient
+exclamation from Mirabelle Marie.
+
+"The divil!" she cried, and her voice broke out shrilly in the deathly
+silence; "Bidiane was right. It ain't no speerit you saw. I'm goin',"
+and she scrambled out of the hole.
+
+With angry reproaches for her precipitancy and laziness, the other women
+fell upon her with their tongues. She had given them this long walk to
+the lake, she had spoiled everything, and, as their furious voices smote
+the still air, Bidiane, Claudine, and the dog emerged slowly and
+decently from the heavy gloom behind them like ghosts rising from the
+lake.
+
+"I will give you a bit of my sheet," Bidiane had said to Bastarache;
+consequently he stalked beside them like a diminutive bogey in a
+graceful mantle of white.
+
+"_Ah, mon jheu! chesque j'vois?_" (what do I see), screamed Suretta, who
+was the first to catch sight of them. "Ten candles to the Virgin if I
+get out of this!" and she ran like a startled deer.
+
+With various expressions of terror, the others followed her. They
+carried with them the appearance of the white ethereal figures, standing
+against the awful black background of the trees, and as they ran, their
+shrieks and yells of horror, particularly those from Mirabelle Marie,
+were so heartrending that Bidiane, in sudden compunction, screamed to
+her, "Don't you know me, my aunt? It is Bidiane, your niece. Don't be
+afraid!"
+
+Mirabelle Marie was making so much noise herself that she could scarcely
+have heard a trumpet sounding in her ears, and fear lent her wings of
+such extraordinary vigor in flight that she was almost immediately out
+of sight.
+
+Bidiane turned to the dog, who was tripping and stumbling inside his
+snowy drapery, and to Claudine, who was shrieking with delight at him.
+
+"Go then, good dog, console your mistress," she said. "Follow those
+piercing screams that float backward," and she was just about to release
+him when she was obliged to go to the assistance of Claudine, who had
+caught her foot, and had fallen to the ground, where she lay overcome by
+hysterical laughter.
+
+Bidiane had to get water from the lake to dash on her face, and when at
+last they were ready to proceed on their way, the forest was as still as
+when they had entered it.
+
+"Bah, I am tired of this joke," said Bidiane. "We have accomplished our
+object. Let us throw these things in the lake. I am ashamed of them;"
+and she put a stone inside their white trappings, and hurled them into
+Sleeping Water, which mutely received and swallowed them.
+
+"Now," she said, impatiently, "let us overtake them. I am afraid lest
+Mirabelle Marie stumble, she is so heavy."
+
+Claudine, leaning against a tree and mopping her eyes, vowed that it was
+the best joke that she had ever heard of; then she joined Bidiane, and
+they hurriedly made their way to the yellow cottage.
+
+It was deserted now, except for the presence of the six children of
+mixed blood, who were still sleeping like six little dark logs, laid
+three on a bed.
+
+"We shall overtake them," said Bidiane; "let us hurry."
+
+However, they did not catch up to them on the forest path, nor even on
+the main road, for when the terrified women had rushed into the presence
+of the Indian and had besought him to escort them away from the
+spirit-haunted lake, that amused man, with a cheerful grunt, had taken
+them back to the shore by a short cut known only to himself.
+
+Therefore, when Bidiane and Claudine arrived breathlessly home, they
+found Mirabelle Marie there before them. She sat in a rocking-chair in
+the middle of the kitchen, surrounded by a group of sympathizers, who
+listened breathlessly to her tale of woe, that she related with
+chattering teeth.
+
+Bidiane ran to her and threw her arms about her neck.
+
+"_Mon jheu_, Biddy, I've got such a fright. I'm mos' dead. Three
+ghosties came out of Sleepin' Water, and chased us,--we were back for
+gold. Suretta an' Mosée-Délice have run home. They're mos' scairt to
+pieces. Oh, I'll never sin again. I wisht I'd made my Easter duties.
+I'll go to confession to-morrer."
+
+"It was I, my aunt," cried Bidiane, in distress.
+
+"It was awful," moaned Mirabelle Marie. "I see the speerit of me mother,
+I see the speerit of me sister, I see the speerit of me leetle lame
+child."
+
+"It was the dog," exclaimed Bidiane, and, gazing around the kitchen for
+him, she discovered Agapit sitting quietly in a corner.
+
+"Oh, how do you do?" she said, in some embarrassment; then she again
+gave her attention to her distressed aunt.
+
+"The dogue,--Biddy, you ain't crazy?"
+
+"Yes, yes, the dog and Claudine and I. See how she is laughing. We heard
+your plans, we followed you, we dressed in sheets."
+
+"The dogue," reiterated Mirabelle Marie, in blank astonishment, and
+pointing to Bastarache, who lay under the sofa solemnly winking at her.
+"Ain't he ben plumped down there ever since supper, Claude?"
+
+"Yes, he's ben there."
+
+"But Claude sleeps in the evenings," urged Bidiane. "I assure you that
+Bastarache was with us."
+
+"Oh, the dear leetle liar," said Mirabelle Marie, affectionately
+embracing her. "But I'm glad to git back again to yeh."
+
+"I'm telling the truth," said Bidiane, desperately. "Can't you speak,
+Claudine?"
+
+"We did go," said Claudine, who was still possessed by a demon of
+laughter. "We followed you."
+
+"Followed us to Sleepin' Water! You're lyin', too. _Sakerjé_, it was
+awful to see me mother and me sister and the leetle dead child," and she
+trotted both feet wildly on the floor, while her rolling eye sought
+comfort from Bidiane.
+
+"What shall I do?" said Bidiane. "Mr. LeNoir, you will believe me. I
+wanted to cure my aunt of her foolishness. We took sheets--"
+
+"Sheets?" repeated Mirabelle. "Whose sheets?"
+
+"Yours, my aunt,--oh, it was very bad in us, but they were old ones;
+they had holes."
+
+"What did you do with 'em?"
+
+"We threw them in the lake."
+
+"Come, now, look at that, ha, ha," and Mirabelle Marie laughed in a
+quavering voice. "I can see Claudine throwing sheets in the lake. She
+would make pickin's of 'em. Don't lie, Bidiane, me girl, or you'll see
+ghosties. You want to help your poor aunt,--you've made up a nice leetle
+lie, but don't tell it. See, Jude and Edouard are heatin' some soup.
+Give some to Agapit LeNoir and take a cup yourself."
+
+Bidiane, with a gesture of utter helplessness, gave up the discussion
+and sat down beside Agapit.
+
+"You believe me, do you not?" she asked, under cover of the joyful
+bustle that arose when the two boys began to pass around the soup.
+
+"Yes," he replied, making a wry face over his steaming cup.
+
+"And what do you think of me?" she asked, anxiously.
+
+Agapit, although an ardent Acadien, and one bent on advancing the
+interests of his countrymen in every way, had yet little patience with
+the class to which Mirabelle Marie belonged. Apparently kind and
+forbearing with them, he yet left them severely alone. His was the party
+of progress, and he had been half amused, half scornful of the efforts
+that Bidiane had put forth to educate her deficient relative.
+
+"On general principles," he said, coolly, "it is better not to chase a
+fat aunt through dark woods; yet, in this case, I would say it has done
+good."
+
+"I did not wish to be heartless," said Bidiane, with tears in her eyes.
+"I wished to teach her a lesson."
+
+"Well, you have done so. Hear her swear that she will go to mass,--she
+will, too. The only way to work upon such a nature is through fear."
+
+"I am glad to have her go to mass, but I did not wish her to go in this
+way."
+
+"Be thankful that you have attained your object," he said, dryly. "Now I
+must go. I hoped to spend the evening with you, and hear you sing."
+
+"You will come again, soon?" said Bidiane, following him to the door.
+
+"It is a good many miles to come, and a good many to go back,
+mademoiselle. I have not always the time--and, besides that, I have soon
+to go to Halifax on business."
+
+"Well, I thank you for keeping your promise to come," said Bidiane,
+humbly, and with gratitude. She was completely unnerved by the events of
+the evening, and was in no humor to find fault.
+
+Agapit clapped his hat firmly on his head as a gust of wind whirled
+across the yard and tried to take it from him.
+
+"We are always glad to see you here," said Bidiane, wistfully, as she
+watched him step across to the picket fence, where his white horse shone
+through the darkness; "though I suppose you have pleasant company in
+Weymouth. I have been introduced to some nice English girls from there."
+
+"Yes, there are nice ones," he said. "I should like to see more of them,
+but I am usually busy in the afternoons and evenings."
+
+"Do not work too hard,--that is a mistake. One must enjoy life a
+little."
+
+He gathered up the reins in his hands and paused a minute before he
+stepped into the buggy. "I suppose I seem very old to you."
+
+She hesitated for an instant, and the wind dying down a little seemed
+to take the words from her lips and softly breathe them against his
+dark, quiet face. "Not so very old,--not as old as you did at first. If
+I were as old as you, I should not do such silly things."
+
+He stared solemnly at her wind-blown figure swaying lightly to and fro
+on the gravel, and at the little hands put up to keep her dishevelled
+hair from her eyes and cheeks, which were both glowing from her hurried
+scamper home. "Are you really worried because you played this trick on
+your aunt?"
+
+"Yes, terribly, she has been like a mother to me. I would be ashamed for
+Mr. Nimmo to know."
+
+"And will you lie awake to-night and vex yourself about it?"
+
+"Oh, yes, yes,--how can you tell? Perhaps you also have troubles."
+
+Agapit laughed in sudden and genuine amusement. "Mademoiselle, my
+cousin, let me say something to you that you may perhaps remember when
+you are older. It is this: you have at present about as much
+comprehension and appreciation of real heart trouble, and of mental
+struggles that tear one first this way, then that way,--you have about
+as much understanding of them as has that kitten sheltering itself
+behind you."
+
+Bidiane quietly stowed away this remark among the somewhat heterogeneous
+furniture of her mind; then she said, "I feel quite old when I talk to
+my aunt and to Claudine."
+
+"You are certainly ahead of them in some mental experiences, but you are
+not yet up to some other people."
+
+"I am not up to Madame de Forêt," she said, gently, "nor to you. I feel
+sure now that you have some troubles."
+
+"And what do you imagine they are?"
+
+"I imagine that they are things that you will get over," she said, with
+spirit. "You are not a coward."
+
+He smiled, and softly bade her good night.
+
+"Good night, _mon cousin_," she said, gravely, and taking the crying
+kitten in her arms, she put her head on one side and listened until the
+sound of the carriage wheels grew faint in the distance.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+
+                            FAIRE BOMBANCE.
+
+            "Could but our ancestors retrieve their fate,
+             And see their offspring thus degenerate,
+             How we contend for birth and names unknown;
+             And build on their past acts, and not our own;
+             They'd cancel records and their tombs deface,
+             And then disown the vile, degenerate race;
+             For families is all a cheat,
+             'Tis personal virtue only, makes us great."
+
+                                        THE TRUE BORN ENGLISHMAN. DEFOE.
+
+
+Bidiane was late for supper, and Claudine was regretfully remarking that
+the croquettes and the hot potatoes in the oven would all be burnt to
+cinders, when the young person herself walked into the kitchen, her face
+a fiery crimson, a row of tiny beads of perspiration at the conjunction
+of her smooth forehead with her red hair.
+
+"I have had a glorious ride," she said, opening the door of the big oven
+and taking out the hot dishes.
+
+Claudine laid aside the towel with which she was wiping the cups and
+saucers that Mirabelle Marie washed. "Go sit down at the table,
+Bidiane; you must be weary."
+
+The girl, nothing loath, went to the dining-room, while Claudine brought
+her in hot coffee, buttered toast, and preserved peaches and cream, and
+then returning to the kitchen watched her through the open door, as she
+satisfied the demands of a certainly prosperous appetite.
+
+"And yet, it is not food I want, as much as drink," said Bidiane, gaily,
+as she poured herself out a second glass of milk. "Ah, the bicycle,
+Claudine. If you rode, you would know how one's mouth feels like a dry
+bone."
+
+"I think I would like a wheel," said Claudine, modestly. "I have enough
+money saved."
+
+"Have you? Then you must get one, and I will teach you to ride."
+
+"How would one go about it?"
+
+"We will do it in this way," said Bidiane, in a business-like manner,
+for she loved to arrange the affairs of other people. "How much money
+have you?"
+
+"I have one hundred dollars."
+
+"'Pon me soul an' body, I'd have borrered some if I'd known that,"
+interrupted Mirabelle Marie, with a chuckle.
+
+"Good gracious," observed Bidiane, "you don't want more than half that.
+We will give fifty to one of the men on the schooners. Isn't _La
+Sauterelle_ going to Boston, to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes; the cook was just in for yeast."
+
+"Has he a head for business?"
+
+"Pretty fair."
+
+"Does he know anything about machines?"
+
+"He once sold sewing-machines, and he also would show how to work them."
+
+"The very man,--we will give him the fifty dollars and tell him to pick
+you out a good wheel and bring it back in the schooner."
+
+"Then there will be no duty to pay," said Claudine, joyfully.
+
+"H'm,--well, perhaps we had better pay the duty," said Bidiane; "it
+won't be so very much. It is a great temptation to smuggle things from
+the States, but I know we shouldn't. By the way, I must tell Mirabelle
+Marie a good joke I just heard up the Bay. My aunt,--where are you?"
+
+Mirabelle Marie came into the room and seated herself near Claudine.
+
+"Marc à Jaddus à Dominique's little girl gave him away," said Bidiane,
+laughingly. "She ran over to the custom-house in Belliveau's Cove and
+told the man what lovely things her papa had brought from Boston, in his
+schooner, and the customs man hurried over, and Marc had to pay--I must
+tell you, too, that I bought some white ribbon for Alzélie Gauterot,
+while I was in the Cove," and Bidiane pulled a little parcel from her
+pocket.
+
+Mirabelle Marie was intensely interested. Ever since the affair of the
+ghosts, which Bidiane had given up trying to persuade her was not
+ghostly, but very material, she had become deeply religious, and took
+her whole family to mass and vespers every Sunday.
+
+Just now the children of the parish were in training for their first
+communion. She watched the little creatures daily trotting up the road
+towards the church to receive instruction, and she hoped that her boys
+would soon be among them. In the small daughter of her next-door
+neighbor, who was to make her first communion with the others, she took
+a special interest, and in her zeal had offered to make the dress, which
+kind office had devolved upon Bidiane and Claudine.
+
+"Also, I have been thinking of a scheme to save money," said Bidiane.
+"For a veil we can just take off this fly screen," and she pointed to
+white netting on the table. "No one but you and Claudine will know. It
+is fine and soft, and can be freshly done up."
+
+"_Mon jheu!_ but you are smart, and a real Acadien brat," said her aunt.
+"Claudine, will you go to the door? Some divil rings,--that is, some
+lady or gentleman," she added, as she caught a menacing glance from
+Bidiane.
+
+"If you keep a hotel you must always be glad to see strangers," said
+Bidiane, severely. "It is money in your pocket."
+
+"But such a trouble, and I am sleepy."
+
+"If you are not careful you will have to give up this inn,--however, I
+must not scold, for you do far better than when I first came."
+
+"It is the political gentleman," said Claudine, entering, and
+noiselessly closing the door behind her. "He who has been going up and
+down the Bay for a day or two. He wishes supper and a bed."
+
+"_Sakerjé!_" muttered Mirabelle Marie, rising with an effort. "If I was
+a man I guess I'd let pollyticks alone, and stay to hum. I s'ppose he's
+got a nest with some feathers in it. I guess you'd better ask him out,
+though. There's enough to start him, ain't there?" and she waddled out
+to the kitchen.
+
+"Ah, the political gentleman," said Bidiane. "It was he for whom I
+helped Maggie Guilbaut pick blackberries, yesterday. They expected him
+to call, and were going to offer him berries and cream."
+
+Mirabelle Marie, on going to the kitchen, had left her niece sitting
+composedly at the table, only lifting an eyelid to glance at the door by
+which the stranger would enter; but when she returned, as she almost
+immediately did, to ask the gentleman whether he would prefer tea to
+coffee, a curious spectacle met her gaze.
+
+Bidiane, with a face that was absolutely furious, had sprung to her feet
+and was grasping the sides of her bicycle skirt with clenched hands,
+while the stranger, who was a lean, dark man, with a pale, rather
+pleasing face, when not disfigured by a sarcastic smile, stood staring
+at her as if he remembered seeing her before, but had some difficulty in
+locating her among his acquaintances.
+
+Upon her aunt's appearance, Bidiane found her voice. "Either I or that
+man must leave this house," she said, pointing a scornful finger at him.
+
+[Illustration: "'EITHER THAT MAN OR I MUST LEAVE THIS HOUSE.'"]
+
+Mirabelle Marie, who was not easily shocked, was plainly so on the
+present occasion. "Whist, Bidiane," she said, trying to pull her down on
+her chair; "this is the pollytickle genl'man,--county member they call
+'im."
+
+"I do not care if he is member for fifty counties," said Bidiane, in
+concentrated scorn. "He is a libeller, a slanderer, and I will not stay
+under the same roof with him,--and to think it was for him I picked the
+blackberries,--we cannot entertain you here, sir."
+
+The expression of disagreeable surprise with which the man with the
+unpleasant smile had regarded her gave way to one of cool disdain. "This
+is your house, I think?" he said, appealing to Mirabelle Marie.
+
+"Yessir," she said, putting down her tea-caddy, and arranging both her
+hands on her hips, in which position she would hold them until the
+dispute was finished.
+
+"And you do not refuse me entertainment?" he went on, with the same
+unpleasant smile. "You cannot, I think, as this is a public house, and
+you have no just reason for excluding me from it."
+
+"My aunt," said Bidiane, flashing around to her in a towering passion,
+"if you do not immediately turn this man out-of-doors, I shall never
+speak to you again."
+
+"I be _dèche_," sputtered the confused landlady, "if I see into this
+hash. Look at 'em, Claudine. This genl'man'll be mad if I do one thing,
+an' Biddy'll take my head off if I do another. _Sakerjé!_ You've got to
+fit it out yourselves."
+
+"Listen, my aunt," said Bidiane, excitedly, and yet with an effort to
+control herself. "I will tell you what happened. On my way here I was in
+a hotel in Halifax. I had gone there with some people from the steamer
+who were taking charge of me. We were on our way to our rooms. We were
+all speaking English. No one would think that there was a French person
+in the party. We passed a gentleman, this gentleman, who stood outside
+his door; he was speaking to a servant. 'Bring me quickly,' he said,
+'some water,--some hot water. I have been down among the evil-smelling
+French of Clare. I must go again, and I want a good wash first.'"
+
+Mirabelle Marie was by no means overcome with horror at the recitation
+of this trespass on the part of her would-be guest; but Claudine's eyes
+blazed and flashed on the stranger's back until he moved slightly, and
+shrugged his shoulders as if he felt their power.
