THERE was a house on the outskirts of Viger called, by courtesy, the Seigniory. Passing down one of the side-streets you caught sight of it, set upon a rise, having nothing to do with the street, or seemingly with any part of the town. Built into the bank, as it was, the front had three stories, while the back had but two. The lower flat, half cellar, half kitchen, was lighted from a broad door and two windows facing the southeast. Entrance to the second floor was had by a flight of steps to a wide gallery running completely across the front of the house. Then, above this second story, there was a sharply-peaked roof, with dormer-windows. The walls of the kitchen story were rough stone, while the upper part had been plastered and overlaid with a buff-colored wash; but time had cracked off the plaster in many places, and showed the solid stones.

With all the ravages of time upon it, and with all its old surroundings gone, it yet had an air of some distinction. With its shoulder to the street, and its independent solidity, it made men remember days gone by, when it was only a farm-house on the Estate of the Rioux family. Yet of that estate this old house, with its surrounding three acres of land, was all that remained; and of the retainers that once held allegiance to this proud name, Louis Bois was the last.

Living alone in the old house, growing old with it, guarding some secret and keeping at a proper distance the inquisitive and loquacious villagers, had given Louis also some distinction. He was reported an old soldier, and bore about the witness of it in a wooden leg. He swore, when angry, in a cavalier fashion, using the heavier English oaths with some freedom. His bravery, having never been put to proof, rested securely upon these foundations. But he had a more definite charm for the villagers; he was supposed to have money of his own, and afforded the charming spectacle of a human being vegetating like a plant, without effort and without trouble. Louis Bois had grown large in his indolence, and towards the end of his career he moved with less frequency and greater difficulty. His face was round and fat; the hair had never grown on it, and the skin was fine and smooth as an orange, without wrinkles, but marked with very decided pores. The expression of amiability that his mouth promised was destroyed by an eye of suspicious restlessness. About fifteen years before the time of his release Louis had been sworn to his post by the last of the Rioux family—Hugo Armand Theophile.

This young man, of high spirit and passionate courage, found himself, at the age of twenty-five, after two years of intermittent study at a Jesuit College, fatherless, and without a sou to call his own. Of the family estate, the farm-house, round which Viger had closed, was all that remained, and from its windows this fiery youth might look across the ten acres that were his, over miles of hill and wood to which his grandfather had been born. This vista tortured him for three days, when he sold seven of his acres, keeping the rest from pride. Then he shook off the dust of Viger, but not before swearing Louis Bois, who was old enough to be his father, and loved him as such, to stay and watch the forlorn hope of the Rioux Estate until he, the last of the line, should return and redeem his ancient heritage. He would be gone ten years, he said; and Louis reflected with pride that his own money would keep him that long, and longer.

At first he kept the whole house open, and entertained some of his friends; but he soon discovered that he lost money by that, and gradually he boarded up the windows and lived in the kitchen and one room of the upper flat.

He was a sensitive being, this, and his master’s idea had taken hold upon him. His burly frame contained a faint heart; he had no physical courage; and he was as suspicious as a savage. Moreover, he was superstitious, as superstitious as an old wife, and odd occurrences made him uneasy. If he could have been allowed to doze on his gallery in the sun all his days, and sleep secure of dreams and visitations all his nights, his life might have been bearable. The first three years of his stewardship were comparatively uneventful. He traced his liege’s progress through the civilized world by the post-mark on his letters, which sometimes contained a bill of exchange, of which the great and safe bank of Bardé Brothers took charge. As yet his master had not captured a treasure ship; but seven years remained.

At the beginning of his fourth year something happened which disturbed Louis’ existence to its centre. An emissary of the devil, in the guise of a surveyor, planted his theodolite, and ran a roadway which took off a corner of his three acres, and for this he received only an arbitrator’s allowance. In vain he stumped up and down his gallery, and in vain his English oaths—the roadway went through. To add to his trouble, the letters from the wanderer ceased. Was he dead? Had he forgotten? No more money was coming in, and Louis had the perpetual sight of the alienated lands before his eyes.

One day, when he was coming home from the bank, his eye caught a poster that made him think; it was an announcement of a famous lottery. Do what he would he could not get it out of his head; and that evening, when he was cooking his supper, he resolved to make money after a fashion of his own. He saw himself a suddenly rich man, the winner of the seventy-five-thousand-dollar prize. He felt his knee burn under him, and felt also what a dead thing his wooden leg was.

He began to venture small sums in the lottery, hoarding half his monthly allowance until he should have sufficient funds to purchase a ticket. Waiting for the moment when he could buy, and then waiting for the moment when he could receive news of the drawing, lent a feverish interest to his life. But he failed to win. With his failure grew a sort of exasperation—he would win, he said, if he spent every cent he owned. He had moments when he suspected that he was being duped, but he was always reassured upon spelling out the lottery circular, where the drawing by the two orphan children was so touchingly described.

At last, after repeated failures, he drew every cent of his own that he could muster, and bought a whole ticket. He never rested a moment until the returns came. He had days of high spirits, when he touched his gains and saw them heaped before him, and other days of depression when he cursed his ill luck, and saw blanks written everywhere. When he learned the result his last disappointment was his greatest. He had drawn a blank.