+
+"Imagine," cried Bidiane, "he called us 'evil-smelling,'--we, the best
+housekeepers in the world, whose stoves shine, whose kitchen floors are
+as white as the beach! I choked with wrath. I ran up to him and said,
+'_Moi, je suis Acadienne_'" (I am an Acadienne). "Did I not, sir?"
+
+The stranger lifted his eyebrows indulgently and satirically, but did
+not speak.
+
+"And he was astonished," continued Bidiane. "_Ma foi_, but he was
+astonished! He started, and stared at me, and I said, 'I will tell you
+what you are, sir, unless you apologize.'"
+
+"I guess yeh apologized, didn't yeh?" said Mirabelle Marie, mildly.
+
+"The young lady is dreaming," said the stranger, coolly, and he seated
+himself at the table. "Can you let me have something to eat at once,
+madame? I have a brother who resembles me; perhaps she saw him."
+
+Bidiane grew so pale with wrath, and trembled so violently that Claudine
+ran to support her, and cried, "Tell us, Bidiane, what did you say to
+this bad man?"
+
+Bidiane slightly recovered herself. "I said to him, 'Sir, I regret to
+tell you that you are lying.'"
+
+The man at the table surveyed her in intense irritation. "I do not know
+where you come from, young woman," he said, hastily, "but you look
+Irish."
+
+"And if I were not Acadien I would be Irish," she said, in a low voice,
+"for they also suffer for their country. Good-by, my aunt, I am going to
+Rose à Charlitte. I see you wish to keep this story-teller."
+
+"Hole on, hole on," ejaculated Mirabelle Marie in distress. "Look here,
+sir, you've gut me in a fix, and you've gut to git me out of it."
+
+"I shall not leave your house unless you tell me to do so," he said, in
+cool, quiet anger.
+
+Bidiane stretched out her hands to him, and with tears in her eyes
+exclaimed, pleadingly, "Say only that you regret having slandered the
+Acadiens. I will forget that you put my people to shame before the
+English, for they all knew that I was coming to Clare. We will overlook
+it. Acadiens are not ungenerous, sir."
+
+"As I said before, you are dreaming," responded the stranger, in a
+restrained fury. "I never was so put upon in my life. I never saw you
+before."
+
+Bidiane drew herself up like an inspired prophetess. "Beware, sir, of
+the wrath of God. You lied before,--you are lying now."
+
+The man fell into such a repressed rage that Mirabelle Marie, who was
+the only unembarrassed spectator, inasmuch as she was weak in racial
+loves and hatreds, felt called upon to decide the case. The gentleman,
+she saw, was the story-teller. Bidiane, who had not been particularly
+truthful as a child, had yet never told her a falsehood since her return
+from France.
+
+"I'm awful sorry, sir, but you've gut to go. I brought up this leetle
+girl, an' her mother's dead."
+
+The gentleman rose,--a gentleman no longer, but a plain, common, very
+ugly-tempered man. These Acadiens were actually turning him, an
+Englishman, out of the inn. And he had thought the whole people so meek,
+so spiritless. He was doing them such an honor to personally canvass
+them for votes for the approaching election. His astonishment almost
+overmastered his rage, and in a choking voice he said to Mirabelle
+Marie, "Your house will suffer for this,--you will regret it to the end
+of your life."
+
+"I know some business," exclaimed Claudine, in sudden and irrepressible
+zeal. "I know that you wish to make laws, but will our men send you when
+they know what you say?"
+
+He snatched his hat from the seat behind him. His election was
+threatened. Unless he chained these women's tongues, what he had said
+would run up and down the Bay like wildfire,--and yet a word now would
+stop it. Should he apologize? A devil rose in his heart. He would not.
+
+"Do your worst," he said, in a low, sneering voice. "You are a pack of
+liars yourselves," and while Bidiane and Claudine stiffened themselves
+with rage, and Mirabelle Marie contemptuously muttered, "Get out, ole
+beast," he cast a final malevolent glance on them, and left the house.
+
+For a time the three remained speechless; then Bidiane sank into her
+chair, pushed back her half-eaten supper, propped her red head on her
+hand, and burst into passionate weeping.
+
+Claudine stood gloomily watching her, while Mirabelle Marie sat down,
+and shifting her hands from her hips, laid them on her trembling knees.
+"I guess he'll drive us out of this, Biddy,--an' I like Sleepin' Water."
+
+Bidiane lifted her face to the ceiling, just as if she were "taking a
+vowel," her aunt reflected, in her far from perfect English. "He shall
+not ruin us, my aunt,--we will ruin him."
+
+"What'll you do, sissy?"
+
+"I will tell you something about politics," said Bidiane, immediately
+becoming calm. "Mr. Nimmo has explained to me something about them, and
+if you listen, you will understand. In the first place, do you know
+what politics are?" and hastily wiping her eyes, she intently surveyed
+the two women who were hanging on her words.
+
+"Yes, I know," said her aunt, joyfully. "It's when men quit work, an'
+gab, an' git red in the face, an' pass the bottle, an' pick rows, to
+fine out which shall go up to the city of Boston to make laws an' sit in
+a big room with lots of other men."
+
+Bidiane, with an impatient gesture, turned to Claudine. "You know better
+than that?"
+
+"Well, yes,--a little," said the black-eyed beauty, contemptuously.
+
+"My aunt," said Bidiane, solemnly, "you have been out in the world, and
+yet you have many things to learn. Politics is a science, and deep, very
+deep."
+
+"Is it?" said her aunt, humbly. "An' what's a science?"
+
+"A science is--well, a science is something wonderfully clever--when one
+knows a great deal. Now this Dominion of Canada in which we live is
+large, very large, and there are two parties of politicians in it. You
+know them, Claudine?"
+
+"Yes, I do," said the young woman, promptly; "they are Liberals and
+Conservatives."
+
+"That is right; and just now the Premier of the Dominion is a Frenchman,
+my aunt,--I don't believe you knew that,--and we are proud of him."
+
+"An' what's the Premier?"
+
+"He is the chief one,--the one who stands over the others, when they
+make the laws."
+
+"Oh, the boss!--you will tell him about this bad man."
+
+"No, it would grieve him too much, for the Premier is always a good man,
+who never does anything wrong. This bad man will impose on him, and try
+to get him to promise to let him go to Ottawa--oh, by the way, Claudine,
+we must explain about that. My aunt, you know that there are two cities
+to which politicians go to make the laws. One is the capital."
+
+"Yes, I know,--in Boston city."
+
+"Nonsense,--Boston is in the United States. We are in Canada. Halifax is
+the capital of Nova Scotia."
+
+"But all our folks go to Boston when they travels," said Mirabelle
+Marie, in a slightly injured tone.
+
+"Yes, yes, I know,--the foolish people; they should go to Halifax. Well,
+that is where the big house is in which they make the laws. I saw it
+when I was there, and it has pictures of kings and queens in it. Now,
+when a man becomes too clever for this house, they send him to Ottawa,
+where the Premier is."
+
+"Yes, I remember,--the good Frenchman."
+
+"Well, this bad man now wishes to go to Halifax; then if he is
+ambitious,--and he is bad enough to be anything,--he may wish to go to
+Ottawa. But we must stop him right away before he does more mischief,
+for all men think he is good. Mr. Guilbaut was praising him yesterday."
+
+"He didn't say he is bad?"
+
+"No, no, he thinks him very good, and says he will be elected; but we
+know him to be a liar, and should a liar make laws for his country?"
+
+"A liar should stay to hum, where he is known," was the decisive
+response.
+
+"Very good,--now should we not try to drive this man out of Clare?"
+
+"But what can we do?" asked Mirabelle Marie. "He is already out an'
+lying like the divil about us--that is, like a man out of the woods."
+
+"We can talk," said her niece, seriously. "There are women's rights, you
+know."
+
+"Women's rights," repeated her aunt, thoughtfully. "It is not in the
+prayer-book."
+
+"No, of course not."
+
+"Come now, Biddy, tell us what it is."
+
+"It is a long subject, my aunt. It would take too many words to explain,
+though Mr. Nimmo has often told me about it. Women who believe that--can
+do as men. Why should we not vote,--you, and I, and Claudine?"
+
+"I dunno. I guess the men won't let us."
+
+"I should like to vote," said Bidiane, stoutly, "but even though we
+cannot, we can tell the men on the Bay of this monster, and they will
+send him home."
+
+"All right," said her aunt; while Claudine, who had been sitting with
+knitted brows during the last few minutes, exclaimed, "I have it,
+Bidiane; let us make _bombance_" (feasting). "Do you know what it
+means?"
+
+No, Bidiane did not, but Mirabelle Marie did, and immediately began to
+make a gurgling noise in her throat. "Once I helped to make it in the
+house of an aunt. Glory! that was fun. But the tin, Claudine, where'll
+you git that?"
+
+"My one hundred dollars," cried the black-eyed assistant. "I will give
+them to my country, for I hate that man. I will do without the wheel."
+
+"But what is this?" asked Bidiane, reproachfully. "What are you agreeing
+to? I do not understand."
+
+"Tell her, Claudine," said Mirabelle Marie, with a proud wave of her
+hand. "She's English, yeh know."
+
+Claudine explained the phrase, and for the next hour the three, with
+chairs drawn close together, nodded, talked, and gesticulated, while
+laying out a feminine electioneering campaign.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+
+                           LOVE AND POLITICS.
+
+    "Calm with the truth of life, deep with the love of loving,
+     New, yet never unknown, my heart takes up the tune.
+     Singing that needs no words, joy that needs no proving,
+     Sinking in one long dream as summer bides with June."
+
+
+One morning, three weeks later, Rose, on getting up and going out to the
+sunny yard where she kept her fancy breed of fowls, found them all
+overcome by some strange disorder. The morning was bright and inspiring,
+yet they were all sleeping heavily and stupidly under, instead of upon,
+their usual roosting-place.
+
+She waked up one or two, ran her fingers through their showy plumage,
+and, after receiving remonstrating glances from reproachful and
+recognizing eyes, softly laid them down again, and turned her attention
+to a resplendent red and gold cock, who alone had not succumbed to the
+mysterious malady, and was staggering to and fro, eyeing her with a
+doubtful, yet knowing look.
+
+"Come, Fiddéding," she said, gently, "tell me what has happened to these
+poor hens?"
+
+Fiddéding, instead of enlightening her, swaggered towards the fence,
+and, after many failures, succeeded in climbing to it and in propping
+his tail against a post.
+
+Then he flapped his gorgeous wings, and opened his beak to crow, but in
+the endeavor lost his balance, and with a dismal squawk fell to the
+ground. Sheepishly resigning himself to his fate, he tried to gain the
+ranks of the somniferous hens, but, not succeeding, fell down where he
+was, and hid his head under his wing.
+
+A slight noise caught Rose's attention, and looking up, she found Jovite
+leaning against the fence, and grinning from ear to ear.
+
+"Do you know what is the matter with the hens?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, madame; if you come to the stable, I will show you what they have
+been taking."
+
+Rose, with a grave face, visited the stable, and then instructed him to
+harness her pony to the cart and bring him around to the front of the
+house.
+
+Half an hour later she was driving towards Weymouth. As it happened to
+be Saturday, it was market-day, and the general shopping-time for the
+farmers and the fishermen all along the Bay, and even from back in the
+woods. Many of them, with wives and daughters in their big wagons, were
+on their way to sell butter, eggs, and farm produce, and obtain, in
+exchange, groceries and dry goods, that they would find in larger
+quantities and in greater varieties in Weymouth than in the smaller
+villages along the shore.
+
+Upon reaching Weymouth, she stopped on the principal street, that runs
+across a bridge over the lovely Sissiboo River, and leaving the staid
+and sober pony to brush the flies from himself without the assistance of
+her whip, she knocked at the door of her cousin's office.
+
+"Come in," said a voice, and she was speedily confronted by Agapit, who
+sat at a table facing the door.
+
+He dropped his book and sprang up, when he saw her. "Oh! _ma chère_, I
+am glad to see you. I was just feeling dull."
+
+She gently received and retained both his hands in hers. "One often does
+feel dull after a journey. Ah! but I have missed you."
+
+"It has only been two weeks--"
+
+"And you have come back with that same weary look on your face," she
+said, anxiously. "Agapit, I try to put that look in the back of my mind,
+but it will not stay."
+
+He lightly kissed her fingers, and drew a chair beside his own for her.
+"It amuses you to worry."
+
+"My cousin!"
+
+"I apologize,--you are the soul of angelic concern for the minds and
+bodies of your fellow mortals. And how goes everything in Sleeping
+Water? I have been quite homesick for the good old place."
+
+Rose, in spite of the distressed expression that still lingered about
+her face, began to smile, and said, impulsively, "Once or twice I have
+almost recalled you, but I did not like to interrupt. Yours was a case
+at the supreme court, was it not, if that is the way to word it?"
+
+"Yes, Rose; but has anything gone wrong? You mentioned nothing in your
+letters," and, as he spoke, he took off his glasses and began to polish
+them with his handkerchief.
+
+"Not wrong, exactly, yet--" and she laughed. "It is Bidiane."
+
+The hand with which Agapit was manipulating his glasses trembled
+slightly, and hurriedly putting them on, he pushed back the papers on
+the table before him, and gave her an acute and undivided attention.
+"Some one wants to marry her, I suppose," he said, hastily. "She is
+quite a flirt."
+
+"No, no, not yet,--Pius Poirier may, by and by, but do not be too severe
+with her, Agapit. She has no time to think of lovers now. She is--but
+have you not heard? Surely you must have--every one is laughing about
+it."
+
+"I have heard nothing. I returned late last night. I came directly here
+this morning. I intended to go to see you to-morrow."
+
+"I thought you would, but I could not wait. Little Bidiane should be
+stopped at once, or she will become notorious and get into the
+papers,--I was afraid it might already be known in Halifax."
+
+"My dear Rose, there are people in Halifax who never heard of Clare, and
+who do not know that there are even a score of Acadiens left in the
+country; but what is she doing?" and he masked his impatience under an
+admirable coolness.
+
+"She says she is making _bombance_," said Rose, and she struggled to
+repress a second laugh; "but I will begin from the first, as you know
+nothing. The very day you left, that Mr. Greening, who has been
+canvassing the county for votes, went to our inn, and Bidiane recognized
+him as a man who had spoken ill of the Acadiens in her presence in
+Halifax."
+
+"What had he said?"
+
+"He said that they were 'evil-smelling,'" said Rose, with reluctance.
+
+"Oh, indeed,--he did," and Agapit's lip curled. "I would not have
+believed it of Greening. He is rather a decent fellow. Sarcastic, you
+know, but not a fool, by any means. Bidiane, I suppose, cut him."
+
+"No, she did not cut him; he had not been introduced. She asked him to
+apologize, and he would not. Then she told Mirabelle Marie to request
+him to leave the house. He did so."
+
+"Was he angry?"
+
+"Yes, and insulting; and you can figure to yourself into what kind of a
+state our quick-tempered Bidiane became. She talked to Claudine and her
+aunt, and they agreed to pass Mr. Greening's remark up and down the
+Bay."
+
+Agapit began to laugh. Something in his cousin's strangely excited
+manner, in the expression of her face, usually so delicately colored,
+now so deeply flushed and bewildered over Bidiane's irrepressibility,
+amused him intensely, but most of all he laughed from sheer gladness of
+heart, that the question to be dealt with was not one of a lover for
+their distant and youthful cousin.
+
+Rose was delighted to see him in such good spirits. "But there is more
+to come, Agapit. The thing grew. At first, Bidiane contented herself
+with flying about on her wheel and telling all the Acadien girls what a
+bad man Mr. Greening was to say such a thing, and they must not let
+their fathers vote for him. Following this, Claudine, who is very
+excited in her calm way, began to drive Mirabelle Marie about. They
+stayed at home only long enough to prepare meals, then they went. It is
+all up and down the Bay,--that wretched epithet of the unfortunate Mr.
+Greening,--and while the men laugh, the women are furious. They cannot
+recover from it."
+
+"Well, 'evil-smelling' is not a pretty adjective," said Agapit, with his
+lips still stretched back from his white teeth. "At Bidiane's age, what
+a rage I should have been in!"
+
+"But you are in the affair now," said Rose, helplessly, "and you must
+not be angry."
+
+"I!" he ejaculated, suddenly letting fall a ruler that he had been
+balancing on his finger.
+
+"Yes,--at first there was no talk of another candidate. It was only,
+'Let the slanderous Mr. Greening be driven away;' but, as I said, the
+affair grew. You know our people are mostly Liberals. Mr. Greening is
+the new one; you, too, are one. Of course there is old Mr. Gray, who has
+been elected for some years. One afternoon the blacksmith in Sleeping
+Water said, jokingly, to Bidiane, 'You are taking away one of our
+candidates; you must give us another.' He was mending her wheel at the
+time, and I was present to ask him to send a hoe to Jovite. Bidiane
+hesitated a little time. She looked down the Bay, she looked up here
+towards Weymouth, then she shot a quick glance at me from her curious
+yellow eyes, and said, 'There is my far-removed cousin, Agapit LeNoir.
+He is a good Acadien; he is also clever. What do you want of an
+Englishman?' 'By Jove!' said the blacksmith, and he slapped his leather
+apron,--you know he has been much in the States, Agapit, and he is very
+wide in his opinions,--'By Jove!' he said, 'we couldn't have a better. I
+never thought of him. He is so quiet nowadays, though he used to be a
+firebrand, that one forgets him. I guess he'd go in by acclamation.'
+Agapit, what is acclamation? I searched in my dictionary, and it said,
+'a clapping of hands.'"
+
+Agapit was thunderstruck. He stared at her confusedly for a few seconds,
+then he exclaimed, "The dear little diablette!"
+
+"Perhaps I should have told you before," said Rose, eagerly, "but I
+hated to write anything against Bidiane, she is so charming, though so
+self-willed. But yesterday I began to think that people may suppose you
+have allowed her to make use of your name. She chatters of you all the
+time, and I believe that you will be asked to become one of the members
+for this county. Though the talk has been mostly among the women, they
+are influencing the men, and last evening Mr. Greening had a quarrel
+with the Comeaus, and went away."
+
+"I must go see her,--this must be stopped," said Agapit, rising hastily.
+
+Rose got up, too. "But stay a minute,--hear all. The naughty thing that
+Bidiane has done is about money, but I will not tell you that. You must
+question her. This only I can say: my hens are all quite drunk this
+morning."
+
+"Quite drunk!" said Agapit, and he paused with his arms half in a dust
+coat that he had taken from a hook on the wall. "What do you mean?"