He was in a perfect fury of rage, and went off to bed cursing like a sea-pirate. When he took off his wooden leg, he took it by the foot and beat the floor with the knee-end until he got some relief. Could he have captured, he would have murdered the innocent orphan children. He swore never to be tempted again, but the morning when he took that oath, April was bleak on the hills, and a tardy spring circled in cold sunshine, leaving the buds suspended.

When May came, his hope again blossomed. Slowly and certainly his mind approached that money he had in trust for his master, until, one sultry day in June, he saw his way to success, and felt his conscience lulled. That afternoon he dozed on the gallery and dreamed. He felt he was in Heaven, and the heaven of his dreams was a large Cathedral whose nave he had walked somewhere in his journeyings. He saw the solemn passages, the penetrating shafts of light, the obscure altar rising dimly in the star-hung alcove; and from the glamour round the altar floated down a magnificent angel, and with a look of perfect knowledge in his eyes shamed him for his base resolve. Slowly, as Louis quailed before him, he dwindled, shimmering in the glory shaken from his vesture, until he grew very faint and indistinct, and dissolved slowly into light. Then his vision swayed aside, and he saw his own gallery, and a little cream-colored dog, that sat with his back half-turned towards him, eying him over his shoulder. Superstitious Louis shuddered when he saw this dog. He thought there was something uncanny about him; but to a casual observer he was an ordinary dog of mixed blood. He had a sharp nose and ears, piercing eyes, straight, cream-colored hair rather white upon the breast, and a tail curled down upon his back. He was a small dog; an intense nervousness animated his every movement.

Louis was afraid to drive him away, and so long as he saw him he could not forget his dream and the reproof he had had from heaven; gradually he came to believe the animal was a spirit in canine form. His reasons for this were that the dog never slept, or at least never seemed to sleep. All day long he followed Louis about. If he dozed in his chair the dog laid his nose between his paws and watched him. If he woke at night his eyes burned in the darkness. Again, he never seemed to eat anything, and he was never heard to utter a sound.

Louis, half-afraid of him, gave him a name; he called him Fidele. He also tried to coax him, but to no purpose. The dog never approached him except when he went to sleep; then he would move nearer to him. At last he got greater confidence; and Louis awoke from a doze one day to find him gnawing his wooden leg. He tried to frighten him off; but Fidele had acquired the habit and stuck to it. Whenever Louis would fall asleep, Fidele would approach him softly and chew his leg. Perhaps it was the soft tremor that was imparted to his fleshy leg from the gnawing of the wooden one; but Louis never slept more soundly than when this was progressing. He saw, however, with dismay, his hickory support vanishing, and to avoid wasting his money on wooden legs he covered the one he had with brass-headed tacks. In the end the dog came to be a sort of conscience for him. He could never look at his piercing eyes without thinking of the way he had been warned.

To pay for his recklessness Louis had to live on a pittance for years; just enough to keep himself alive. He might have lost his taste for gambling, through this rigor, and his temptation to use his master’s money might never have returned; but in his lottery business he had made a confidant of one of the messengers of the Bardé Bank. The fellow’s name was Jacques Potvin. He was full of dissimulation; he loved a lie for its own sake; he devoured the simple character of Louis Bois. Whenever they met, Louis was treated to a flushed account of all sorts of escapades,—thousands made in a night—tens of thousands by a pen-stroke.

At last, as a crowning success, Jacques Potvin himself had won a thousand dollars in a drawing that Louis could not participate in. This was galling. To have that money lying idle; never to hear from his master Rioux, who was probably dead, and to see chance after chance slip by him. He gave his trouble to Potvin! Potvin took the weight lightly and threw it over his shoulder.

“Bah!” he said. “If I had that money under my fingers, I would be a rich man before the year was out.”

The fever was in Louis’ blood again. He tossed a sleepless night, and then resolved desperately. He shut Fidele up in the attic, and went off and bought a ticket with his master’s money. When he came back from the bank, the first thing he saw was Fidele seated in one of the dormer-windows, watching him. It would be six months before he could get any news of his venture; six months of Fidele and an accusing conscience.

Half the time was scarcely over when, to his horror and joy, came a letter from his master. It was dated at Rio. He was on his way home; he would arrive in about six months. The probable failure of his scheme gave Louis agony now. He would have to face his master, who would arrive at Christmas if his plans were discharged, with a rifled bank account. On the other hand, if he should be successful!—Oh! that gold, how it haunted him!

One night, on the eve of his expectation, Louis fell asleep as he was cooking his supper. He slept long, and when he awoke his stove was red-hot. He started up, staring at something figured on the red stove door.

It was only the number of the stove, but it was also the number of his ticket. He waited, after that, in perfect serenity, and when his notice came he opened it with calmness. He had won the seventy-five-thousand-dollar prize.

He went off hot foot to Potvin.

“Of course,” he said, “I’ll have them send it to the Bardé Bank.”

“Just keep cool,” said Potvin. “Of course you’ll do nothing of the sort.”

“But why?”

“Why? Wait and see. The Imperial Bank is safe enough for you.”

Louis had the money sent to the Imperial Bank.