+
+Rose suffocated a laugh in her throat, and said, seriously, "When Jovite
+got up this morning, he found them quite weak in their legs. They took
+no breakfast, they wished only to drink. He had to watch to keep them
+from falling in the river. Afterwards they went to sleep, and he
+searched the stable, and found some burnt out matches, where some one
+had been smoking and sleeping in the barn, also two bottles of whiskey
+hidden in a barrel where one had broken on some oats that the hens had
+eaten. So you see the affair becomes serious when men prowl about at
+night, and open hen-house doors, and are in danger of setting fire to
+stables."
+
+Agapit made a grimace. He had a lively imagination, and had readily
+supplied all these details. "I suppose you do not wish to take me back
+to Sleeping Water?"
+
+Rose hesitated, then said, meekly, "Perhaps it would be better for me
+not to do it, nor for you to say that I have talked to you. Bidiane
+speaks plainly, and, though I know she likes me, she is most extremely
+animated just now. Claudine, you know, spoils her. Also, she avoids me
+lately,--you will not be too severe with her. It is so loving that she
+should work for you. I think she hopes to break down some of your
+prejudice that she says still exists against her."
+
+Rose could not see her cousin's face, for he had abruptly turned his
+back on her, and was staring out the window.
+
+"You will remember, Agapit," she went on, with gentle persistence; "do
+not be irritable with her; she cannot endure it just at present."
+
+"And why should I be irritable?" he demanded, suddenly wheeling around.
+"Is she not doing me a great honor?"
+
+Rose fell back a few steps, and clasped her amazed hands. This
+transfigured face was a revelation to her. "You, too, Agapit!" she
+managed to utter.
+
+"Yes, I, too," he said, bravely, while a dull, heavy crimson mantled his
+cheeks. "I, too, as well as the Poirier boy, and half a dozen others;
+and why not?"
+
+"You love her, Agapit?"
+
+"Does it seem like hatred?"
+
+"Yes--that is, no--but certainly you have treated her strangely, but I
+am glad, glad. I don't know when anything has so rejoiced me,--it takes
+me back through long years," and, sitting down, she covered her face
+with her nervous hands.
+
+"I did not intend to tell you," said her cousin, hurriedly, and he laid
+a consoling finger on the back of her drooping head. "I wish now I had
+kept it from you."
+
+"Ah, but I am selfish," she cried, immediately lifting her tearful face
+to him. "Forgive me,--I wish to know everything that concerns you. Is it
+this that has made you unhappy lately?"
+
+With some reluctance he acknowledged that it was.
+
+"But now you will be happy, my dear cousin. You must tell her at once.
+Although she is young, she will understand. It will make her more
+steady. It is the best thing that could happen to her."
+
+Agapit surveyed her in quiet, intense affection. "Softly, my dear girl.
+You and I are too absorbed in each other. There is the omnipotent Mr.
+Nimmo to consult."
+
+"He will not oppose. Oh, he will be pleased, enraptured,--I know that he
+will. I have never thought of it before, because of late years you have
+seemed not to give your thoughts to marriage, but now it comes to me
+that, in sending her here, one object might have been that she would
+please you; that you would please her. I am sure of it now. He is sorry
+for the past, he wishes to atone, yet he is still proud, and cannot say,
+'Forgive me.' This young girl is the peace-offering."
+
+Agapit smiled uneasily. "Pardon me for the thought, but you dispose
+somewhat summarily of the young girl."
+
+Rose threw out her hands to him. "Your happiness is perhaps too much to
+me, yet I would also make her happy in giving her to you. She is so
+restless, so wayward,--she does not know her own mind yet."
+
+"She seems to be leading a pretty consistent course at present."
+
+Rose's face was like an exquisitely tinted sky at sunrise. "Ah! this is
+wonderful, it overcomes me; and to think that I should not have
+suspected it! You adore this little Bidiane. She is everything to you,
+more than I am,--more than I am."
+
+"I love you for that spice of jealousy," said Agapit, with animation.
+"Go home now, dear girl, and I will follow; or do you stay here, and I
+will start first."
+
+"Yes, yes, go; I will remain a time. I will be glad to think this over."
+
+"You will not cry," he said, anxiously, pausing with his hand on the
+door-knob.
+
+"I will try not to do so."
+
+"Probably I will have to give her up," he said, doggedly. "She is a
+creature of whims, and I must not speak to her yet; but I do not wish
+you to suffer."
+
+Rose was deeply moved. This was no boyish passion, but the unspeakably
+bitter, weary longing of a man. "If I could not suffer with others I
+would be dead," she said, simply. "My dear cousin, I will pray for
+success in this, your touching love-affair."
+
+"Some day I will tell you all about it," he said, abruptly. "I will
+describe the strange influence that she has always had over me,--an
+influence that made me tremble before her even when she was a tiny girl,
+and that overpowered me when she lately returned to us. However, this is
+not the occasion to talk; my acknowledgment of all this has been quite
+unpremeditated. Another day it will be more easy--"
+
+"Ah, Agapit, how thou art changed," she said, gliding easily into
+French; "how I admire thee for thy reserve. That gives thee more power
+than thou hadst when young. Thou wilt win Bidiane,--do not despair."
+
+"In the meantime there are other, younger men," he responded, in the
+same language. "I seem old, I know that I do to her."
+
+"Old, and thou art not yet thirty! I assure thee, Agapit, she respects
+thee for thy age. She laughs at thee, perhaps, to thy face, but she
+praises thee behind thy back."
+
+"She is not beautiful," said Agapit, irrelevantly, "yet every one likes
+her."
+
+"And dost thou not find her beautiful? It seems to me that, when I
+love, the dear one cannot be ugly."
+
+"Understand me, Rose," said her cousin, earnestly; "once when I loved a
+woman she instantly became an angel, but one gets over that. Bidiane is
+even plain-looking to me. It is her soul, her spirit, that charms
+me,--that little restless, loving heart. If I could only put my hand on
+it, and say, 'Thou art mine,' I should be the happiest man in the world.
+She charms me because she changes. She is never the same; a man would
+never weary of her."
+
+Rose's face became as pale as death. "Agapit, would a man weary of me?"
+
+He did not reply to her. Choked by some emotion, he had again turned to
+the door.
+
+"I thank the blessed Virgin that I have been spared that sorrow," she
+murmured, closing her eyes, and allowing her flaxen lashes to softly
+brush her cheeks. "Once I could only grieve,--now I say perhaps it was
+well for me not to marry. If I had lost the love of a husband,--a true
+husband,--it would have killed me very quickly, and it would also have
+made him say that all women are stupid."
+
+"Rose, thou art incomparable," said Agapit, half laughing, half
+frowning, and flinging himself back to the table. "No man would tire of
+thee. Cease thy foolishness, and promise me not to cry when I am gone."
+
+She opened her eyes, looked as startled as if she had been asleep, but
+submissively gave the required promise.
+
+"Think of something cheerful," he went on.
+
+She saw that he was really distressed, and, disengaging her thoughts
+from herself by a quiet, intense effort, she roguishly murmured, "I will
+let my mind run to the conversation that you will have with this fair
+one--no, this plain one--when you announce your love."
+
+Agapit blushed furiously, and hurried from the room, while Rose, as an
+earnest of her obedience to him, showed him, at the window, until he was
+out of sight, a countenance alight with gentle mischief and entire
+contentment of mind.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+
+                      A CAMPAIGN BEGUN IN BRIBERY.
+
+                 "After madness acted, question asked."
+
+                                                   TENNYSON.
+
+
+Before the day was many hours older, Agapit was driving his white horse
+into the inn yard.
+
+There seemed to be more people about the house then there usually were,
+and Bidiane, who stood at the side door, was handing a long paper parcel
+to a man. "Take it away," Agapit heard her say, in peremptory tones;
+"don't you open it here."
+
+The Acadien to whom she was talking happened to be, Agapit knew, a
+ne'er-do-weel. He shuffled away, when he caught sight of the young
+lawyer, but Bidiane ran delightedly towards him. "Oh, Mr. LeNoir, you
+are as welcome as Mayflowers in April!"
+
+Her face was flushed, there were faint dark circles around the light
+brown eyes that harmonized so much better with her red hair than blue
+ones would have done. The sun shone down into these eyes, emphasizing
+this harmony between them and the hair, and Agapit, looking deeply into
+them, forgot immediately the mentor's part that he was to act, and
+clasped her warmly and approvingly by the hand.
+
+"Come in," she said; but Agapit, who would never sit in the house if it
+were possible to stay out-of-doors, conducted her to one of the rustic
+seats by the croquet lawn. He sat down, and she perched in the hammock,
+sitting on one foot, swinging the other, and overwhelming him with
+questions about his visit to Halifax.
+
+"And what have you been doing with yourself since I have been away?" he
+asked, with a hypocritical assumption of ignorance.
+
+"You know very well what I have been doing," she said, rapidly. "Did not
+I see Rose driving in to call on you this morning? And you have come
+down to scold me. I understand you perfectly; you cannot deceive me."
+
+Agapit was silent, quite overcome by this mark of feminine insight.
+
+"I will never do it again," she went on, "but I am going to see this
+through. It is such fun--'Claude,' said my aunt to her husband, when we
+first decided to make _bombance_, 'what politics do you belong to?' 'I
+am a Conservative,' he said; because, you know, my aunt has always told
+him to vote as the English people about him did. She has known nothing
+of politics. 'No, you are not,' she replied, 'you are a Liberal;' and
+Claudine and I nearly exploded with laughter to hear her trying to
+convince him that he must be a Liberal like our good French Premier, and
+that he must endeavor to drive the Conservative candidate out. Claude
+said, 'But we have always been Conservatives, and our house is to be
+their meeting-place on the day of election.' 'It is the meeting-place
+for the Liberals,' said my aunt. But Claude would not give in, so he and
+his party will have the laundry, while we will have the parlor; but I
+can tell you a secret," and she leaned forward and whispered, "Claude
+will vote for the Liberal man. Mirabelle Marie will see to that."
+
+"You say Liberal man,--there are two--"
+
+"But one is going to retire."
+
+"And who will take his place?"
+
+"Never mind," she said, smiling provokingly. "The Liberals are going to
+have a convention to-morrow evening in the Comeauville schoolhouse, and
+women are going. Then you will see--why there is Father Duvair. What
+does he wish?"
+
+She sprang lightly from the hammock, and while she watched the priest,
+Agapit watched her, and saw that she grew first as pale as a lily, then
+red as a rose.
+
+The parish priest was walking slowly towards the inn. He was a young man
+of tall, commanding presence, and being a priest "out of France," he had
+on a _soutane_ (cassock) and a three-cornered hat. On the Bay are Irish
+priests, Nova Scotian priests, Acadien priests, and French-Canadian
+priests, but only the priests "out of France" hold to the strictly
+French customs of dress. The others dress as do the Halifax
+ecclesiastics, in tall silk or shovel hats and black broadcloth garments
+like those worn by clergymen of Protestant denominations.
+
+"_Bon jour, mademoiselle_," he said to Bidiane.
+
+"_Bon jour, monsieur le curé_," she replied, with deep respect.
+
+"Is Madame Corbineau within?" he went on, after warmly greeting Agapit,
+who was an old favorite of his.
+
+"Yes, _monsieur le curé_,--I will take you to her," and she led the way
+to the house.
+
+In a few minutes she came dejectedly back. "You are in trouble," said
+Agapit, tenderly; "what is it?"
+
+She glanced miserably at him from under her curling eyelashes. "When
+Mirabelle Marie went into the parlor, Father Duvair said politely, so
+politely, 'I wish to buy a little rum, madame; can you sell me some?' My
+aunt looked at me, and I said, 'Yes, _monsieur le curé_,' for I knew if
+we set the priest against us we should have trouble,--and then we have
+not been quite right, I know that."
+
+"Where did you get the rum?" asked Agapit, kindly.
+
+"From a schooner,--two weeks ago,--there were four casks. It is
+necessary, you know, to make _bombance_. Some men will not vote
+without."
+
+"And you have been bribing."
+
+"Not bribing," she said, and she dropped her head; "just coaxing."
+
+"Where did you get the money to buy it?"
+
+For some reason or other she evaded a direct answer to this question,
+and after much deliberation murmured, in the lowest of voices, that
+Claudine had had some money.
+
+"Bidiane, she is a poor woman."
+
+"She loves her country," said the girl, flashing out suddenly at him,
+"and she is not ashamed of it. However, Claude bought the rum and found
+the bottles, and we always say, 'Take it home,--do not drink it here.'
+We know that the priests are against drinking, so we had to make haste,
+for Claudine said they would get after us. Therefore, just now, I at
+once gave in. Father Duvair said, 'I would like to buy all you have; how
+much is it worth?' I said fifty dollars, and he pulled the money out of
+his pocket and Mirabelle Marie took it, and then he borrowed a nail and
+a hammer and went down in the cellar, and Claudine whispered loudly as
+he went through the kitchen, 'I wonder whether he will find the cask
+under the coal?' and he heard her, for she said it on purpose, and he
+turned and gave her a quick look as he passed."
+
+"I don't understand perfectly," said Agapit, with patient gravity. "This
+seems to be a house divided against itself. Claudine spends her money
+for something she hates, and then informs on herself."
+
+Bidiane would not answer him, and he continued, "Is Father Duvair at
+present engaged in the work of destruction in the cellar?"
+
+"I just told you that he is."
+
+"How much rum will he find there?"
+
+"Two casks," she said, mournfully. "It is what we were keeping for the
+election."
+
+"And you think it wise to give men that poison to drink?" asked Agapit,
+in an impartial and judicial manner.
+
+"A little does not hurt; why, some of the women say that it makes their
+husbands good-natured."
+
+"If you were married, would you like your husband to be a drunkard?"
+
+"No," she said, defiantly; "but I would not mind his getting drunk
+occasionally, if he would be gentlemanly about it."
+
+Her tone was sharp and irritated, and Agapit, seeing that her nerves
+were all unstrung, smiled indulgently instead of chiding her.
+
+She smiled, too, rather uncertainly; then she said, "Hush, here is
+Father Duvair coming back."
+
+That muscular young priest was sauntering towards them, his stout
+walking-stick under his arm, while he slowly rubbed his damp hands with
+his white handkerchief.
+
+Agapit stood up when he saw him, and went to meet him, but Bidiane sat
+still in her old seat in the hammock.
+
+Agapit drew a cheque-book from his pocket, and, resting it on the picket
+fence, wrote something quickly on it, tore out the leaf, and extended it
+towards the priest.
+
+"This is for you, father; will you be good enough to hand it to some
+priest who is unexpectedly called upon to make certain outlays for the
+good of his parishioners?"
+
+Father Duvair bowed slightly, and, without offering to take it, went on
+wiping his hands.
+
+"How are you getting on with your business, Agapit?"
+
+"I am fully occupied. My income supports me, and I am even able to lay
+up a little."
+
+"Are you able to marry?"
+
+"Yes, father, whenever I wish."
+
+A gleam of humor appeared in Father Duvair's eyes, and he glanced
+towards the apparently careless girl seated in the hammock.
+
+"You will take the cheque, father," said Agapit, "otherwise it will
+cause me great pain."
+
+The priest reluctantly took the slip of paper from him, then, lifting
+his hat, he said to Bidiane, "I have the honor to wish you good
+morning, mademoiselle."
+
+"_Monsieur le curé_," she said, disconsolately, rising and coming
+towards him, "you must not think me too wicked."
+
+"Mademoiselle, you do not do yourself justice," he said, gravely.
+
+Bidiane's eyes wandered to the spots of moisture on his cassock. "I wish
+that rum had been in the Bay," she said; "yet, _monsieur le curé_, Mr.
+Greening is a very bad man."
+
+"Charity, charity, mademoiselle. We all speak hastily at times. Shall I
+tell you what I think of you?"
+
+"Yes, yes, _monsieur le curé_, if you please."
+
+"I think that you have a good heart, but a hasty judgment. You will,
+like many others, grow wise as you grow older, yet, mademoiselle, we do
+not wish you to lose that good heart. Do you not think that Mr. Greening
+has had his lesson?"
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+"Then, mademoiselle, you will cease wearying yourself with--with--"
+
+"With unwomanly exertions against him," said Bidiane, with a quivering
+lip and a laughing eye.
+
+"Hardly that,--but you are vexing yourself unnecessarily."
+
+"Don't you think that my good cousin here ought to go to Parliament?"
+she asked, wistfully.
+
+Father Duvair laughed outright, refused to commit himself, and went
+slowly away.
+
+"I like him," said Bidiane, as she watched him out of sight, "he is so
+even-tempered, and he never scolds his flock as some clergymen do. Just
+to think of his going down into that cellar and letting all that liquor
+run out. His boots were quite wet, and did you notice the splashes on
+his nice black cassock?"
+
+"Yes; who will get the fifty dollars?"
+
+"Dear me, I forgot all about it. I have known a good deal of money to go
+into my aunt's big pocket, but very little comes out. Just excuse me for
+a minute,--I may get it if I pounce upon her at once."
+
+Bidiane ran to the house, from whence issued immediately after a lively
+sound of squealing. In a few minutes she appeared in the doorway,
+cramming something in her pocket and looking over her shoulder at her
+aunt, who stood slapping her sides and vowing that she had been robbed.
+
+"I have it all but five dollars," said the girl, breathlessly. "The dear
+old thing was stuffing it into her stocking for Mr. Nimmo. 'You sha'n't
+rob Peter to pay Paul,' I said, and I snatched it away from her. Then
+she squealed like a pig, and ran after me."
+
+"You will give this to Claudine?"
+
+"I don't know. I think I'll have to divide it. We had to give that
+maledicted Jean Drague three dollars for his vote. That was my money."
+
+"Where did you see Jean Drague?"
+
+"I went to his house. Some one told me that the Conservative candidate
+had called, and had laid seven dollars on the mantelpiece. I also
+called, and there were the seven dollars, so I took them up, and laid
+down ten instead."
+
+Agapit did not speak, but contented himself with twisting the ends of
+his mustache in a vigorous manner.
+
+"And the worst of it is that we are not sure of him now," she said,
+drearily. "I wonder what Mr. Nimmo would say if he knew how I have been
+acting?"
+
+"I have been wondering, myself."
+
+"Some of you will be kind enough to tell him, I suppose," she said. "Oh,
+dear, I'm tired," and leaning her head against the hammock supports, she
+began to cry wearily and dejectedly.
+
+Agapit was nearly frantic. He got up, walked to and fro about her, half
+stretched out his hand to touch her burnished head, drew it back upon
+reflecting that the eyes of the street, the neighbors, and the inn might
+be upon him, and at last said, desperately, "You ought to have a
+husband, Bidiane. You are a very torrent of energy; you will always be
+getting into scrapes."
+
+"Why don't you get married yourself?" and she turned an irritated eye
+upon him.
+
+"I cannot," said Agapit, in sudden calm, and with an inspiration; "the
+woman that I love does not love me."