A short time after this, when Louis passed the Bardé Bank, a crowd of people were besieging the doors and reading the placards; the Bank had suspended payment. The shrewdness of Potvin had saved his seventy-five thousand.

When he next met Jacques, he hugged him to his heart. Jacques laid his finger on his nose:

“Deeper still,” he said. “I know, I know that the Imperial itself is totterish. This affair of the Bardés has made things shaky; see? Everything is on three legs. If I were you, now; if I were you, I’d just draw that seventy-five thousand dollars and lay it away in a strong-box till this blows over.”

“But,” said Louis, in a panic, “I have no strong-box.”

“But I have,” said Jacques.

Louis laid his hands on his shoulders, and could have wept.

Christmas passed, but no sign of Hugo Armand Theophile. But the second week in January brought a letter, two days old, from New York. Rioux would be in Viger in a week at the latest. Louis was in great spirits. He planned a surprise for his master. He went off to find Jacques Potvin, but Jacques was not to be found.

Louis arranged that Jacques was to meet him at a tavern called “The Blue Bells” the next day.

“But,” said Jacques, when they met, “this is absurd. What do you want the money for?”

“Never mind, I want it, that’s all.”

“But think; seventy-five thousand dollars!”

“I want it for a few days. Just the money—myself—I—is it not mine?”

Some one in the next compartment rose, and put his ear to the partition. The voices were low, but he could hear them well. Listening intently, his eyes seemed to sink into his head, and burn there darkly.

“Well, so it is,” concluded Jacques. “I will get it for you. But we’ll have to do the thing quietly, very quietly. I’ll drive out to Viger to-morrow night, say. I’ll meet you at that vacant field next the church, at eleven, and the money will be there.”

The listener in the next compartment withdrew hastily, and mingled with the crowd at the bar. That night he wandered out to Viger. He observed the church and the vacant lot, and saw that there were here and there hollows under the sidewalk, where a man might crouch.

He afterward wandered about for a while, and found himself in front of the old farm-house. A side window of the second story was filled with the flicker of a fire. A ladder leaned against the wall and ran up past the window. He hesitated whether to ascend the gallery-steps or the ladder. He chose the ladder. With his foot on the lowest rung, he said:

“If I hadn’t this little scheme on hand I would go in, but—”

He went up the ladder and looked in at the window. Louis Bois was asleep before the fire. Fidele lay by his side. The man caught the dog’s eye.

Louis woke nervously, and saw a figure at the window. The only thing he discerned distinctly was a white sort of cap. In his sudden fear, seeking something to throw, he touched Fidele, and without thinking, he hurled him full at the man.

The dog’s body broke the old sash and crashed through the glass. The fellow vanished. When Louis had regained his courage, he let Fidele in. There was not a scratch on him. He lay down about ten yards from Louis, and looked at him fixedly.

The old soldier had no sleep that night, and no peace the next day.

The next night was wild. Louis looked from his window. The moon was shining brightly on the icy fields that glared with as white a radiance; over the polished surface drifted loose masses of snow, and clouds rushed across the moon.

He took his cloak, his stick, and a dirk-knife, and locking Fidele in, started forth. A few moments after he reached the rendezvous, Jacques drove up in a berlin.

“Here it is,” Jacques said, pressing a box into his hands, “the key that hangs there will open it. I must be off. Be careful!”

Jacques whirled away in the wind. There was not a soul to be seen. Louis clutched his knife, and turned toward home. He had not left the church very far behind, when he thought he heard something moving. A cloud obscured the moon. A figure leaned out from under the sidewalk and observed him. A moment later it sprang upon the pathway and leaped forward.

Louis was sure some one was there; half looking round, he made a swipe in the air with his knife. It encountered something. Looking round fairly he saw a man with a whitish cap stagger off the sidewalk and fall in the snow.

Hurrying on, he looked back a moment later, and saw the figure of the man, receding, making with incredible swiftness across the vacant space.

Louis once out of sight, the man doubled with the rapidity of a wounded beast, and after plunging through side-streets was again in front of the farm-house. He ascended the ladder with some difficulty, and entered the room by the window. Where he expected to find his faithful steward, there was only a white dog that neither moved nor barked, and that watched him fixedly as he fell, huddled and fainting, on the bunk.

A few minutes later Louis reached home. The sickness of fear possessed him. He staggered into the room and sat before the fire, trying to control himself. When he was calmer, he found himself clutching the box. He threw off his cloak and took the key to fit it into the lock. The key was too large. In vain he fussed and turned—it would not go in. He shook the box; nothing rattled or moved. A horrid suspicion crossed his mind. What if Jacques had stolen the money! What if there was nothing in the box!

He seized the poker in a frenzy and beat the box open. It was empty—empty—empty!

His hand went round in it mechanically, while he gazed, wild with conjecture. Then, with an oath he flung the box on the fire and turned away. The disturbed brands shot a glow into every part of the room, and Louis saw by one flash a gray Persian-lamb cap, which he recognized, lying on the floor. By the next, he saw the head, from which it had rolled, pillowed on his bunk.

He tried to utter a cry, but sank into his chair stricken dumb; for death had not yet softened the lines of desperate cunning on the face, which, in spite of the scars of a wild life, he recognized as that of Hugo Armand Theophile Rioux.

The look of that cap as he had seen it through the window; the glimpse he had of it a few minutes ago, when he swept his knife back through the air; the face of his master—dead; the thought of himself, duped and robbed, fixed him in his chair, where he hung half-lifeless.

Everything reeled before him, but in a dull glare he saw Fidele, his nose between his extended paws, and his eyes fixed keenly upon him. They seemed to pierce him to the soul, until their gleam, which had followed him for so many years, faded out with all the familiar lines and corners of his room, engulfed in one intense, palpitating light.

The people who broke open the house saw the unexplained tragedy of the Seigniory, but they did not find Fidele, nor was he ever seen again.

“JOSEPHINE,” said Madame Labrosse, quietly, through her tears—“Josephine, we must set up a little shop.”

Said Josephine, with a movement of despair, “Every one sets up a little shop.”

“True, and what every one does we must do.”

“But not every one succeeds, and ours would be a very little shop.”

“There are some other things we could do.”

“Mamma,” said Josephine, “do not dare! Let us set up a little shop.”

And accordingly the front room was cleared out and transformed. What care they took! How clean it all was when they were at last ready for customers, even to a diminutive sign.

“My daughter, who will wait?” asked Madame Labrosse.

“I will wait,” answered Josephine, and she hung her bird in the window, put the door ajar, and waited.

That was in the early summer, before the Blanche had forgotten its spring song.

“Mother,” said Josephine, “we belong to the people who do not succeed.”

“True!” replied Madame Labrosse, disconsolately. “But we must live, and there is the mother,” and she cast her eyes to the corner where her own mother sat, drawing at her pipe, so dark and withered as to look like a piece of punk that had caught fire and was going off in smoke. “But there are some things we can do.”

“Mamma, do not dare!”

But this time Madame Labrosse dared, and she put on her cloak and went into the city. When she came back her face was radiant, but Josephine cried herself to sleep that night.

All this was in the early March, before the Blanche had learned its spring song.

In truth, if the shopkeeping had been a failure, was it the fault of Josephine or Madame Labrosse? Their window was brighter than other shop-windows, and one would have thought that people would have come in, if only to look at the sweet eyes of Josephine and hear her bird sing. But, no! In vain for months had the candy hearts and the red-and-white walking-sticks hung in the window. It was the crumble and crash of one of these same walking-sticks that had startled Josephine into the confession that the shop was not a success. In vain had Madame Labrosse placed steaming plates of pork and beans in the window. Their savor only went up and rested in beads on the pane, making a veil behind which they could stiffen and grow cold in protest against an unappreciative public. In vain had she made latire golden-brown, crisp, and delicate; it only grew mealy and unresisting, and Josephine was in danger of utterly spoiling her complexion by eating it.

“There must be something wrong with the window,” said Madame Labrosse.

“Well, I will walk out and see,” said Josephine, and she came sauntering past with as little concern as possible.

“Mother, there is nothing wrong with the window.”

“Wait! I will try,” said Madame Labrosse, and she in turn came sauntering by. But Josephine had stood in the door, and her mother, chancing first to catch sight of her, lost her view of the window in her surprise at the anxious beauty of her daughter’s face.

“Well! mamma.”

“Josephine, why did you stand in the door?” asked her mother, kissing her on either cheek.

“But the window?” persisted Josephine.

“Let the fiend fly away with the window!” said her mother; and Josephine’s bird, catching the defiance of the accent, burst into a snatch of reckless song.

Now that Madame Labrosse had dared so much, Josephine was not to be outdone, and she commenced to sew. Her mother always went away early in the morning and came back before noon, and one day she caught Josephine sewing. She snatched the work.

“Josephine, do not dare!” When she next found her at work she said nothing, but instead of kissing her cheek, kissed her fingers.

But why was it that trouble seemed never very far away? Josephine sewed so hard that she commenced to take stitches in her side, and of a sudden Madame Labrosse fell sick—so sick that she could not do her work, and Josephine had to go to the city with a message. Her heart beat as she passed the office-doors covered with strange names; her heart stopped beating when she came to the right one. She tapped timidly. Some one called out, “Come in!” and Josephine pushed open the door. There was a sudden stir in the room. The lawyers’ clerks looked up, and then tried to go on with their work. A supercilious young man minced forward, and Josephine gave her message. The clerks pretended to write, but the only one who was working wrote Josephine’s words into a lease that he was drawing—“the said party of the second part cannot come.”

When she went away, he leaned over the supercilious young man and asked: “Where did she say she lived?”