+
+"Are you in love?" asked Bidiane, immediately drying her eyes. "Who is
+she?"
+
+"I cannot tell you."
+
+"Oh, some English girl, I imagine," she said, disdainfully.
+
+"Suppose Mr. Greening could hear you?"
+
+"I am not talking against the English," she retorted, snappishly, "but I
+should think that you, of all men, would want to marry a woman of your
+own nation,--the dear little Acadien nation,--the only thing that I
+love," and she wound up with a despairing sob.
+
+"The girl that I love is an Acadien," said Agapit, in a lower voice, for
+two men had just driven into the yard.
+
+"Is it Claudine?"
+
+"Claudine has a good education," he said, coldly, "yet she is hardly
+fitted to be my wife."
+
+"I daresay it is Rose."
+
+"It is not Rose," said Agapit; and rendered desperate by the knowledge
+that he must not raise his voice, must not seem excited, must not stand
+too close to her, lest he attract the attention of some of the people
+at a little distance from them, and yet that he must snatch this, the
+golden moment, to press his suit upon her, he crammed both hands in his
+coat pockets, and roamed distractedly around the square of grass.
+
+"Do I know her?" asked Bidiane when, after a time, he came back to the
+hammock.
+
+"A little,--not thoroughly. You do not appreciate her at her full
+value."
+
+"Well," said Bidiane, resignedly, "I give it up. I daresay I will find
+out in time. I can't go over the names of all the girls on the Bay--I
+wish I knew what it is that keeps our darling Rose and Mr. Nimmo apart."
+
+"I wish I could tell you."
+
+"Is it something that can be got over?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She swung herself more vigorously in her delight. "If they could only
+marry, I would be willing to die an old maid."
+
+"But I thought you had already made up your mind to do that," said
+Agapit, striking an attitude of pretended unconcern.
+
+"Oh, yes, I forgot,--I have made up my mind that I am not suited to
+matrimony. Just fancy having to ask a man every time you wanted a little
+money,--and having to be meek and patient all the time. No, indeed, I
+wish to have my own way rather more than most women do," and, in a gay
+and heartless derision of the other sex, she hummed a little tune.
+
+"Just wait till you fall in love," said Agapit, threateningly.
+
+"A silly boy asked me to marry him, the other evening. Just as if I
+would! Why, he is only a baby."
+
+"That was Pius Poirier," said Agapit, delightedly and ungenerously.
+
+"I shall not tell you. I did wrong to mention him," said Bidiane,
+calmly.
+
+"He is a diligent student; he will get on in the world," said Agapit,
+more thoughtfully.
+
+"But without me,--I shall never marry."
+
+"I know a man who loves you," said Agapit, cautiously.
+
+"Do you?--well, don't tell me. Tell him, if you have his confidence,
+that he is a goose for his pains," and Bidiane reclined against her
+hammock cushions in supreme indifference.
+
+"But he is very fond of you," said Agapit, with exquisite gentleness,
+"and very unhappy to think that you do not care for him."
+
+Bidiane held her breath and favored him with a sharp glance. Then she
+sat up very straight. "What makes you so pale?"
+
+"I am sympathizing with that poor man."
+
+"But you are trembling, too."
+
+"Am I?" and with the pretence of a laugh he turned away.
+
+"_Mon cousin_," she said, sweetly, "tell that poor man that I am hoping
+soon to leave Sleeping Water, and to go out in the world again."
+
+"No, no, Bidiane, you must not," he said, turning restlessly on his
+heel, and coming back to her.
+
+"Yes, I am. I have become very unhappy here. Every one is against me,
+and I am losing my health. When I came, I was intoxicated with life. I
+could run for hours. I was never tired. It was a delight to live. Now I
+feel weary, and like a consumptive. I think I shall die young. My
+parents did, you know."
+
+"Yes; they were both drowned. You will pardon me, if I say that I think
+you have a constitution of iron."
+
+"You are quite mistaken," she said, with dignity. "Time will show that I
+am right. Unless I leave Sleeping Water at once, I feel that I shall go
+into a decline."
+
+"May I ask whether you think it a good plan to leave a place immediately
+upon matters going wrong with one living in it?"
+
+"It would be for me," she said, decidedly.
+
+"Then, mademoiselle, you will never find rest for the sole of your
+foot."
+
+"I am tired of Sleeping Water," she said, excitedly quitting the
+hammock, and looking as if she were about to leave him. "I wish to get
+out in the world to do something. This life is unendurable."
+
+"Bidiane,--dear Bidiane,--you will not leave us?"
+
+"Yes, I will," she said, decidedly; "you are not willing for me to have
+my own way in one single thing. You are not in the least like Mr.
+Nimmo," and holding her head well in the air, she walked towards the
+house.
+
+"Not like Mr. Nimmo," said Agapit, with a darkening brow. "Dear little
+fool, one would think you had never felt that iron hand in the velvet
+glove. Because I am more rash and loud-spoken, you misjudge me. You are
+so young, so foolish, so adorable, so surprised, so intoxicated with
+what I have said, that you are beside yourself. I am not discouraged,
+oh, no," and, with a sudden hopeful smile overspreading his face, he was
+about to spring into his buggy and drive away, when Bidiane came
+sauntering back to him.
+
+"I am forgetting the duties of hospitality," she said, stiffly. "Will
+you not come into the house and have something to eat or drink after
+your long drive?"
+
+"Bidiane," he said, in a low, eager voice, "I am not a harsh man."
+
+"Yes, you are," she said, with a catching of her breath. "You are
+against me, and the whole Bay will laugh at me,--and I thought you would
+be pleased."
+
+"Bidiane," he muttered, casting a desperate glance about him, "I am
+frantic--oh, for permission to dry those tears! If I could only reveal
+my heart to you, but you are such a child, you would not understand."
+
+"Will you do as I wish you to?" she asked, obstinately.
+
+"Yes, yes, anything, my darling one."
+
+"Then you will take Mr. Greening's place?"
+
+"Oh, the baby,--you do not comprehend this question. I have talked to no
+one,--I know nothing,--I am not one to put myself forward."
+
+"If you are requested or elected to-night,--or whatever they call
+it,--will you go up to Halifax to 'make the laws,' as my aunt says?"
+inquired Bidiane, smiling slightly, and revealing to him just the tips
+of her glittering teeth.
+
+"Yes, yes,--anything to please you."
+
+She was again about to leave him, but he detained her. "I, also, have a
+condition to make in this campaign of bribery. If I am nominated, and
+run an election, what then,--where is my reward?"
+
+She hesitated, and he hastened to dissipate the cloud overspreading her
+face. "Never mind, I bind myself with chains, but I leave you free. Go,
+little one, I will not detain you,--I exact nothing."
+
+"Thank you," she said, soberly, and, instead of hurrying away, she stood
+still and watched him leaving the yard.
+
+Just before he reached Weymouth, he put his hand in his pocket to take
+out his handkerchief. To his surprise there came fluttering out with it
+a number of bills. He gathered them together, counted them, found that
+he had just forty-five dollars, and smiling and muttering, "The little
+sharp-eyes,--I did not think that she took in my transaction with Father
+Duvair," he went contentedly on his way.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+
+                    WHAT ELECTION DAY BROUGHT FORTH.
+
+     "Oh, my companions, now should we carouse, now we should strike
+     the ground with a free foot, now is the time to deck the temples
+     of the gods."
+
+                                                     ODE 37. HORACE.
+
+
+It was election time all through the province of Nova Scotia, and great
+excitement prevailed, for the Bluenoses are nothing if not keen
+politicians.
+
+In the French part of the county of Digby there was an unusual amount of
+interest taken in the election, and considerable amusement prevailed
+with regard to it.
+
+Mr. Greening had been spirited away. His unwise and untrue remark about
+the inhabitants of the township Clare had so persistently followed him,
+and his anger with the three women at the Sleeping Water Inn had at last
+been so stubbornly and so deeply resented by the Acadiens, who are slow
+to arouse but difficult to quiet when once aroused, that he had been
+called upon to make a public apology.
+
+This he had refused to do, and the discomfited Liberals had at once
+relegated him to private life. His prospective political career was
+ruined. Thenceforward he would lead the life of an unostentatious
+citizen. He had been chased and whipped out of public affairs, as many
+another man has been, by an unwise sentence that had risen up against
+him in his day of judgment.
+
+The surprised Liberals had not far to go to seek his successor. The
+whole French population had been stirred by the cry of an Acadien for
+the Acadiens; and Agapit LeNoir, _nolens volens_, but in truth quite
+_volens_, had been called to become the Liberal nominee. There was
+absolutely nothing to be said against him. He was a young man,--not too
+young,--he was of good habits; he was well educated, well bred, and he
+possessed the respect not only of the population along the Bay, but of
+many of the English residents of the other parts of the county, who had
+heard of the diligent young Acadien lawyer of Weymouth.
+
+The wise heads of the Liberal party, in welcoming this new
+representative to their ranks, had not the slightest doubt of his
+success.
+
+Without money, without powerful friends, without influence, except that
+of a blameless career, and without asking for a single vote, he would be
+swept into public life on a wave of public opinion. However, they did
+not tell him this, but in secret anxiety they put forth all their
+efforts towards making sure the calling and election of their other
+Liberal candidate, who would, from the very fact of Agapit's assured
+success, be more in danger from the machinations of the one Conservative
+candidate that the county had returned for years.
+
+One Liberal and one Conservative candidate had been elected almost from
+time immemorial. This year, if the campaign were skilfully directed in
+the perilously short time remaining to them, there might be returned, on
+account of Agapit's sudden and extraordinary popularity, two Liberals
+and no Conservative at all.
+
+Agapit, in truth, knew very little about elections, although he had
+always taken a quiet interest in them. He had been too much occupied
+with his struggle for daily bread for mind and body, to be able to
+afford much time for outside affairs, and he showed his inexperience
+immediately after his informal nomination by the convention, and his
+legal one by the sheriff, by laying strict commands upon Bidiane and her
+confederates that they should do no more canvassing for him.
+
+Apparently they subsided, but they had gone too far to be wholly
+repressed, and Mirabelle Marie and Claudine calmly carried on their work
+of baking enormous batches of pies and cakes, for a whole week before
+the election took place, and of laying in a stock of confectionery,
+fruit, and raisins, and of engaging sundry chickens and sides of beef,
+and also the ovens of neighbors to roast them in.
+
+"For men-folks," said Mirabelle Marie, "is like pigs; if you feed 'em
+high, they don' squeal."
+
+Agapit did not know what Bidiane was doing. She was shy and elusive, and
+avoided meeting him, but he strongly suspected that she was the power
+behind the throne in making these extensive preparations. He was not
+able to visit the inn except very occasionally, for, according to
+instructions from headquarters, he was kept travelling from one end of
+the county to the other, cramming himself with information _en route_,
+and delivering it, at first stumblingly, but always modestly and
+honestly, to Acadien audiences, who wagged delighted heads, and vowed
+that this young fellow should go up to sit in Parliament, where several
+of his race had already honorably acquitted themselves. What had they
+been thinking of, the last five years? Formerly they had always had an
+Acadien representative, but lately they had dropped into an easy-going
+habit of allowing some Englishman to represent them. The English race
+were well enough, but why not have a man of your own race? They would
+take up that old habit again, and this time they would stick to it.
+
+At last the time of canvassing and lecturing was over, and the day of
+the election came. The Sleeping Water Inn had been scrubbed from the
+attic to the cellar, every article of furniture was resplendent, and two
+long tables spread with every variety of dainties known to the Bay had
+been put up in the two large front rooms of the house.
+
+In these two rooms, the smoking-room and the parlor, men were expected
+to come and go, eating and drinking at will,--Liberal men, be it
+understood. The Conservatives were restricted to the laundry, and Claude
+ruefully surveyed the cold stove, the empty table, and the hard benches
+set apart for him and his fellow politicians.
+
+He was exceedingly confused in his mind. Mirabelle Marie had explained
+to him again and again the reason for the sudden change in her hazy
+beliefs with regard to the conduct of state affairs, but Claude was one
+Acadien who found it inconsistent to turn a man out of public life on
+account of one unfortunate word, while so many people in private life
+could grow, and thrive, and utter scores of unfortunate words without
+rebuke.
+
+However, his wife had stood over him until he had promised to vote for
+Agapit, and in great dejection of spirit he smoked his pipe and tried
+not to meet the eyes of his handful of associates, who did not know that
+he was to withhold his small support from them.
+
+From early morn till dewy eve the contest went on between the two
+parties. All along the shore, and back in the settlements in the woods,
+men left their work, and, driving to the different polling-places,
+registered their votes, and then loitered about to watch others do
+likewise.
+
+It was a general holiday, and not an Acadien and not a Nova Scotian
+would settle down to work again until the result of the election was
+known.
+
+Bidiane early retreated to one of the upper rooms of the house, and from
+the windows looked down upon the crowd about the polling-booth at the
+corner, or crept to the staircase to listen to jubilant sounds below,
+for Mirabelle Marie and Claudine were darting about, filling the orders
+of those who came to buy, but in general insisting on "treating" the
+Liberal tongues and palates weary from much talking.
+
+Bidiane did not see Agapit, although she had heard some one say that he
+had gone down the Bay early in the morning. She saw the Conservative
+candidate, Mr. Folsom, drive swiftly by, waving his hat and shouting a
+hopeful response to the cheering that greeted him from some of the men
+at the corner, and her heart died within her at the sound.
+
+Shortly before noon she descended from her watch-tower, and betook
+herself to the pantry, where she soberly spent the afternoon in washing
+dishes, only turning her head occasionally as Mirabelle Marie or
+Claudine darted in with an armful of soiled cups and saucers and hurried
+ejaculations such as "They vow Agapit'll go in. There's an awful strong
+party for him down the Bay. Every one's grinning over that story about
+old Greening. They say we'll not know till some time in the
+night--Bidiane, you look pale as a ghost. Go lie down,--we'll manage. I
+never did see such a time,--and the way they drink! Such thirsty
+throats! More lemonade glasses, Biddy. It's lucky Father Duvair got that
+rum, or we'd have 'em all as drunk as goats." And the girl washed on,
+and looked down the road from the little pantry window, and in a fierce,
+silent excitement wished that the thing might soon be over, so that her
+throbbing head would be still.
+
+Soon after five o'clock, when the legal hour for closing the
+polling-places arrived, they learned the majority for Agapit, for he it
+was that obtained it in all the villages in the vicinity of Sleeping
+Water.
+
+"He's in hereabouts," shouted Mirabelle Marie, joyfully, as she came
+plunging into the pantry, "an' they say he'll git in everywheres. The
+ole Conservative ain't gut a show at all. Oh, ain't you glad, Biddy?"
+
+"Of course she's glad," said Claudine, giving Mrs. Corbineau a push with
+her elbow, "but let her alone, can't you? She's tired, so she's quiet
+about it."
+
+As it grew dark, the returns from the whole, or nearly the whole county
+came pouring in. Men mounted on horseback, or driving in light carts,
+came dashing up to the corner to receive the latest news from the crowd
+about the telephone office, and receiving it, dashed on again to impart
+the news to others. Soon they knew quite surely, although there were
+some backwoods districts still to be heard from. In them the count could
+be pretty accurately reckoned, for it did not vary much from year to
+year. They could be relied on to remain Liberal or Conservative, as the
+case might be.
+
+Bidiane, who had again retreated up-stairs, for nothing would satisfy
+her but being alone, heard, shortly after it grew quite dark, a sudden
+uproar of joyous and incoherent noises below.
+
+She ran to the top of the front staircase. The men, many of whom had
+been joined by their wives, had left the dreary polling-place, which was
+an unused shop, and had sought the more cheerful shelter of the inn.
+Soft showers of rain were gently falling, but many of the excited
+Acadiens stood heedlessly on the grass outside, or leaned from the
+veranda to exchange exultant cries with those of their friends who went
+driving by. Many others stalked about the hall and front rooms, shaking
+hands, clapping shoulders, congratulating, laughing, joking, and
+rejoicing, while Mirabelle Marie, her fat face radiant with glee,
+plunged about among them like a huge, unwieldy duck, flourishing her
+apron, and making more noise and clatter than all the rest of the women
+combined.
+
+Agapit was in,--in by an overwhelming majority. His name headed the
+lists; the other Liberal candidate followed him at a respectful
+distance, and the Conservative candidate was nowhere at all.
+
+Bidiane trembled like a leaf; then, pressing her hands over her ears,
+she ran to hide herself in a closet.
+
+In the meantime, the back of the house was gloomy. One by one the
+Conservatives were slipping away home; still, a few yet lingered, and
+sat dispiritedly looking at each other and the empty wash-tubs in the
+laundry, while they passed about a bottle of weak raspberry vinegar and
+water, which was the only beverage Mirabelle and Claudine had allowed
+them.
+
+Claude, as in honor bound, sat with them until his wife, who gloried in
+including every one within reach in what she called her
+"jollifications," came bounding in, and ordered them all into the front
+of the house, where the proceedings of the day were to be wound up with
+a supper.
+
+Good-humored raillery greeted Claude and his small flock of
+Conservatives when Mirabelle Marie came driving them in before her.
+
+"Ah, Joe à Jack, where is thy doubloon?" called out a Liberal. "Thou
+hast lost it,--thy candidate is in the Bay. It is all up with him. And
+thou, Guillaume,--away to the shore with thee. You remember, boys, he
+promised to swallow a dog-fish, tail first, if Agapit LeNoir went in."
+
+A roar of laughter greeted this announcement, and the unfortunate
+Guillaume was pushed into a seat, and had a glass thrust into his hand.
+"Drink, cousin, to fortify thee for thy task. A dog-fish,--_sakerjé!_
+but it will be prickly swallowing."
+
+"Biddy Ann, Biddy Ann," shrieked her aunt, up the staircase, "come and
+hear the good news," but Bidiane, who was usually social in her
+instincts, was now eccentric and solitary, and would not respond.
+
+"Skedaddle up-stairs and hunt her out, Claudine," said Mrs. Corbineau;
+but Bidiane, hearing the request, cunningly ran to the back of the
+house, descended the kitchen stairway, and escaped out-of-doors. She
+would go up to the horseshoe cottage and see Rose. There, at least, it
+would be quiet; she hated this screaming.
+
+Her small feet went pit-a-pat over the dark road. There were lights in
+all the windows. Everybody was excited to-night. Everybody but herself.
+She was left out of the general rejoicing, and a wave of injured feeling
+and of desperate dissatisfaction and bodily fatigue swept over her. And
+she had fancied that Agapit's election would plunge her into a tumult
+of joy.
+
+However, she kept on her way, and dodging a party of hilarious young
+Acadiens, who were lustily informing the neighborhood that the immortal
+Malbrouck had really gone to the wars at last, she took to the wet grass
+and ran across the fields to the cottage.