“At St. Renard,” said the young man; at which every one laughed, except his inquirer. He sat back in his chair, peering through his glasses at the place where Josephine had stood. St. Renard—St. Renard; was there ever such a saint in the calendar? was there ever such a suburb to the city? When he left the office he walked as straight home as he could go. He kept repeating Josephine’s words to himself: “My mother, Madame Labrosse, being sick, cannot come; she lives at”—St. Renard? No, no; not St. Renard. When he had arrived at the house, where he had boarded for ten years, he went up to his room, and did not come down until the next morning. When he had shut himself in, he commenced to rummage in his trunk, and at last, after tossing everything about, he gave a cry of joy and pulled out a flat, thin book. He spread this out on the table and turned the leaves. On the first page were some verses, copied by himself. The rest of the book was full of silhouettes, cut from black paper and pasted on the white. He found a fragment of this paper, and taking his scissors he commenced to cut it. It took the form of a face; but, alas! not the face that was in his mind, and he let it drop in despair. Then he tried to sleep, but he could not sleep. Through his head kept running Josephine’s message, and he would hesitate at St. Renard, trying to remember what she had said. At last he slept and had a dream. He dreamed that he was sailing down a stream which grew narrower and narrower. At last his boat stopped amid a tangle of weeds and water-lilies. All around him on the broad leaves was seated a chorus of frogs, singing out something at the top of their voices. He listened. Then, little by little, whatever the word was, it grew more distinct until one huge fellow opened his mouth and roared out “Viger!” which brought him wide awake. He repeated the word aloud, and it echoed in his ears, growing softer and softer until it grew beautiful enough to fill a place in his recollections and complete the sentence—“My mother, Madame Labrosse, being sick, cannot come; she lives at Viger.”

The next Sunday, Victor dressed himself with care. He put on a new peuce-velvet coat, which had just come home from the tailor’s, and started for Viger. What he said when he found Madame Labrosse’s he could never distinctly remember. The first impression he received, after a return of consciousness, was of a bird singing very loudly—so loudly that it seemed as if its cage was his head, and that, in addition to singing, it was beating against the bars. He was less nervous the next time he came, and the oftener he came the more he wondered at the sweetness of Josephine’s face. At last he grew dumb with admiration.

“He is very quiet, this Victor of yours.”

“Mamma!” said Josephine, consciously.

“Does he never say a word?”

“Why, yes.”

“Now, what does he say?”

“Mamma, how can I remember?”

“Well, try, Josephine.”

“He said that now the leaves were on the trees he could not see so far as he used to. That before, he could see our house from the Côte Rouge, but not now.”

“Well, and what else?”

“Mamma, how can I remember? He said that the birds had their nests all built now. He said that he wondered if any birds boarded out; that he had boarded out for ten years. Mamma, what are you laughing at? How cruel!”

“My little José, the dear timid one is in love.”

“Mamma, with whom?”

“How can I tell? I think he will tell you some day.”

But the “some day” seemed to recede; and all the days of May had gone and June had begun, and still Josephine did not know.

Victor grew more timid than ever. Josephine thought a great deal about his silence, and once her mother caught her blushing when he chanced to stir in his chair. She intended to ask her about it, but her memory was completely unhinged by a letter she received. It was evidently written with great labor, and it caused the greatest excitement in the house.

“Mon Dieu!” Madame Labrosse exclaimed, “François Xavier comes to dine to-morrow!” And preparations were at once commenced for the reception of this François Xavier, who was Madame Labrosse’s favorite cousin.

His full name was François Xavier Beaugrand de Champagne. He had just come down from his winter’s work up the river, and on the morning of the day he was to dine with his cousin he stood leaning against the brick wall of a small hotel in the suburbs. The sunlight was streaming down on him, reflected up from the pavement and back from the house, and he basked in the heat with his eyes half shut. His face was burned to a fiery brown; but as he had just lost his full beard, his chin was a sort of whitish-blue. He was evidently dressed with great care, in a completely new outfit. He appeared as if forced into a suit of dark-brown cloth; on his feet he wore a tight pair of low shoes, with high heels, and red socks; his arms protruded from his coat-sleeves, showing a glimpse of white cuffs and a flash of red under-clothes. His necktie was a remarkable arrangement of red and blue silks mixed with brass rings. On his head he wore a large, gum-colored, soft felt hat. He had little gold ear-rings in his ears, and a large ring on his finger. As he leaned against the wall he had thrust his fingers into his pockets, and the sun had eased him into a sort of gloomy doze; for he knew he had to go to Madame Labrosse’s for dinner, and he was not entirely willing to leave his pleasures in the first flush of their novelty. He had made arrangements to break away from the restraint early in the evening, which softened his displeasure somewhat; but when his friends came for him he was loath to go.

How beautiful Josephine had grown, how kind that cousin was, and how quickly the time went,—now dinner, now tea; and who is this that comes in after tea? This is Victor Lucier. And who is this that sits so cheerfully, filling half the room with his hugeness? This is François Xavier Beaugrand de Champagne; he has just returned. Just returned! Just returned from where? What right has he to return? Who is this François Xavier, who returns suddenly and fills the whole room? Can it be so? A vague feeling of jealousy springs up in Victor. Can this be the one of Josephine’s choosing? Yes, true it is; he calls her José. José, just like Madame Labrosse.

But he is going now, and he is very loath to go; but he will be back some day soon, and off he goes. And by and by away goes Madame Labrosse, “just for a moment,” she says. They are alone now as they have never been before. Josephine sits with the blood coming into her face, wondering what Victor will say. Victor also wonders what he will say.