+
+There were two private bridges across Sleeping Water just here, the
+Comeau bridge and Rose à Charlitte's. Bidiane trotted nimbly over the
+former, jumped a low stone wall, and found herself under the windows of
+Rose's parlor.
+
+Why, there was the hero of the day talking to Rose! What was he doing
+here? She had fancied him the centre of a crowd of men,--he,
+speech-making, and the cynosure of all eyes,--and here he was, quietly
+lolling in an easy chair by the fire that Rose always had on cool, rainy
+evenings. However, he had evidently just arrived, for his boots were
+muddy, and his white horse, instead of being tied to the post, was
+standing patiently by the door,--a sure sign that his master was not to
+stay long.
+
+Well, she would go home. They looked comfortable in there, and they were
+carrying on an animated conversation. They did not want her, and,
+frowning impatiently, she uttered an irritable "Get away!" to the
+friendly white horse, who, taking advantage of one of the few occasions
+when he was not attached to the buggy, which was the bane of his
+existence, had approached, and was extending a curious and
+sympathetically quivering nose in her direction.
+
+The horse drew back, and, moving his ears sensitively back and forth,
+watched her going down the path to the river.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII.
+
+                       BIDIANE FALLS IN A RIVER.
+
+        "He laid a finger under her chin,
+           His arm for her girdle at waist was thrown;
+         Now, what will happen, and who will win,
+           With me in the fight and my lady-love?
+
+        "Sleek as a lizard at round of a stone,
+           The look of her heart slipped out and in.
+         Sweet on her lord her soft eyes shone,
+           As innocents clear of a shade of sin."
+
+                                            GEORGE MEREDITH.
+
+
+Five minutes later, Agapit left Rose, and, coming out-of-doors, stared
+about for his horse, Turenne, who was nowhere to be seen.
+
+While he stood momentarily expecting to see the big, familiar white
+shape loom up through the darkness, he fancied that he heard some one
+calling his name.
+
+He turned his head towards the river. There was a fine, soft wind
+blowing, the sky was dull and moist, and, although the rain had ceased
+for a time, it was evidently going to fall again. Surely he had been
+mistaken about hearing his name, unless Turenne had suddenly been
+gifted with the power of speech. No,--there it was again; and now he
+discovered that it was uttered in the voice that, of all the voices in
+the world, he loved best to hear, and it was at present ejaculating, in
+peremptory and impatient tones, "Agapit! Agapit!"
+
+He precipitated himself down the hill, peering through the darkness as
+he went, and on the way running afoul of his white nag, who stood
+staring with stolid interest at a small round head beside the bridge,
+and two white hands that were clinging to its rustic foundations.
+
+"Do help me out," said Bidiane; "my feet are quite wet."
+
+Agapit uttered a confused, smothered exclamation, and, stooping over,
+seized her firmly by the shoulders, and drew her out from the clinging
+embrace of Sleeping Water.
+
+"I never saw such a river," said Bidiane, shaking herself like a small
+wet dog, and avoiding her lover's shocked glance. "It is just like
+jelly."
+
+"Come up to the house," he ejaculated.
+
+"No, no; it would only frighten Rose. She is getting to dislike this
+river, for people talk so much against it. I will go home."
+
+"Then let me put you on Turenne's back," said Agapit, pointing to his
+horse as he stood curiously regarding them.
+
+"No, I might fall off--I have had enough frights for to-night," and she
+shuddered. "I shall run home. I never take cold. _Ma foi!_ but it is
+good to be out of that slippery mud."
+
+Agapit hurried along beside her. "How did it happen?"
+
+"I was just going to cross the bridge. The river looked so sleepy and
+quiet, and so like a mirror, that I wondered if I could see my face, if
+I bent close to it. I stepped on the bank, and it gave way under me, and
+then I fell in; and to save myself from being sucked down I clung to the
+bridge, and waited for you to come, for I didn't seem to have strength
+to drag myself out."
+
+Agapit could not speak for a time. He was struggling with an intense
+emotion that would have been unintelligible to her if he had expressed
+it. At last he said, "How did you know that I was here?"
+
+"I saw you," said Bidiane, and she slightly slackened her pace, and
+glanced at him from the corners of her eyes.
+
+"Through the window?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why did you not come in?"
+
+"I did not wish to do so."
+
+"You are jealous," he exclaimed, and he endeavored to take her hand.
+
+"Let my hand alone,--you flatter yourself."
+
+"You were frightened there in the river, little one," he murmured.
+
+Bidiane paused for an instant, and gazed over her shoulder. "Your old
+horse is nearly on my heels, and his eyes are like carriage lamps."
+
+"Back!" exclaimed Agapit, to the curious and irrepressible Turenne.
+
+"You say nothing of your election," remarked Bidiane. "Are you glad?"
+
+He drew a rapid breath, and turned his red face towards her again. "My
+mind is in a whirl, little cousin, and my pulses are going like hammers.
+You do not know what it is to sway men by the tongue. When one stands
+up, and speaks, and the human faces spreading out like a flower-bed
+change and lighten, or grow gloomy, as one wishes, it is majestic,--it
+makes a man feel like a deity."
+
+"You will get on in the world," said Bidiane, impulsively. "You have it
+in you."
+
+"But must I go alone?" he said, passionately. "Bidiane, you, though so
+much younger, you understand me. I have been happy to-day, yes, happy,
+for amid all the excitement, the changing faces, the buzzing of talk in
+my ears, there has been one little countenance before me--"
+
+"Yes,--Rose's."
+
+"You treat me as if I were a boy," he said, vehemently, "on this day
+when I was so important. Why are you so flippant?"
+
+"Don't be angry with me," she said, coaxingly.
+
+"Angry," he muttered, in a shocked voice. "I am not angry. How could I
+be with you, whom I love so much?"
+
+"Easily," she murmured. "I scarcely wished to see you to-day. I almost
+dreaded to hear you had been elected, for I thought you would be angry
+because we--because Claudine, and my aunt, and I, talked against Mr.
+Greening, and drove him out, and suggested you. I know men don't like to
+be helped by women."
+
+"Your efforts counted," he said, patiently, and yet with desperate
+haste, for they were rapidly nearing the inn, "yet you know Sleeping
+Water is a small district, and the county is large. There was in some
+places great dissatisfaction with Mr. Greening, but don't talk of him.
+My dear one, will you--"
+
+"You don't know the worst thing about me," she interrupted, in a low
+voice. "There was one dreadful thing I did."
+
+He checked an oncoming flow of endearing words, and stared at her. "You
+have been flirting," he said at last.
+
+"Worse than that," she said, shamefacedly. "If you say first that you
+will forgive me, I will tell you about it--no, I will not either. I
+shall just tell you, and if you don't want to overlook it you need
+not--why, what is the matter with you?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing," he muttered, with an averted face. He had suddenly
+become as rigid as marble, and Bidiane surveyed him in bewildered
+surprise, until a sudden illumination broke over her, when she lapsed
+into nervous amusement.
+
+"You have always been very kind to me, very interested," she said, with
+the utmost gentleness and sweetness; "surely you are not going to lose
+patience now."
+
+"Go on," said Agapit, stonily, "tell me about this--this escapade."
+
+"How bad a thing would I have to do for you not to forgive me?" she
+asked.
+
+"Bidiane--_de grâce_, continue."
+
+"But I want to know," she said, persistently. "Suppose I had just
+murdered some one, and had not a friend in the world, would you stand by
+me?"
+
+He would not reply to her, and she went on, "I know you think a good
+deal of your honor, but the world is full of bad people. Some one ought
+to love them--if you were going to be hanged to-morrow I would visit you
+in your cell. I would take you flowers and something to eat, and I might
+even go to the scaffold with you."
+
+Agapit in dumb anguish, and scarcely knowing what he did, snatched his
+hat from his head and swung it to and fro.
+
+"You had better put on your hat," she said, amiably, "you will take
+cold."
+
+Agapit, suddenly seized her by the shoulders and, holding her firmly,
+but gently, stared into her eyes that were full of tears. "Ah! you amuse
+yourself by torturing me," he said, with a groan of relief. "You are as
+pure as a snowdrop, you have not been flirting."
+
+"Oh, I am so angry with you for being hateful and suspicious," she said,
+proudly, and with a heaving bosom, and she averted her face to brush the
+tears from her eyes. "You know I don't care a rap for any man in the
+world but Mr. Nimmo, except the tiniest atom of respect for you."
+
+Agapit at once broke into abject apologies, and being graciously
+forgiven, he humbly entreated her to continue the recital of her
+misdeeds.
+
+"It was when we began to make _bombance_" she said, in a lofty tone.
+"Every one assured us that we must have rum, but Claudine would not let
+us take her money for it, because her husband drank until he made his
+head queer and had that dreadful fall. She said to buy anything with her
+money but liquor. We didn't know what to do until one day a man came in
+and told us that if we wanted money we should go to the rich members of
+our party. He mentioned Mr. Smith, in Weymouth, and I said, 'Well, I
+will go and ask him for money to buy something for these wicked men to
+stop them from voting for a wretch who calls us names.' 'But you must
+not say that,' replied the man, and he laughed. 'You must go to Mr.
+Smith and say, "There is an election coming on, and there will be great
+doings at the Sleeping Water Inn, and it ought to be painted."' 'But it
+has just been painted,' I said. 'Never mind,' he told me, 'it must be
+painted.' Then I understood, and Claudine and I went to Mr. Smith, and
+asked him if it would not be a wise thing to paint the inn, and he
+laughed and said, 'By all manner of means, yes,--give it a good thick
+coat and make it stick on well,' and he gave us some bills."
+
+"How many?" asked Agapit, for Bidiane's voice was sinking lower and
+lower.
+
+"One hundred dollars,--just what Claudine had."
+
+"And you spent it, dearest child?"
+
+"Yes, it just melted away. You know how money goes. But I shall pay it
+back some day."
+
+"How will you get the money?"
+
+"I don't know," she said, with a sigh. "I shall try to earn it."
+
+"You may earn it now, in the quarter of a minute," he said, fatuously.
+
+"And you call yourself an honest man--you talk against bribery and
+corruption, you doubt poor lonely orphans when they are going to
+confess little peccadilloes, and fancy in your wicked heart that they
+have committed some awful sin!" said Bidiane, in low, withering tones.
+"I think you had better go home, sir."
+
+They had arrived in front of the inn, and, although Agapit knew that she
+ought to go at once and put off her wet shoes, he still lingered, and
+said, delightedly, in low, cautious tones, "But, Bidiane, you have
+surely a little affection for me--and one short kiss--very
+short--certainly it would not be so wicked."
+
+"If you do not love a man, it is a crime to embrace him," she said, with
+cold severity.
+
+"Then I look forward to more gracious times," he replied. "Good night,
+little one, in twenty minutes I must be in Belliveau's Cove."
+
+Bidiane, strangely subdued in appearance, stood watching him as, with
+eyes riveted on her, he extended a grasping hand towards Turenne's
+hanging bridle. When he caught it he leaped into the saddle, and
+Bidiane, supposing herself to be rid of him, mischievously blew him a
+kiss from the tips of her fingers.
+
+In a trice he had thrown himself from Turenne's back and had caught her
+as she started to run swiftly to the house.
+
+"Do not squeal, dear slippery eel," he said, laughingly, "thou hast
+called me back, and I shall kiss thee. Now go," and he released her, as
+she struggled in his embrace, laughing for the first time since her
+capture by the river. "Once I have held you in my arms--now you will
+come again," and shaking his head and with many a backward glance, he
+set off through the rain and the darkness towards his waiting friends
+and supporters, a few miles farther on.
+
+An hour later, Claudine left the vivacious, unwearied revellers below,
+and went up-stairs to see whether Bidiane had returned home. She found
+her in bed, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling.
+
+"Claudine," she said, turning her brown eyes on her friend and admirer,
+"how did you feel when Isidore asked you to marry him?"
+
+"How did I feel--_miséricorde_, how can I tell? For one thing, I wished
+that he would give up the drink."
+
+"But how did you feel towards him?" asked Bidiane, curiously. "Was it
+like being lost in a big river, and swimming about for ages, and having
+noises in your head, and some one else was swimming about trying to find
+you, and you couldn't touch his hand for a long time, and then he
+dragged you out to the shore, which was the shore of matrimony?"
+
+Claudine, who found nothing in the world more delectable than Bidiane's
+fancies, giggled with delight. Then she asked her where she had spent
+the evening.
+
+Bidiane related her adventure, whereupon Claudine said, dryly, "I guess
+the other person in your river must be Agapit LeNoir."
+
+"Would you marry him if he asked you?" said Bidiane.
+
+"Mercy, how do I know--has he said anything of me?"
+
+"No, no," replied Bidiane, hastily. "He wants to marry me."
+
+"That's what I thought," said Claudine, soberly. "I can't tell you what
+love is. You can't talk it. I guess he'll teach you if you give him a
+chance. He's a good man, Bidiane. You'd better take him--it's an opening
+for you, too. He'll get on out in the world."
+
+Bidiane laid her head back on her pillow, and slipped again into a hazy,
+dreamy condition of mind, in which the ever recurring subject of
+meditation was the one of the proper experience and manifestation of
+love between men and the women they adore.
+
+"I don't love him, yet what makes me so cross when he looks at another
+woman, even my beloved Rose?" she murmured; and with this puzzling
+question bravely to the fore she fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII.
+
+                         CHARLITTE COMES BACK.
+
+        "From dawn to gloaming, and from dark to dawn,
+           Dreams the unvoiced, declining Michaelmas.
+           O'er all the orchards where a summer was
+         The noon is full of peace, and loiters on.
+         The branches stir not as the light airs run
+           All day; their stretching shadows slowly pass
+           Through the curled surface of the faded grass,
+         Telling the hours of the cloudless sun."
+
+                                                  J. F. H.
+
+
+The last golden days of summer had come, and the Acadien farmers were
+rejoicing in a bountiful harvest. Day by day huge wagons, heaped high
+with grain, were driven to the threshing-mills, and day by day the
+stores of vegetables and fruit laid in for the winter were increased in
+barn and store-house.
+
+Everything had done well this year, even the flower gardens, and some of
+the more pious of the women attributed their abundance of blossoms to
+the blessing of the seeds by the parish priests.
+
+Agapit LeNoir, who now naturally took a broader and wider interest in
+the affairs of his countrymen, sat on Rose à Charlitte's lawn,
+discussing matters in general. Soon he would have to go to Halifax for
+his first session of the local legislature. Since his election he had
+come a little out of the shyness and reserve that had settled upon him
+in his early manhood. He was now usually acknowledged to be a rising
+young man, and one sure to become a credit to his nation and his
+province. He would be a member of the Dominion Parliament some day, the
+old people said, and in his more mature age he might even become a
+Senator. He had obtained just what he had needed,--a start in life.
+Everything was open to him now. With his racial zeal and love for his
+countrymen, he could become a representative man,--an Acadien of the
+Acadiens.
+
+Then, too, he would marry an accomplished wife, who would be of great
+assistance to him, for it was a well-known fact that he was engaged to
+his lively distant relative, Bidiane LeNoir, the young girl who had been
+educated abroad by the Englishman from Boston.
+
+Just now he was talking to this same relative, who, instead of sitting
+down quietly beside him, was pursuing an erratic course of wanderings
+about the trees on the lawn. She professed to be looking for a robin's
+deserted nest, but she was managing at the same time to give careful
+attention to what her lover was saying, as he sat with eyes fixed now
+upon her, now upon the Bay, and waved at intervals the long pipe that he
+was smoking.
+
+"Yes," he said, continuing his subject, "that is one of the first things
+I shall lay before the House--the lack of proper schoolhouse
+accommodation on the Bay."
+
+"You are very much interested in the schoolhouses," said Bidiane,
+sarcastically. "You have talked of them quite ten minutes."
+
+His face lighted up swiftly. "Let us return, then, to our old, old
+subject,--will you not reconsider your cruel decision not to marry me,
+and go with me to Halifax this autumn?"
+
+"No," said Bidiane, decidedly, yet with an evident liking for the topic
+of conversation presented to her. "I have told you again and again that
+I will not. I am surprised at your asking. Who would comfort our darling
+Rose?"
+
+"Possibly, I say, only possibly, she is not as dependent upon us as you
+imagine."
+
+"Dependent! of course she is dependent. Am I not with her nearly all the
+time. See, there she comes,--the beauty! She grows more charming every
+day. She is like those lovely Flemish women, who are so tall, and
+graceful, and simple, and elegant, and whose heads are like burnished
+gold. I wish you could see them, Agapit. Mr. Nimmo says they have
+preserved intact the admirable _naïveté_ of the women of the Middle
+Ages. Their husbands are often brutal, yet they never rebel."
+
+"Is _naïveté_ justifiable under those circumstances, _mignonne_?"
+
+"Hush,--she will hear you. Now what does that boy want, I wonder. Just
+see him scampering up the road."
+
+He wished to see her, and was soon stumbling through a verbal message.
+Bidiane kindly but firmly followed him in it, and, stopping him whenever
+he used a corrupted French word, made him substitute another for it.
+
+"No, Raoul, not _j'étions_ but _j'étais_" (I was). "_Petit mieux_" (a
+little better), "not _p'tit mieux_. _La rue_ not _la street_. _Ces
+jeunes demoiselles_" (those young ladies), "not _ces jeunes ladies_."
+
+"They are so careless, these Acadiens of ours," she said, turning to
+Agapit, with a despairing gesture. "This boy knows good French, yet he
+speaks the impure. Why do his people say _becker_ for _baiser_" (kiss)
+"and _gueule_ for _bouche_" (mouth) "and _échine_ for _dos_" (back)? "It
+is so vulgar!"
+
+"Patience," muttered Agapit, "what does he wish?"
+
+"His sister Lucie wants you and me to go up to Grosses Coques this
+evening to supper. Some of the D'Entremonts are coming from Pubnico.
+There will be a big wagon filled with straw, and all the young people
+from here are going, Raoul says. It will be fun; will you go?"
+
+"Yes, if it will please you."
+
+"It will," and she turned to the boy. "Run home, Raoul, and tell Lucie
+that we accept her invitation. Thou art not vexed with me for correcting
+thee?"
+
+"_Nenni_" (no), said the child, displaying a dimple in his cheek.
+
+Bidiane caught him and kissed him. "In the spring we will have great
+fun, thou and I. We will go back to the woods, and with a sharp knife
+tear the bark from young spruces, and eat the juicy _bobillon_ inside.
+Then we will also find candy. Canst thou dig up the fern roots and peel
+them until thou findest the tender morsel at the bottom?"
+
+"_Oui_," laughed the child, and Bidiane, after pushing him towards Rose,
+for an embrace from her, conducted him to the gate.
+
+"Is there any use in asking Rose to go with us this evening?" she said,
+coming back to Agapit, and speaking in an undertone.
+
+"No, I think not."
+
+"Why is it that she avoids all junketing, and sits only with sick
+people?"
+
+He murmured an uneasy, unintelligible response, and Bidiane again
+directed her attention to Rose. "What are you staring at so intently,
+_ma chère_?"
+
+"That beautiful stranger," said Rose, nodding towards the Bay. "It is a
+new sail."
+
+"Every woman on the Bay knows the ships but me," said Bidiane,
+discontentedly. "I have got out of it from being so long away."
+
+"And why do the girls know the ships?" asked Agapit.
+
+Bidiane discreetly refused to answer him.
+
+"Because they have lovers on board. Your lover stays on shore, little
+one."
+
+"And poor Rose looks over the sea," said Bidiane, dreamily. "I should
+think that you might trust me now with the story of her trouble,
+whatever it is, but you are so reserved, so fearful of making wild
+statements. You don't treat me as well even as you do a business
+person,--a client is it you call one?"
+
+Agapit smiled happily. "Marry me, then, and in becoming your advocate I
+will deal plainly with you as a client, and state fully to you all the
+facts of this case."
+
+"I daresay we shall have frightful quarrels when we are married," said
+Bidiane, cheerfully.
+
+"I daresay."
+
+"Just see how Rose stares at that ship."
+
+"She is a beauty," said Agapit, critically, "and foreign rigged."
+
+There was "a free wind" blowing, and the beautiful stranger moved like a
+graceful bird before it. Rose--the favorite occupation in whose quiet
+life was to watch the white sails that passed up and down the Bay--still
+kept her eyes fixed on it, and presently said, "The stranger is pointing
+towards Sleeping Water."
+
+"I will get the marine glass," said Bidiane, running to the house.
+
+"She is putting out a boat," said Rose, when she came back. "She is
+coming in to the wharf."
+
+"Allow me to see for one minute, Rose," said Agapit, and he extended his
+hand for the glass; then silently watched the sailors running about and
+looking no larger than ants on the distant deck.
+
+"They are not going to the wharf," said Bidiane. "They are making for
+that rock by the inn bathing-house. Perhaps they will engage in
+swimming."
+
+A slight color appeared in Rose's cheeks, and she glanced longingly at
+the glass that Agapit still held. The mystery of the sea and the magic
+of ships and of seafaring lives was interwoven with her whole being. She
+felt an intense gentle interest in the strange sail and the foreign
+sailors, and nothing would have given her greater pleasure than to have
+shown them some kindness.
+
+"I wish," she murmured, "that I were now at the inn. They should have a
+jug of cream, and some fresh fruit."
+
+The horseshoe cottage being situated on rising ground, a little beyond
+the river, afforded the three people on the lawn an uninterrupted view
+of the movements of the boat. While Bidiane prattled on, and severely
+rebuked Agapit for his selfishness in keeping the glass to himself, Rose
+watched the boat touching the big rocks, where one man sprang from it,
+and walked towards the inn.
+
+She could see his figure in the distance, looking at first scarcely
+larger than a black lead pencil, but soon taking on the dimensions of a
+rather short, thick-set man. He remained stationary on the inn veranda
+for a few minutes, then, leaving it, he passed down the village street.
+
+"It is some stranger from abroad, asking his way about," said Bidiane;
+"one of the numerous Comeau tribe, no doubt. Oh, I hope he will go on
+the drive to-night."
+
+"Why, I believe he is coming here," she exclaimed, after another period
+of observation of the stranger's movements; "he is passing by all the
+houses. Yes, he is turning in by the cutting through the hill. Who can
+he be?"
+
+Rose and Agapit, grown strangely silent, did not answer her, and,
+without thinking of examining their faces, she kept her eyes fixed on
+the man rapidly approaching them.
+
+"He is neither old nor young," she said, vivaciously. "Yes, he is,
+too,--he is old. His hair is quite gray. He swaggers a little bit. I
+think he must be the captain of the beautiful stranger. There is an
+indefinable something about him that doesn't belong to a common sailor;
+don't you think so, Agapit?"
+
+Her red head tilted itself sideways, yet she still kept a watchful eye
+on the newcomer. She could now see that he was quietly dressed in dark
+brown clothes, that his complexion was also brown, his eyes small and
+twinkling, his lips thick, and partly covered by a short, grizzled
+mustache. He wore on his head a white straw hat, that he took off when
+he neared the group.
+
+His face was now fully visible, and there was a wild cry from Rose. "Ah,
+Charlitte, Charlitte,--you have come back!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV.
+
+                       BIDIANE RECEIVES A SHOCK.
+
+                 "Whate'er thy lot, whoe'er thou be,--
+                  Confess thy folly, kiss the rod,
+                  And in thy chastening sorrow, see
+                  The hand of God."
+
+                                                 MONTGOMERY.
+
+
+Bidiane flashed around upon her companions. Rose--pale, trembling,
+almost unearthly in a beauty from which everything earthly and material
+seemed to have been purged away--stood extending her hands to the
+wanderer, her only expression one of profound thanksgiving for his
+return.
+
+Agapit, on the contrary, sat stock-still, his face convulsed with
+profound and bitter contempt, almost with hatred; and Bidiane, in
+speechless astonishment, stared from him to the others.
+
+Charlitte was not dead,--he had returned; and Rose was not
+surprised,--she was even glad to see him! What did it mean, and where
+was Mr. Nimmo's share in this reunion? She clenched her hands, her eyes
+filled with despairing tears, and, in subdued anger, she surveyed the
+very ordinary-looking man, who had surrendered one of his brown hands to
+Rose, in pleased satisfaction.
+
+"You are more stunning than ever, Rose," he said, coolly kissing her;
+"and who is this young lady?" and he pointed a sturdy forefinger at
+Bidiane, who stood in the background, trembling in every limb.
+
+"It is Bidiane LeNoir, Charlitte, from up the Bay. Bidiane, come shake
+hands with my husband."
+
+"I forbid," said Agapit, calmly. He had recovered himself, and, with a
+face as imperturbable as that of the sphinx, he now sat staring up into
+the air.
+
+"Agapit," said Rose, pleadingly, "will you not greet my husband after
+all these years?"
+
+"No," he said, "I will not," and coolly taking up his pipe he lighted
+it, turned away from them, and began to smoke.
+
+Rose, with her blue eyes dimmed with tears, looked at her husband. "Do
+not be displeased. He will forgive in time; he has been a brother to me
+all the years that you have been away."
+
+Charlitte understood Agapit better than she did, and, shrugging his
+shoulders as if to beg her not to distress herself, he busied himself
+with staring at Bidiane, whose curiosity and bewilderment had culminated
+in a kind of stupefaction, in which she stood surreptitiously pinching
+her arm in order to convince herself that this wonderful reappearance
+was real,--that the man sitting so quietly before her was actually the
+husband of her beloved Rose.
+
+Charlitte's eyes twinkled mischievously, as he surveyed her. "Were you
+ever shipwrecked, young lady?" he asked.
+
+Bidiane shuddered, and then, with difficulty, ejaculated, "No, never."
+
+"I was," said Charlitte, unblushingly, "on a cannibal island. All the
+rest of the crew were eaten. I was the only one spared, and I was left
+shut up in a hut in a palm grove until six months ago, when a passing
+ship took me off and brought me to New York."
+
+Bidiane, by means of a vigorous effort, was able to partly restore her
+mind to working order. Should she believe this man or not? She felt
+dimly that she did not like him, yet she could not resist Rose's
+touching, mute entreaty that she should bestow some recognition on the
+returned one. Therefore she said, confusedly, "Those cannibals, where
+did they live?"
+
+"In the South Sea Islands, 'way yonder," and Charlitte's eyes seemed to
+twinkle into immense distance.
+
+Rose was hanging her head. This recital pained her, and before Bidiane
+could again speak, she said, hurriedly, "Do not mention it. Our Lord and
+the blessed Virgin have brought you home. Ah! how glad Father Duvair
+will be, and the village."
+
+"Good heavens!" said Charlitte. "Do you think I care for the village. I
+have come to see you."
+
+For the first time Rose shrank from him, and Agapit brought down his
+eyes from the sky to glance keenly at him.
+
+"Charlitte," faltered Rose, "there have been great changes since you
+went away. I--I--" and she hesitated, and looked at Bidiane.
+
+Bidiane shrank behind a spruce-tree near which she was standing, and
+from its shelter looked out like a small red squirrel of an inquiring
+turn of mind. She felt that she was about to be banished, and in the
+present dazed state of her brain she dreaded to be alone.
+
+Agapit's inexorable gaze sought her out, and, taking his pipe from his
+mouth, he sauntered over to her. "Wilt thou run away, little one? We may
+have something to talk of not fit for thy tender ears."
+
+"Yes, I will," she murmured, shocked into unexpected submission by the
+suppressed misery of his voice. "I will be in the garden," and she
+darted away.
+
+The coast was now clear for any action the new arrival might choose to
+take. His first proceeding was to stare hard at Agapit, as if he wished
+that he, too, would take himself away; but this Agapit had no intention
+of doing, and he smoked on imperturbably, pretending not to see
+Charlitte's irritated glances, and keeping his own fixed on the azure
+depths of the sky.
+
+"You mention changes," said Charlitte, at last, turning to his wife.
+"What changes?"
+
+"You have just arrived, you have heard nothing,--and yet there would be
+little to hear about me, and Sleeping Water does not change
+much,--yet--"
+
+Charlitte's cool glance wandered contemptuously over that part of the
+village nearest them. "It is dull here,--as dull as the cannibal
+islands. I think moss would grow on me if I stayed."
+
+"But it would break my heart to leave it," said Rose, desperately.
+
+"I would take good care of you," he said, jocularly. "We would go to New
+Orleans. You would amuse yourself well. There are young men
+there,--plenty of them,--far smarter than the boys on the Bay."
+
+Rose was in an agony. With frantic eyes she devoured the cool, cynical
+face of her husband, then, with a low cry, she fell on her knees before
+him. "Charlitte, Charlitte, I must confess."
+
+Charlitte at once became intensely interested, and forgot to watch
+Agapit, who, however, got up, and, savagely biting his pipe, strolled
+to a little distance.
+
+"I have done wrong, my husband," sobbed Rose.
+
+Charlitte's eyes twinkled. Was he going to hear a confession of guilt
+that would make his own seem lighter?
+
+"Forgive me, forgive me," she moaned. "My heart is glad that you have
+come back, yet, oh, my husband, I must tell you that it also cries out
+for another."
+
+"For Agapit?" he said, kindly, stroking her clenched hands.
+
+"No,--no, no, for a stranger. You know I never loved you as a woman
+should love her husband. I was so young when I married. I thought only
+of attending to my house. Then you went away; I was sorry, so sorry,
+when news came of your death, but my heart was not broken. Five years
+ago this stranger came, and I felt--oh, I cannot tell you--but I found
+what this love was. Then I had to send him away, but, although he was
+gone, he seemed to be still with me. I thought of him all the time,--the
+wind seemed to whisper his words in my ear as I walked. I saw his
+handsome face, his smiling eyes. I went daily over the paths his feet
+used to take. After a long, long time, I was able to tear him from my
+mind. Now I know that I shall never see him again, that I shall only
+meet him after I die, yet I feel that I belong to him, that he belongs
+to me. Oh, my husband, this is love, and is it right that, feeling so, I
+should go with you?"
+
+"Who is this man?" asked Charlitte. "What is he called?"
+
+Rose winced. "Vesper is his name; Vesper Nimmo,--but do not let us talk
+of him. I have put him from my mind."
+
+"Did he make love to you?"
+
+"Oh, yes; but let us pass that over,--it is wicked to talk of it now."
+
+Charlitte, who was not troubled with any delicacy of feeling, was about
+to put some searching and crucial questions to her, but forbore, moved,
+despite himself, by the anguish and innocence of the gaze bent upon him.
+"Where is he now?"
+
+"In Paris. I have done wrong, wrong," and she again buried her face in
+her hands, and her whole frame shook with emotion. "Having had one
+husband, it would have been better to have thought only of him. I do not
+think one should marry again, unless--"
+
+"Nonsense," said Charlitte, abruptly. "The fellow should have married
+you. He got tired, I guess. By this time he's had half a dozen other
+fancies."
+
+Rose shrank from him in speechless horror, and, seeing it, Charlitte
+made haste to change the subject of conversation. "Where is the boy?"
+
+"He is with him," she said, hurriedly.
+
+"That was pretty cute in you," said Charlitte, with a good-natured
+vulgar laugh. "You were afraid I'd come home and take him from you,--you
+always were a little fool, Rose. Get up off the grass, and sit down, and
+don't distress yourself so. This isn't a hanging matter, and I'm not
+going to bully you; I never did."
+
+"No, never," she said, with a fresh outburst of tears. "You were always
+kind, my husband."
+
+"I think our marriage was all a mistake," he said, good-humoredly, "but
+we can't undo it. I knew you never liked me,--if you had, I might
+never--that is, things might have been different. Tell me now when that
+fool, Agapit, first began to set you against me?"
+
+"He has not set me against you, my husband; he rarely speaks of you."
+
+"When did you first find out that I wasn't dead?" said Charlitte,
+persistently; and Rose, who was as wax in his hands, was soon saying,
+hesitatingly, "I first knew that he did not care for you when Mr. Nimmo
+went away."
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+"He broke your picture, my husband,--oh, do not make me tell what I do
+not wish to."
+
+"How did he break it?" asked Charlitte, and his face darkened.
+
+"He struck it with his hand,--but I had it mended."
+
+"He was mad because I was keeping you from the other fellow. Then he
+told you that you had better give him the mitten?"
+
+"Yes," said Rose, sighing heavily, and sitting mute, like a prisoner
+awaiting sentence.
+
+"You have not done quite right, Rose," said her husband, mildly, "not
+quite right. It would have been better for you to have given that
+stranger the go by. He was only amusing himself. Still, I can't blame
+you. You're young, and mighty fine looking, and you've kept on the
+straight through your widowhood. I heard once from some sailors how you
+kept the young fellows off, and you always said you'd had a good
+husband. I shall never forget that you called me good, Rose, for there
+are some folks that think I am pretty bad."
+
+"Then they are evil folks," she said, tremulously; "are we not all
+sinners? Does not our Lord command us to forgive those who repent?"
+
+A curious light came into Charlitte's eyes, and he put his tongue in his
+cheek. Then he went on, calmly. "I'm on my way from Turk's Island to
+Saint John, New Brunswick,--I've got a cargo of salt to unload there,
+and, 'pon my word, I hadn't a thought of calling here until I got up in
+the Bay, working towards Petit Passage. I guess it was old habit that
+made me run for this place, and I thought I'd give you a call, and see
+if you were moping to death, and wanted to go away with me. If you do,
+I'll be glad to have you. If not, I'll not bother you."
+
+A deadly faintness came over Rose. "Charlitte, are you not sorry for
+your sin? Ah! tell me that you repent. And will you not talk to Father
+Duvair? So many quiet nights I think of you and pray that you may
+understand that you are being led into this wickedness. That other
+woman,--she is still living?"
+
+"What other woman? Oh, Lord, yes,--I thought that fool Agapit had had
+spies on me."
+
+Rose was so near fainting that she only half comprehended what he said.
+
+"I wish you'd come with me," he went on, jocosely. "If you happened to
+worry I'd send you back to this dull little hole. You're not going to
+swoon, are you? Here, put your head on this," and he drew up to her a
+small table on which Bidiane had been playing solitaire. "You used not
+to be delicate."
+
+"I am not now," she whispered, dropping her head on her folded arms,
+"but I cannot hold myself up. When I saw you come, I thought it was to
+say you were sorry. Now--"
+
+"Come, brace up, Rose," he said, uneasily. "I'll sit down beside you for
+awhile. There's lots of time for me to repent yet," and he chuckled
+shortly and struck his broad chest with his fist. "I'm as strong as a
+horse; there's nothing wrong with me, except a little rheumatism, and
+I'll outgrow that. I'm only fifty-two, and my father died at ninety.
+Come on, girl,--don't cry. I wish I hadn't started this talk of taking
+you away. You'd be glad of it, though, if you'd go. Listen till I tell
+you what a fine place New Orleans is--"
+
+Rose did not listen to him. She still sat with her flaxen head bowed on
+her arms, that rested on the little table. She was a perfect picture of
+silent, yet agitated distress.
+
+"You are not praying, are you?" asked her husband, in a disturbed
+manner. "I believe you are. Come, I'll go away."
+
+For some time there was no movement in the half prostrated figure, then
+the head moved slightly, and Charlitte caught a faint sentence, "Repent,
+my husband."
+
+"Yes, I repent," he said, hastily. "Good Lord, I'll do anything. Only
+cheer up and let me out of this."
+
+The grief-stricken Rose pushed back the hair from her tear-stained face
+and slowly raised her head from her arms.
+
+It was only necessary for her to show that face to her husband. So
+impressed was it with the stamp of intense anguish of mind, of grief for
+his past delinquencies of conduct, of a sorrow nobly, quietly borne
+through long years, that even he--callous, careless, and
+thoughtless--was profoundly moved.
+
+For a long time he was silent. Then his lip trembled and he turned his
+head aside. "'Pon my word, Rose,--I didn't think you'd fret like this.
+I'll do better; let me go now."
+
+One of her hands stole with velvety clasp to his brown wrists, and while
+the gentle touch lasted he sat still, listening with an averted face to
+the words whispered in his ear.
+
+Agapit, in the meantime, was walking in the garden with Bidiane. He had
+told her all that she wished to know with regard to the recreant
+husband, and in a passionate, resentful state of mind she was storming
+to and fro, scarcely knowing what she said.
+
+"It is abominable, treacherous!--and we stand idly here. Go and drive
+him away, Agapit. He should not be allowed to speak to our spotless
+Rose. I should think that the skies would fall--and I spoke to him, the
+traitor! Go, Agapit,--I wish you would knock him down."
+
+Agapit, with an indulgent glance, stood at a little distance from her,
+softly murmuring, from time to time, "You are very young, Bidiane."
+
+"Young! I am glad that I am young, so that I can feel angry. You are
+stolid, unfeeling. You care nothing for Rose. I shall go myself and
+tell that wretch to his face what I think of him."
+
+She was actually starting, but Agapit caught her gently by the arm.
+"Bidiane, restrain yourself," and drawing her under the friendly shade
+of a solitary pine-tree that had been left when the garden was made, he
+smoothed her angry cheeks and kissed her hot forehead.
+
+"You condone his offence,--you, also, some day, will leave me for some
+woman," she gasped.
+
+"This from you to me," he said, quietly and proudly, "when you know that
+we Acadiens are proud of our virtue,--of the virtue of our women
+particularly; and if the women are pure, it is because the men are so."
+
+"Rose cannot love that demon," exclaimed Bidiane.