Josephine’s bird gives a faint, sleepy twitter. They both look up, then he hops down from his perch and pecks at his seed-font. Suddenly he gives a few sharp cries, as if to try his voice. They both start to their feet. Now he commences to sing. What a burst of rapture! In a moment Josephine is in Victor’s arms, her cheek is against the velvet coat. Is it her own heart she hears, or is it Victor’s? No need of words now. How the bird sings! High and clear he shakes out his song in a passionate burst, as if all his life were for love. And they seem to talk together in sweet unsaid words until he ceases. Now they are seated on the sofa, and Madame Labrosse comes in.

“Josephine!”

“Mamma, how can I help it?” and the tears of joy creep out on her eyelashes.

Suddenly the grandmother, catching sight, through her half-blind eyes, of Victor and Josephine on the sofa, cries out and menaces him with her shrivelled fist, when they all rush upon her with kisses and pacify her with her pipe.

And now, what is this noise that breaks the quiet? It is a wild song from the street, echoing in the room. There is a shout, and a cab draws up at the door. It is François Xavier, returned for the second time. He stands swaying in the middle of the floor. There is a vinous lustre in his eyes. His coat is thrown back from his shoulder. Some one has been dancing on his hat, for it is all crushed and dusty. He mutters the words of the song which the chorus is roaring outside—“C’est dans la vill’ de Bytown.” Madame Labrosse implores him with words to come some other time. Josephine implores him with her eyes, clinging to Victor, who has his arm around her. But François Xavier stands unimpressed. Suddenly he makes an advance on Josephine, who retreats behind Victor.

“Scoundrel! base one,” calls out Victor, “leave the house, or I myself will put you out!” François Xavier gazes for a moment on the little figure peering at him so fiercely through his spectacles. Then, as the chorus lulls for a moment, a smile of childish tenderness mantles all his face and with the gesture of a father reclaiming his long-lost son he stretches his arms toward Victor. He folds him to his breast, and, lifting him from the floor, despite his struggles he carries him out into the night, where the chorus bursts out anew—“C’est dans la vill’ de Bytown.”

It is late when Victor at last escapes, and hears them go roaring away as he flees, hatless, through the fields to his home. It is still later when he falls asleep, overcome by excitement and the stimulants which have been administered to him; and through his feverish dreams runs the sound of singing, of Josephine’s voice, inexpressibly sweet and tender, like the voice of a happy angel, but the song that she sings is—“C’est dans la vill’ de Bytown.”

HE used to come in the early spring-time, when, in sunny hollows, banks of coarse snow lie thawing, shrinking with almost inaudible tinklings, when the upper grass-banks are covered thickly with the film left by the melted snow, when the old leaves about the gray trees are wet and sodden, when the pools lie bare and clear, without grasses, very limpid with snow-water, when the swollen streams rush insolently by, when the grosbeaks try the cedar buds shyly, and a colony of little birds take a sunny tree slope, and sing songs there.

He used to come with the awakening of life in the woods, with the strange cohosh, and the dog-tooth violet, piercing the damp leaf which it would wear as a ruff about its neck in blossom time. He used to come up the road from St. Valérie, trudging heavily, bearing his packs. To most of the Viger people he seemed to appear suddenly in the midst of the street, clothed with power, and surrounded by an attentive crowd of boys, and a whirling fringe of dogs, barking and throwing up dust.

I speak of what has become tradition, for the pedler walks no more up the St. Valérie road, bearing those magical baskets of his.

There was something powerful, compelling, about him; his short, heavy figure, his hair-covered, expressionless face, the quick hands in which he seemed to weigh everything that he touched, his voluminous, indescribable clothes, the great umbrella he carried strapped to his back, the green spectacles that hid his eyes, all these commanded attention. But his powers seemed to lie in those inscrutable guards to his eyes. They were such goggles as are commonly used by threshers, and were bound firmly about his face by a leather lace; with their setting of iron they completely covered his eye-sockets, not permitting a glimpse of those eyes that seemed to glare out of their depths. They seemed never to have been removed, but to have grown there, rooted by time in his cheek-bones.

He carried a large wicker-basket covered with oiled cloth, slung to his shoulder by a strap; in one hand he carried a light stick, in the other a large oval bandbox of black shiny cloth. From the initials “J. F.,” which appeared in faded white letters on the bandbox, the village people had christened him Jean-François.

Coming into the village, he stopped in the middle of the road, set his bandbox between his feet, and took the oiled cloth from the basket. He never went from house to house, his customers came to him. He stood there and sold, almost without a word, as calm as a sphinx, and as powerful. There was something compelling about him; the people bought things they did not want, but they had to buy. The goods lay before them, the handkerchiefs, the laces, the jewelry, the little sacred pictures, matches in colored boxes, little cased looking-glasses, combs, mouth-organs, pins, and hair-pins; and over all, this figure with the inscrutable eyes. As he took in the money and made change, he uttered the word, “Good,” continually, “good, good.” There was something exciting in the way he pronounced that word, something that goaded the hearers into extravagance.