+
+"No, she does not love him, but she understands what you will understand
+when you are older,--the awful sacredness of the marriage tie. Think of
+one of the sentences that she read to us last Sunday from Thomas à
+Kempis: 'A pure heart penetrates heaven and hell.' She has been in a
+hell of suffering herself. I think when in it she wished her husband
+were dead. Her charity is therefore infinite towards him. Her sins of
+thought are equal in her chastened mind to his sins of body."
+
+"But you will not let her go away with him?"
+
+"She will not wish to go, my treasure. She talks to him, and repent,
+repent, is, I am sure, the burden of her cry. You do not understand that
+under her gentleness is a stern resolve. She will be soft and kind, yet
+she would die rather than live with Charlitte or surrender her child to
+him."
+
+"But he may wish to stay here," faltered Bidiane.
+
+"He will not stay with her, _chérie_. She is no longer a girl, but a
+woman. She is not resentful, yet Charlitte has sinned deeply against
+her, and she remembers,--and now I must return to her. Charlitte has
+little delicacy of feeling, and may stay too long."
+
+"Wait a minute, Agapit,--is it her money that he is after?"
+
+"No, little one, he is not mercenary. He would not take money from a
+woman. He also would not give her any unless she begged him to do so. I
+think that his visit is a mere caprice that, however, if humored, would
+degenerate into a carrying away of Rose,--and now _au revoir_."
+
+Bidiane, in her excited, overstrained condition of mind, bestowed one of
+her infrequent caresses on him, and Agapit, in mingled surprise and
+gratification, found a pair of loving arms flung around his neck, and
+heard a frantic whisper: "If you ever do anything bad, I shall kill you;
+but you will not, for you are good."
+
+"Thank you. If I am faithless you may kill me," and, reluctantly leaving
+her, he strode along the summit of the slight hill on which the house
+stood, until he caught sight of the tableau on the lawn.
+
+Charlitte was just leaving his wife. His head was hanging on his breast;
+he looked ashamed of himself, and in haste to be gone, yet he paused and
+cast an occasional stealthy and regretful glance at Rose, who, with a
+face aglow with angelic forgiveness, seemed to be bestowing a parting
+benediction on him.
+
+The next time that he lifted his head, his small, sharp eyes caught
+sight of Agapit, whereupon he immediately snatched his hand from Rose,
+and hastily began to descend the hill towards the river.
+
+Rose remained standing, and silently watched him. She did not look at
+Agapit,--her eyes were riveted on her husband. Something within her
+seemed to cry out as his feet carried him down the hill to the brink of
+the inexorable stream, where the bones of so many of his countrymen lay.
+
+"_Adieu_, my husband," she called, suddenly and pleadingly, "thou wilt
+not forget."
+
+Charlitte paused just before he reached the bridge, and, little dreaming
+that his feet were never to cross its planks, he swept a glance over the
+peaceful Bay, the waiting boat, and the beautiful ship. Then he turned
+and waved his hand to his wife, and for one instant, they remembered
+afterwards, he put a finger on his breast, where lay a crucifix that
+she had just given him.
+
+"_Adjheu_, Rose," he called, loudly, "I will remember." At the same
+minute, however, that the smile of farewell lighted up his face, an oath
+slipped to his lips, and he stepped back from the bridge.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV.
+
+         THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGER GOES AWAY WITHOUT HER CAPTAIN.
+
+     "Repentance is the relinquishment of any practice from the
+     conviction that it has offended God. Sorrow, fear, and anxiety
+     are properly not parts but adjuncts of repentance, yet they are
+     too closely connected with it to be easily separated."
+
+                                                        --_Rambler._
+
+
+Charlitte did not plan to show himself at all in Sleeping Water. He
+possessed a toughened conscience and moral fibre calculated to stand a
+considerably heavy strain, yet some blind instinct warned him that he
+had better seek no conversation with his friends of former days.
+
+For this reason he had avoided the corner on his way to Rose's house,
+but he had not been able to keep secret the news of his arrival. Some
+women at the windows had recognized him, and a few loungers at the
+corner had strolled down to his boat, and had conversed with the
+sailors, who, although Norwegians, yet knew enough English to tell their
+captain's name, which, according to a custom prevailing among Acadiens,
+was simply the French name turned into English. Charlitte de Forêt had
+become Charlitte Forrest.
+
+Emmanuel de la Rive was terribly excited. He had just come from the
+station with the afternoon mail, and, on hearing that Charlitte was
+alive, and had actually arrived, he had immediately put himself at the
+head of a contingent of men, who proposed to go up to the cottage and
+ascertain the truth of the case. If it were so,--and it must be
+so,--what a wonderful, what an extraordinary occurrence! Sleeping Water
+had never known anything like this, and he jabbered steadily all the way
+up to the cottage.
+
+Charlitte saw them coming,--this crowd of old friends, headed by the
+mail-driver in the red jacket, and he looked helplessly up at Rose.
+
+"Come back," she called; "come and receive your friends with me."
+
+Charlitte, however, glanced at Agapit, and preferred to stay where he
+was, and in a trice Emmanuel and the other men and boys were beside him,
+grasping his hands, vociferating congratulations on his escape from
+death, and plying him with inquiries as to the precise quarter of the
+globe in which the last few years of his existence had been passed.
+
+Charlitte, unable to stave off the questions showered upon him, was
+tortured by a desire to yield to his rough and sailorlike sense of
+humor, and entertain himself for a few minutes at the expense of his
+friends by regaling them with his monstrous yarns of shipwreck and
+escape from the cannibal islands.
+
+Something restrained him. He glanced up at Rose, and saw that she had
+lost hope of his returning to her. She was gliding down the hill towards
+him,--a loving, anxious, guardian angel.
+
+He could not tell lies in her presence. "Come, boys," he said, with
+coarse good nature. "Come on to my ship, I'll take you all aboard."
+
+Emmanuel, in a perfect intoxication of delight and eager curiosity,
+crowded close to Charlitte, as the throng of men and boys turned and
+began to surge over the bridge, and the hero of the moment, his
+attention caught by the bright jacket, singled Emmanuel out for special
+attention, and even linked his arm in his as they went.
+
+Bidiane, weary of her long stay in the garden, at that minute came
+around the corner of the house on a reconnoitring expedition. Her brown
+eyes took in the whole scene,--Rose hurrying down the hill, Agapit
+standing silently on it, and the swarm of men surrounding the newcomer
+like happy buzzing bees, while they joyfully escorted him away from the
+cottage.
+
+This was the picture for an instant before her, then simultaneously with
+a warning cry from Agapit,--"The bridge, _mon Dieu_! Do not linger on
+it; you are a strong pressure!"--there was a sudden crash, a brief and
+profound silence, then a great splashing, accompanied by shouts and
+cries of astonishment.
+
+The slight rustic structure had given way under the unusually heavy
+weight imposed upon it, and a score or two of the men of Sleeping Water
+were being subjected to a thorough ducking.
+
+However, they were all used to the water, their lives were partly passed
+on the sea, and they were all accomplished swimmers. As one head after
+another came bobbing up from the treacherous river, it was greeted with
+cries and jeers from dripping figures seated on the grass, or crawling
+over the muddy banks.
+
+Célina ran from the house, and Jovite from the stable, both shrieking
+with laughter. Only Agapit looked grave, and, snatching a hammock from a
+tree, he ran down the hill to the place where Rose stood with clasped
+hands.
+
+"Where is Charlitte?" she cried, "and Emmanuel?--they were close
+together; I do not see them."
+
+A sudden hush followed her words. Every man sprang to his feet.
+Emmanuel's red jacket was nowhere to be seen,--in the first excitement
+they had not missed him,--neither was Charlitte visible.
+
+They must be still at the bottom of the river, locked in a friendly
+embrace. Rose's wild cry pierced the hearts of her fellow countrymen,
+and in an instant some of the dripping figures were again in the river.
+
+Agapit was one of the most expert divers present, and he at once took
+off his coat and his boots. Bidiane threw herself upon him, but he
+pushed her aside and, putting his hands before him, plunged down towards
+the exact spot where he had last seen Charlitte.
+
+The girl, in wild terror, turned to Rose, who stood motionless, her lips
+moving, her eyes fixed on the black river. "Ah, God! there is no bottom
+to it,--Rose, Rose, call him back!"
+
+Rose did not respond, and Bidiane ran frantically to and fro on the
+bank. The muddy water was splashed up in her face, there was a constant
+appearance of heads, and disappearance of feet. Her lover would be
+suffocated there below, he stayed so long,--and in her despair she was
+in danger of slipping in herself, until Rose came to her rescue and held
+her firmly by her dress.
+
+After a space of time, that seemed interminably long, but that in
+reality lasted only a few minutes, there was a confused disturbance of
+the surface of the water about the remains of the wrecked bridge. Then
+two or three arms appeared,--a muddy form encased in a besmeared bright
+jacket was drawn out, and willing hands on the bank received it, and in
+desperate haste made attempts at resuscitation.
+
+"Go, Célina, to the house,--heat water and blankets," said Rose, turning
+her deathly pale face towards her maid; "and do you, Lionel and Sylvain,
+kindly help her. Run, Jovite, and telephone for a doctor--oh, be quick!
+Ah, Charlitte, Charlitte!" and with a distracted cry she fell on her
+knees beside the inanimate drenched form laid at her feet. Tears rained
+down her cheeks, yet she rapidly and skilfully superintended the efforts
+made for restoration. Her hands assisted in raising the inert back. She
+feverishly lifted the silent tongue, and endeavored to force air to the
+choked lungs, and her friends, with covert pitying glances, zealously
+assisted her.
+
+"There is no hope, Rose," said Agapit, at last. "You are wasting your
+strength, and keeping these brave fellows in their wet clothes."
+
+Her face grew stony, yet she managed to articulate, "But I have heard
+even if after the lapse of hours,--if one works hard--"
+
+"There is no hope," he said, again. "We found him by the bank. There was
+timber above him, he was suffocated in mud."
+
+She looked up at him piteously, then she again burst into tears, and
+threw herself across the body. "Go, dear friends,--leave me alone with
+him. Oh, Charlitte, Charlitte!--that I should have lived to see this
+day."
+
+"Emmanuel is also dead," said Agapit, in a low voice.
+
+"Emmanuel,--good, kind Emmanuel,--the beloved of all the village; not
+so--" and she painfully lifted her head and stared at the second
+prostrate figure.
+
+The men were all standing around him weeping. They were not ashamed of
+their tears,--these kind-hearted, gentle Acadiens. Such a calamity had
+seldom befallen their village. It was equal to the sad wrecks of winter.
+
+Rose's overwrought brain gave way as she gazed, and she fell senseless
+by Charlitte's dead body.
+
+Agapit carried her to the house, and laid her in her bed in the room
+that she was not to leave for many days.
+
+"This is an awful time," said Célina, sobbing bitterly, and addressing
+the mute and terrified Bidiane. "Let us pray for the souls of those poor
+men who died without the last sacraments."
+
+"Let us pray rather for the soul of one who repented on his death-bed,"
+muttered Agapit, staring with white lips at the men who were carrying
+the body of Charlitte into one of the lower rooms of the house.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI.
+
+                          AN ACADIEN FESTIVAL.
+
+                      "Vive Jésus!
+                       Vive Jésus!
+                   Avec la croix, son cher partage.
+                       Vive Jésus!
+                   Dans les coeurs de tous les élus!
+                       Portons la croix.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+                   Sans choix, sans ennui, sans murmure,
+                       Portons la croix!
+                   Quoique très amère et très dure,
+                   Malgré les sens et la nature,
+                       Portons la croix!"
+
+                                                 --_Acadien Song._
+
+
+Charlitte had been in his grave for nearly two years. He slept
+peacefully in the little green cemetery hard by the white church where a
+slender, sorrowful woman came twice every week to hear a priest repeat
+masses for the repose of his soul.
+
+He slept on and gave no sign, and his countrymen came and went above
+him, reflecting occasionally on their own end, but mostly, after the
+manner of all men, allowing their thoughts to linger rather on matters
+pertaining to time than on those of eternity.
+
+One fifteenth of August--the day consecrated by Acadiens all over Canada
+to the memory of their forefathers--had come and gone, and another had
+arrived.
+
+This day was one of heavenly peace and calm. The sky was faintly,
+exquisitely blue, and so placid was the Bay that the occupants of the
+boats crossing from Digby Neck to some of the churches in Frenchtown
+were forced to take in their sails, and apply themselves to their oars.
+
+Since early morning the roads of the parish in which Sleeping Water is
+situated had been black with people, and now at ten o'clock some two
+thousand Acadiens were assembled about the doors of the old church at
+Pointe à l'Eglise.
+
+There was no talking, no laughing. In unbroken silence they waited for
+the sound of the bell, and when it came they flocked into the church,
+packing it full, and overflowing out to the broad flight of steps, where
+they knelt in rows and tried to obtain glimpses over each other's
+shoulders of the blue and white decorations inside, and of the altar
+ablaze with lights.
+
+The priests from the college and glebe-house, robed in handsome
+vestments, filed out from the vestry, and, quietly approaching the
+silken banners standing against the low gallery, handed them to
+representatives of different societies connected with the church.
+
+The children of the Guardian Angel received the picture of their patron
+saint, and, gathering around it, fluttered soberly out to the open air
+through the narrow lane left among the kneeling worshippers.
+
+The children of the Society of Mary followed them, their white-clad and
+veiled figures clustering about the pale, pitying Virgin carried by two
+of their number. A banner waving beside her bore the prayer, "_Marie,
+Priez Pour Nous_" (Mary, pray for us), and, as if responding to the
+petition, her two hands were extended in blessing over them.
+
+After the troop of snowy girls walked the black sisters in big bonnets
+and drooping shawls, and the brown sisters, assistants to the Eudists,
+who wore black veils with white flaps against their pale faces. Then
+came the priests, altar boys, and all the congregation. Until they left
+the church the organ played an accompaniment to their chanting. On the
+steps a young deacon put a cornet to his lips, and, taking up the last
+note of the organ, prolonged it into a vigorous leadership of the
+singing:
+
+                          Ave maris Stella,
+                            Dei mater alma,
+                          Atque semper virgo
+                            Felix coeli porta.
+
+As the congregation sang, they crossed the road to the gates of the
+college grounds, and divided into two parts, the men, with heads
+uncovered, going one side, and the women on the other.
+
+Above the gate-posts waved two flags, the union jack and the Acadien
+national flag,--a French tricolor, crossed by a blue stripe, and pierced
+with a yellow star.
+
+Slowly and solemnly the long array of men and women passed by the
+glebe-house and the white marble tomb of the good Abbé, whose life was
+given to the Acadiens of the Bay Saint-Mary. The hymns sung by the
+priests at the head of the procession floated back to the congregation
+in the rear, and at the moment when the singing was beginning to die
+away in the distance and the procession was winding out of sight behind
+the big college, two strangers suddenly appeared on the scene.
+
+They were a slender, elegant man and a beautiful lad of a clear, healthy
+pallor of skin. The man, with a look of grave, quiet happiness on his
+handsome face, stepped from the carriage in which they were driving,
+fastened his horse to a near fence, and threw a longing glance after the
+disappearing procession.
+
+"If we hurry, Narcisse," he said, "we shall be able to overtake them."
+
+The lad at once placed himself beside him, and together they went on
+their way towards the gates.
+
+"Do you remember it?" asked the man, softly, as the boy lifted his hat
+when they passed by the door of the silent, decorated church.
+
+"Yes, perfectly," he said, with a sweet, delicate intonation of voice.
+"It seems as if my mother must be kneeling there."
+
+Vesper's brow and cheeks immediately became suffused with crimson. "She
+is probably on ahead. We will find out. If she is not, we shall drive at
+once to Sleeping Water."
+
+They hurried on silently. The procession was now moving through another
+gate, this one opening on the point of land where are the ruins of the
+first church that the good Abbé built on the Bay.
+
+Beside its crumbling ruins and the prostrate altarstones a new, fresh
+altar had been put up,--this one for temporary use. It was a veritable
+bower of green amid which bloomed many flowers, the fragile nurslings of
+the sisters in the adjacent convent.
+
+Before this altar the priests and deacons knelt for an instant on
+colored rugs, then, while the people gathered closely around them, an
+Acadien Abbé from the neighboring province of New Brunswick ascended the
+steps of the altar, and, standing beside the embowered Virgin mother,
+special patron and protectress of his race, he delivered a fervent
+panegyric on the ancestors of the men and women before him.
+
+While he recounted the struggles and trials of the early Acadiens, many
+of his hearers wept silently, but when this second good Abbé eloquently
+exhorted them not to linger too long on a sad past, but to gird
+themselves for a glorious future, to be constant to their race and to
+their religion, their faces cleared,--they were no longer a prey to
+mournful recollections.
+
+Vesper, holding his hat in his hand, and closely accompanied by
+Narcisse, moved slowly nearer and nearer to a man who stood with his
+face half hidden by his black hat.
+
+It was Agapit, and at Vesper's touch he started slightly, then, for he
+would not speak on this solemn occasion, he extended a hand that was
+grasped in the firm and enduring clasp of a friendship that would not
+again be broken.
+
+Vesper would never forget that, amid all the bustle and confusion
+succeeding Charlitte's death, Agapit had found time to send him a cable
+message,--"Charlitte is dead."
+
+After communicating with Agapit, Vesper drew the boy nearer to him, and
+fell back a little. He was inexpressibly moved. A few years ago he would
+have called this "perverted Christianity--Mariolatry." Now, now--"O
+God!" he muttered, "my pure saint, she has genuine piety," and under wet
+lashes he stole a glance at one form, preëminently beautiful among the
+group of straight and slim young Acadien women beyond him. She was
+there,--his heart's delight, his treasure. She was his. The holy, rapt
+expression would give place to one more earthly, more self-conscious. He
+would not surrender her to heaven just yet,--but still, would it not be
+heaven on earth to be united to her?
+
+She did not know that he was near. In complete oblivion of her
+surroundings she followed the singing of the Tantum Ergo. When the
+benediction was over, she lifted her bowed head, her eyes turned once
+towards the cemetery. She was thinking of Charlitte.
+
+The sensitive Narcisse trembled. The excess of melancholy and
+sentimental feeling about him penetrated to his soul, and Vesper
+withdrew with him to the edge of the crowd. Then before the procession
+re-formed to march back to the church, they took up their station by the
+college gates.
+
+All the Acadiens saw him there as they approached,--all but Rose.
+
+She only raised her eyes from her prayer-book to fix them on the sky.
+She alone of the women seemed to be so wholly absorbed in a religious
+fervor that she did not know where she was going nor what she was doing.
+
+Some of the Acadiens looked doubtfully at Vesper. Since the death of her
+husband, whose treachery towards her had in some way been discovered,
+she had been regarded more than ever as a saint,--as one set apart
+for prayer and meditation almost as much as if she had been consecrated
+to them. Would she give up her saintly life for marriage with the
+Englishman?
+
+Would she do it? Surely this holy hour was the wrong time to ask her,
+and they waited breathlessly until they reached the gates where the
+procession was to break up. There she discovered Vesper. In the face of
+all the congregation he had stepped up and was holding out his hand to
+her.
+
+She did not hesitate an instant. She did not even seem to be surprised.
+An expression of joyful surrender sprang to her face; in silent, solemn
+ecstasy she took her lover's hand, and, throwing her arm around the neck
+of her recovered child, she started with them on the long road down the
+Bay.
+
+[Illustration: "THROWING HER ARM AROUND THE NECK OF HER RECOVERED
+CHILD."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All this happened a few years ago, but the story is yet going on. If you
+come from Boston to-day, and take your wheel or carriage at
+Yarmouth,--for the strong winds blow one up and not down the Bay,--you
+will, after passing through Salmon River, Chéticamp, Meteghan,
+Saulnierville, and other places, come to the swinging sign of the
+Sleeping Water Inn.
+
+There, if you stop, you will be taken good care of by Claudine and
+Mirabelle Marie,--who is really a vastly improved woman.
+
+Perhaps among all the two hundred thousand Acadiens scattered throughout
+the Maritime Provinces of Canada there is not a more interesting inn
+than that of Sleeping Water. They will give you good meals and keep your
+room tidy, and they will also show you--if you are really interested in
+the Acadien French--a pretty cottage in the form of a horseshoe that was
+moved bodily away from the wicked Sleeping Water River and placed in a
+flat green field by the shore. To it, you will be informed, comes every
+year a family from Boston, consisting of an Englishman and his wife, his
+mother and two children. They will describe the family to you, or
+perhaps, if it is summer-time, you may see the Englishman himself,
+riding a tall bay horse and looking affectionately at a beautiful lad
+who accompanies him on a glossy black steed rejoicing in the name of
+Toochune.
+
+The Englishman is a man of wealth and many schemes. He has organized a
+company for the planting and cultivation of trees along the shore of the
+charming, but certainly wind-swept Bay. He also is busy now surveying
+the coast for the carrying out of his long-cherished plan of an electric
+railway running along the shore.
+
+He will yet have it, the Acadiens say, but in the meantime he amuses
+himself by viewing the land and interviewing the people, and when he is
+weary he rides home to the cottage where his pale, fragile mother is
+looking eagerly for her adopted, idolized grandchild Narcisse, and where
+his wife sits by the window and waits for him.
+
+As she waits she often smiles and gazes down at her lap where lies a
+tiny creature,--a little girl whose eyes and mouth are her own, but
+whose hair is the hair of Vesper.
+
+Perhaps you will go to Sleeping Water by the train. If so, do not look
+out for the red coat which always used to be the distinguishing mark of
+this place, and do not mention Emmanuel's name to the woman who keeps
+the station, nor to her husband, for they were very fond of him, and if
+you speak of the red-jacketed mail-man they will turn aside to hide
+their tears.
+
+Nannichette and her husband have come out of the woods and live by the
+shore. Mirabelle Marie has persuaded the former to go to mass with her.
+The Indian in secret delight says nothing, but occasionally he utters a
+happy grunt.
+
+Bidiane and her husband live in Weymouth. Their _ménage_ is small and
+unambitious as yet, in order that they may do great things in the
+future, Bidiane says. She is absolutely charming when she ties a
+handkerchief on her head and sweeps out her rooms; and sometimes she
+cooks.
+
+Often at such times she scampers across a yard that separates her from
+her husband's office, and, after looking in his window to make sure that
+he is alone, she flies in, startles and half suffocates him by throwing
+her arms around his neck and stuffing in his mouth or his pocket some
+new and delectable dainty known only to herself and the cook-book.
+
+She is very happy, and turns with delight from her winter visits to
+Halifax, where, however, she manages to enjoy herself hugely, to her
+summer on the Bay, when she can enjoy the most congenial society in the
+world to her and to her husband,--that of Vesper Nimmo and his wife
+Rose.
+
+                                THE END.
+
+
+
+
+_SELECTIONS FROM L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY'S LIST OF NEW FICTION._
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+     Selections from
+     L. C. Page and Company's
+     List of New Fiction.
+
+
+An Enemy to the King.
+
+     From the Recently Discovered Memoirs of the
+     Sieur de la Tournoire. By ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS.
+     Illustrated by H. De M. Young.
+     1 vol., library 12mo, cloth                               =$1.25=
+
+     An historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing the
+     adventures of a young French nobleman at the Court of Henry IV.,
+     and on the field with Henry of Navarre.
+
+
+The Continental Dragoon.
+
+     A Romance of Philipse Manor House, in 1778.
+     By ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS, author of "An Enemy
+     to the King." Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.
+     1 vol., library 12mo, cloth                               =$1.50=
+
+     A stirring romance of the Revolution, the scene being laid in and
+     around the old Philipse Manor House, near Yonkers, which at the
+     time of the story was the central point of the so-called "neutral
+     territory" between the two armies.
+
+
+Muriella; or, Le Selve.
+
+     By OUIDA. Illustrated by M. B. Prendergast.
+     1 vol., library 12 mo, cloth                              =$1.25=
+
+     This is the latest work from the pen of the brilliant author of
+     "Under Two Flags," "Moths," etc., etc. It is the story of the love
+     and sacrifice of a young peasant girl, told in the absorbing style
+     peculiar to the author.
+
+
+The Road to Paris.
+
+     By ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS, author of "An
+     Enemy to the King," "The Continental Dragoon,"
+     etc. Illustrated by H. C. Edwards. (In press.)
+     1 vol., library 12mo, cloth                               =$1.50=
+
+     An historical romance, being an account of the life of an American
+     gentleman adventurer of Jacobite ancestry, whose family early
+     settled in the colony of Pennsylvania. The scene shifts from the
+     unsettled forests of the then West to Philadelphia, New York,
+     London, Paris, and, in fact, wherever a love of adventure and a
+     roving fancy can lead a soldier of fortune. The story is written in
+     Mr. Stephens's best style, and is of absorbing interest.
+
+
+Rose à Charlitte.
+
+     An Acadien Romance. By MARSHALL SAUNDERS,
+     author of "Beautiful Joe," etc. Illustrated by H.
+     De M. Young.
+     1 vol., library 12mo, cloth                               =$1.50=
+
+     In this novel, the scene of which is laid principally in the land
+     of Evangeline, Marshall Saunders has made a departure from the
+     style of her earlier successes. The historical and descriptive
+     setting of the novel is accurate, the plot is well conceived and
+     executed, the characters are drawn with a firm and delightful
+     touch, and the fortunes of the heroine, Rose à Charlitte, a
+     descendant of an old Acadien family, will be followed with
+     eagerness by the author's host of admirers.
+
+
+Bobbie McDuff.
+
+     By CLINTON ROSS, author of "The Scarlet Coat,"
+     "Zuleika," etc. Illustrated by B. West Clinedinst.
+     1 vol., large 16mo, cloth                                 =$1.00=
+
+     Clinton Ross is well known as one of the most promising of recent
+     American writers of fiction, and in the description of the
+     adventures of his latest hero, Bobbie McDuff, he has repeated his
+     earlier successes. Mr. Ross has made good use of the wealth of
+     material at his command. New York furnishes him the hero, sunny
+     Italy a heroine, grim Russia the villain of the story, while the
+     requirements of the exciting plot shift the scene from Paris to New
+     York, and back again to a remote, almost feudal villa on the
+     southern coast of Italy.
+
+
+In Kings' Houses.
+
+     A Romance of the Reign of Queen Anne. By
+     JULIA C. R. DORR, author of "A Cathedral Pilgrimage,"
+     etc. Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.
+     1 vol., library 12mo, cloth                               =$1.50=
+
+     Mrs. Dorr's poems and travel sketches have earned for her a
+     distinct place in American literature, and her romance, "In Kings'
+     Houses," is written with all the charm of her earlier works. The
+     story deals with one of the most romantic episodes in English
+     history. Queen Anne, the last of the reigning Stuarts, is described
+     with a strong, yet sympathetic touch, and the young Duke of
+     Gloster, the "little lady," and the hero of the tale, Robin Sandys,
+     are delightful characterizations.
+
+
+Sons of Adversity.
+
+     A Romance of Queen Elizabeth's Time. By L.
+     COPE CONFORD, author of "Captain Jacobus," etc.
+     Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy.
+     1 vol., library 12mo, cloth                               =$1.25=
+
+     A tale of adventure on land and sea at the time when Protestant
+     England and Catholic Spain were struggling for naval supremacy.
+     Spanish conspiracies against the peace of good Queen Bess, a vivid
+     description of the raise of the Spanish siege of Leyden by the
+     combined Dutch and English forces, sea fights, the recovery of
+     stolen treasure, are all skilfully woven elements in a plot of
+     unusual strength.
+
+
+The Count of Nideck.
+
+     From the French of Erckman-Chatrian, translated
+     and adapted by RALPH BROWNING FISKE. Illustrated
+     by Victor A. Searles.
+     1 vol., library 12mo, cloth                               =$1.25=
+
+     A romance of the Black Forest, woven around the mysterious legend
+     of the Wehr Wolf. The plot has to do with the later German feudal
+     times, is brisk in action, and moves spiritedly from start to
+     finish. Mr. Fiske deserves a great deal of credit for the
+     excellence of his work. No more interesting romance has appeared
+     recently.
+
+
+The Making of a Saint.
+
+     By W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM. Illustrated by Gilbert
+     James.
+     1 vol., library 12mo, cloth                               =$1.50=
+
+     "The Making of a Saint" is a romance of Mediæval Italy, the scene
+     being laid in the 15th century. It relates the life of a young
+     leader of Free Companions who, at the close of one of the many
+     petty Italian wars, returns to his native city. There he becomes
+     involved in its politics, intrigues, and feuds, and finally joins
+     an uprising of the townspeople against their lord. None can resent
+     the frankness and apparent brutality of the scenes through which
+     the hero and his companions of both sexes are made to pass, and
+     many will yield ungrudging praise to the author's vital handling of
+     the truth. In the characters are mirrored the life of the Italy of
+     their day. The book will confirm Mr. Maugham's reputation as a
+     strong and original writer.
+
+
+Omar the Tentmaker.
+
+     A Romance of Old Persia. By NATHAN HASKELL
+     DOLE. Illustrated. (In press.)
+     1 vol., library 12mo, cloth                               =$1.50=
+
+     Mr. Dole's study of Persian literature and history admirably equips
+     him to enter into the life and spirit of the time of the romance,
+     and the hosts of admirers of the inimitable quatrains of Omar
+     Khayyam, made famous by Fitzgerald, will be deeply interested in a
+     tale based on authentic facts in the career of the famous Persian
+     poet. The three chief characters are Omar Khayyam, Nizam-ul-Mulk,
+     the generous and high-minded Vizier of the Tartar Sultan Malik Shah
+     of Mero, and Hassan ibu Sabbah, the ambitious and revengeful
+     founder of the sect of the Assassins. The scene is laid partly at
+     Naishapur, in the Province of Khorasan, which about the period of
+     the First Crusade was at its acme of civilization and refinement,
+     and partly in the mountain fortress of Alamut, south of the Caspian
+     Sea, where the Ismailians under Hassan established themselves
+     towards the close of the 11th century. Human nature is always the
+     same, and the passions of love and ambition, of religion and
+     fanaticism, of friendship and jealousy, are admirably contrasted in
+     the fortunes of these three able and remarkable characters as well
+     as in those of the minor personages of the story.
+
+
+Captain Fracasse.
+
+     A new translation from the French of Gotier. Illustrated
+     by Victor A. Searles.
+     1 vol., library 12mo, cloth                               =$1.25=
+
+     This famous romance has been out of print for some time, and a new
+     translation is sure to appeal to its many admirers, who have never
+     yet had any edition worthy of the story.
+
+
+The Rejuvenation of Miss Semaphore.
+
+     A farcical novel. By HAL GODFREY. Illustrated
+     by Etheldred B. Barry. (In press.)
+     1 vol., library 12mo, cloth                               =$1.25=
+
+     A fanciful, laughable tale of two maiden sisters of uncertain age
+     who are induced, by their natural longing for a return to youth and
+     its blessings, to pay a large sum for a mystical water which
+     possesses the value of setting backwards the hands of time. No more
+     delightfully fresh and original book has appeared since "Vice
+     Versa" charmed an amused world. It is well written, drawn to the
+     life, and full of the most enjoyable humor.
+
+
+Midst the Wild Carpathians.
+
+     By MAURUS JOKAI, author of "Black Diamonds,"
+     "The Lion of Janina," etc. Authorized translation
+     by R. Nisbet Bain. Illustrated. (In press.)
+     1 vol., library 12mo, cloth                               =$1.25=
+
+     A thrilling, historical, Hungarian novel, in which the
+     extraordinary dramatic and descriptive powers of the great Magyar
+     writer have full play. As a picture of feudal life in Hungary it
+     has never been surpassed for fidelity and vividness. The
+     translation is exceedingly well done.
+
+
+The Golden Dog.
+
+     A Romance of Quebec. By WILLIAM KIRBY. New
+     authorized edition. Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy.
+     1 vol., library 12mo, cloth                               =$1.25=
+
+     A powerful romance of love, intrigue, and adventure in the time of
+     Louis XV. and Mme. de Pompadour, when the French colonies were
+     making their great struggle to retain for an ungrateful court the
+     fairest jewels in the colonial diadem of France.
+
+
+Bijli the Dancer.
+
+     By JAMES BLYTHE PATTON. Illustrated by Horace
+     Van Rinth. (In press.)
+     1 vol., library 12mo, cloth                               =$1.50=
+
+     A novel of Modern India. The fortunes of the heroine, an Indian
+     Naucht girl, are told with a vigor, pathos, and a wealth of poetic
+     sympathy that makes the book admirable from first to last.
+
+
+"To Arms!"
+
+     Being Some Passages from the Early Life of Allan
+     Oliphant, Chirurgeon, Written by Himself, and now
+     Set Forth for the First Time. By ANDREW BALFOUR.
+     Illustrated. (In press.)
+     1 vol., library 12mo, cloth                               =$1.50=
+
+     A romance dealing with an interesting phase of Scottish and English
+     history, the Jacobite Insurrection of 1715, which will appeal
+     strongly to the great number of admirers of historical fiction. The
+     story is splendidly told, the magic circle which the author draws
+     about the reader compelling a complete forgetfulness of prosaic
+     nineteenth century life.
+
+
+Mere Folly.
+
+     A novel. By MARIA LOUISE POOLE, author of "In a
+     Dike Shanty," etc. Illustrated. (In press.)
+     1 vol., library 12mo, cloth                               =$1.25=
+
+     An extremely well-written story of modern life. The interest
+     centres in the development of the character of the heroine, a New
+     England girl, whose high-strung temperament is in constant revolt
+     against the confining limitations of nineteenth century
+     surroundings. The reader's interest is held to the end, and the
+     book will take high rank among American psychological novels.
+
+
+A Hypocritical Romance and other stories.
+
+     By CAROLINE TICKNOR. Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy.
+     1 vol., large 16mo, cloth                                 =$1.00=
+
+     Miss Ticknor, well known as one of the most promising of the
+     younger school of American writers, has never done better work than
+     in the majority of these clever stories, written in a delightful
+     comedy vein.
+
+
+Cross Trails.
+
+     By VICTOR WAITE. Illustrated. (In press.)
+     1 vol., library 12mo, cloth                               =$1.50=
+
+     A Spanish-American novel of unusual interest, a brilliant, dashing,
+     and stirring story, teeming with humanity and life. Mr. Waite is to
+     be congratulated upon the strength with which he has drawn his
+     characters.
+
+
+A Mad Madonna and other stories.
+
+     By L. CLARKSON WHITELOCK, with eight half-tone
+     illustrations. 1 vol., large 16mo, cloth                  =$1.00=
+
+     A half dozen remarkable psychological stories, delicate in color
+     and conception. Each of the six has a touch of the supernatural, a
+     quick suggestion, a vivid intensity, and a dreamy realism that is
+     matchless in its forceful execution.
+
+
+On the Point.
+
+     A Summer Idyl. By NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, author
+     of "Not Angels Quite," with dainty half-tone
+     illustrations as chapter headings.
+     1 vol., large 16mo, cloth                                 =$1.00=
+
+     A bright and clever story of a summer on the coast of Maine, fresh,
+     breezy, and readable from the first to the last page. The narrative
+     describes the summer outing of a Mr. Merrithew and his family. The
+     characters are all honest, pleasant people, whom we are glad to
+     know. We part from them with the same regret with which we leave a
+     congenial party of friends.
+
+
+Cavalleria Rusticana; or, Under the Shadow of Etna.
+
+     Translated from the Italian of Giovanni Verga, by
+     NATHAN HASKELL DOLE. Illustrated by Etheldred
+     B. Barry. 1 vol., 16mo, cloth                             =$0.50=
+
+     Giovanni Verga stands at present as unquestionably the most
+     prominent of the Italian novelists. His supremacy in the domain of
+     the short story and in the wider range of the romance is recognized
+     both at home and abroad. The present volume contains a selection
+     from the most dramatic and characteristic of his Sicilian tales.
+     Verga is himself a native of Sicily, and his knowledge of that
+     wonderful country, with its poetic and yet superstitious peasantry,
+     is absolute. Such pathos, humor, variety, and dramatic quality are
+     rarely met in a single volume.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+
+Apparent printer's errors have been retained, unless stated below.
+
+Punctuation, capitalization, accents and formatting markup have been
+made consistent.
+
+"-" surrounding text represents italics.
+
+"=" surrounding text represents bold.
+
+"+" surrounding text represents the use of a Gothic font in the original.
+
+Page 64, 100, 176 and 202, changed "ecstacy" to "ecstasy" for
+continuity.
+
+Page 120, "forthfathers" changed to "forefathers" for consistency. (Our
+forefathers were not of Grand Pré.)
+
+Page 163, added the missing word, "to" ("I should like to see your
+sister, Perside.")
+
+Page 220, "pantomine" changed to "pantomime". (The unfortunate watcher,
+in great perplexity of mind, was going through every gesture in the
+pantomime of distress.)
+
+Page 294, "Agapit" changed to "Vesper". ("The doctors in Boston also say
+it," responded Vesper.)
+
+Page 394, "how" changed to "now". (The earth was soft here by the lake,
+yet it was heavy to lift out, for the hole had now become quite deep.)
+
+Page 506, "Malgre" changed to "Malgré". (Quoique très amère et très
+dure, Malgré les sens et la nature, Portons la croix!)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rose À  Charlitte, by Marshall Saunders
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41296 ***