It happened one day in April, when the weather was doubtful and moody, and storms flew low, scattering cold rain, and after that day Jean-François, the pedler, was a shape in memory, a fact no longer. He was blown into the village unwetted by a shower that left the streets untouched, and that went through the northern fields sharply, and lost itself in the far woods. He stopped in front of the post-office. The Widow Laroque slammed her door and went upstairs to peep through the curtain; “these pedlers spoiled trade,” she said, and hated them in consequence. Soon a crowd collected, and great talk arose, with laughter and some jostling. Every one tried to see into the basket, those behind stood on tiptoe and asked questions, those in front held the crowd back and tried to look at the goods. The air was full of the staccato of surprise and admiration. The late comers on the edge of the crowd commenced to jostle, and somebody tossed a handful of dust into the air over the group. “What a wretched wind,” cried some one, “it blows all ways.”

The dust seemed to irritate the pedler, besides, no one had bought anything. He called out sharply, “Buy—buy.” He sold two papers of hair-pins, a little brass shrine of La Bonne St. Anne, a colored handkerchief, a horn comb, and a mouth-organ. While these purchases were going on, Henri Lamoureux was eying the little red purses, and fingering a coin in his pocket. The coin was a doubtful one, and he was weighing carefully the chances of passing it. At last he said, carelessly, “How much?” touching the purses. The pedler’s answer called out the coin from his pocket; it lay in the man’s hand. Henri took the purse and moved hurriedly back. At once the pedler grasped after him, reaching as well as his basket would allow; he caught him by the coat; but Henri’s dog darted in, nipped the pedler’s leg, and got away, showing his teeth. Lamoureux struggled, the pedler swore; in a moment every one was jostling to get out of the way, wondering what was the matter. As Henri swung his arm around he swept his hand across the pedler’s eyes; the shoe-string gave way, and the green goggles fell into the basket. Then a curious change came over the man. He let his enemy go, and stood dazed for a moment; he passed his hand across his eyes, and in that interval of quiet the people saw, where they expected to see flash the two rapacious eyes of their imaginings, only the seared, fleshy seams where those eyes should have been.

That was the vision of a moment, for the pedler, like a fiend in fury, threw up his long arms and cursed in a voice so powerful and sudden that the dismayed crowd shrunk away, clinging to one another and looking over their shoulders at the violent figure. “God have mercy!—Holy St. Anne protect us!—He curses his Baptism!” screamed the women. In a second he was alone; the dog that had assailed him was snarling from under the sidewalk, and the women were in the nearest houses. Henri Lamoureux, in the nearest lane, stood pale, with a stone in his hand. It was only for one moment; in the second, the pedler had gathered his things, blind as he was, had turned his back, and was striding up the street; in the third, one of the sudden storms had gathered the dust at the end of the village and came down with it, driving every one indoors. It shrouded the retreating figure, and a crack of unexpected thunder came like a pistol shot, and then the pelting rain.

Some venturesome souls who looked out when the storm was nearly over, declared they saw, large on the hills, the figure of the pedler, walking enraged in the fringes of the storm. One of these was Henri Lamoureux, who, to this day, has never found the little red purse.

“I would have sworn I had it in this hand when he caught me; but I felt it fly away like a bird.”

“But what made the man curse every one so when you just bought that little purse—say that?”

“Well, I know not, do you? Anyway he has my quarter, and he was blind—blind as a stone fence.”

“Blind! Not he!” cried the Widow Laroque. “He was the Old Boy himself; I told you—it is always as I say, you see now—it was the old Devil himself.”

However that might be, there are yet people in Viger who, when the dust blows, and a sharp storm comes up from the southeast, see the figure of the enraged pedler, large upon the hills, striding violently along the fringes of the storm.

NEAR the outskirts of Viger, to the west, far away from the Blanche, but having a country outlook of their own, and a glimpse of a shadowy range of hills, stood two houses which would have attracted attention by their contrast, if for no other reason. One was a low cottage, surrounded by a garden, and covered with roses, which formed jalousies for the encircling veranda. The garden was laid out with the care and completeness that told of a master hand. The cottage itself had the air of having been secured from the inroads of time as thoroughly as paint and a nail in the right place at the right time could effect that end. The other was a large gaunt-looking house, narrow and high, with many windows, some of which were boarded up, as if there was no further use for the chambers into which they had once admitted light. Standing on a rough piece of ground it seemed given over to the rudeness of decay. It appeared to have been the intention of its builder to veneer it with brick; but it stood there a wooden shell, discolored by the weather, disjointed by the frost, and with the wind fluttering the rags of tar-paper which had been intended as a protection against the cold, but which now hung in patches and ribbons. But despite this dilapidation it had a sort of martial air about it, and seemed to watch over its embowered companion, warding off tempests and gradually falling to pieces on guard, like a faithful soldier who suffers at his post. In the road, just between the two, stood a beautiful Lombardy poplar. Its shadow fell upon the little cottage in the morning, and travelled across the garden, and in the evening touched the corner of the tall house, and faded out with the sun, only to float there again in the moonlight, or to commence the journey next morning with the dawn. This shadow seemed, with its constant movement, to figure the connection that existed between the two houses.

The garden of the cottage was a marvel; there the finest roses in the parish grew, roses which people came miles to see, and parterres of old-fashioned flowers, the seed of which came from France, and which in consequence seemed to blow with a rarer color and more delicate perfume. This garden was a striking contrast to the stony ground about the neighboring house, where only the commonest weeds grew unregarded; but its master had been born a gardener, just as another man is born a musician or a poet. There was a superstition in the village that all he had to do was to put anything, even a dry stick, into the ground, and it would grow. He was the village schoolmaster, and Madame Laroque would remark spitefully enough that if Monsieur Paul Farlotte had been as successful in planting knowledge in the heads of his scholars as he was in planting roses in his garden Viger would have been celebrated the world over. But he was born a gardener, not a teacher; and he made the best of the fate which compelled him to depend for his living on something he disliked. He looked almost as dry as one of his own hyacinth bulbs; but like it he had life at his heart. He was a very small man, and frail, and looked older than he was. It was strange, but you rarely seemed to see his face; for he was bent with weeding and digging, and it seemed an effort for him to raise his head and look at you with the full glance of his eye. But when he did, you saw the eye was honest and full of light. He was not careful of his personal appearance, clinging to his old garments with a fondness which often laid him open to ridicule, which he was willing to bear for the sake of the comfort of an old pair of shoes, or a hat which had accommodated itself to the irregularities of his head. On the street he wore a curious skirt-coat that seemed to be made of some indestructible material, for he had worn it for years, and might be buried in it. It received an extra brush for Sundays and holidays, and always looked as good as new. He made a quaint picture, as he came down the road from the school. He had a hesitating walk, and constantly stopped and looked behind him; for he always fancied he heard a voice calling him by his name. He would be working in his flower-beds when he would hear it over his shoulder, “Paul;” or when he went to draw water from his well, “Paul;” or when he was reading by his fire, some one calling him softly, “Paul, Paul;” or in the dead of night, when nothing moved in his cottage he would hear it out of the dark, “Paul.” So it came to be a sort of companionship for him, this haunting voice; and sometimes one could have seen him in his garden stretch out his hand and smile, as if he were welcoming an invisible guest. Sometimes the guest was not invisible, but took body and shape, and was a real presence; and often Paul was greeted with visions of things that had been, or that would be, and saw figures where, for other eyes, hung only the impalpable air.

He had one other passion besides his garden, and that was Montaigne. He delved in one in the summer, in the other in the winter. With his feet on his stove he would become so absorbed with his author that he would burn his slippers and come to himself disturbed by the smell of the singed leather. He had only one great ambition, that was to return to France to see his mother before she died; and he had for years been trying to save enough money to take the journey. People who did not know him called him stingy, and said the saving for his journey was only a pretext to cover his miserly habits. It was strange, he had been saving for years, and yet he had not saved enough. Whenever anyone would ask him, “Well, Monsieur Farlotte, when do you go to France?” he would answer, “Next year—next year.” So when he announced one spring that he was actually going, and when people saw that he was not making his garden with his accustomed care, it became the talk of the village: “Monsieur Farlotte is going to France;” “Monsieur Farlotte has saved enough money, true, true, he is going to France.”

His proposed visit gave no one so much pleasure as it gave his neighbors in the gaunt, unkempt house which seemed to watch over his own; and no one would have imagined what a joy it was to Marie St. Denis, the tall girl who was mother to her orphan brothers and sisters, to hear Monsieur Farlotte say, “When I am in France;” for she knew what none of the villagers knew, that, if it had not been for her and her troubles, Monsieur Farlotte would have seen France many years before. How often she would recall the time when her father, who was in the employ of the great match factory near Viger, used to drive about collecting the little paper match-boxes which were made by hundreds of women in the village and the country around; how he had conceived the idea of making a machine in which a strip of paper would go in at one end, and the completed match-boxes would fall out at the other; how he had given up his situation and devoted his whole time and energy to the invention of this machine; how he had failed time and again, but continued with a perseverance which at last became a frantic passion; and how, to keep the family together, her mother, herself, and the children joined that army of workers which was making the match-boxes by hand. She would think of what would have happened to them then if Monsieur Farlotte had not been there with his help, or what would have happened when her mother died, worn out, and her father, overcome with disappointment, gave up his life and his task together, in despair. But whenever she would try to speak of these things Monsieur Farlotte would prevent her with a gesture, “Well, but what would you have me do,—besides, I will go some day,—now who knows, next year, perhaps.” So here was the “next year,” which she had so longed to see, and Monsieur Farlotte was giving her a daily lecture on how to treat the tulips after they had done flowering, preluding everything he had to say with, “When I am in France,” for his heart was already there.

He had two places to visit, one was his old home, the other was the birthplace of his beloved Montaigne. He had often described to Marie the little cottage where he was born, with the vine arbors and the long garden walks, the lilac-bushes, with their cool dark-green leaves, the white eaves where the swallows nested, and the poplar, sentinel over all. “You see,” he would say, “I have tried to make this little place like it; and my memory may have played me a trick, but I often fancy myself at home. That poplar and this long walk and the vines on the arbor,—sometimes when I see the tulips by the border I fancy it is all in France.”

Marie was going over his scant wardrobe, mending with her skilful fingers, putting a stitch in the trusty old coat, and securing its buttons. She was anxious that Monsieur Farlotte should get a new suit before he went on his journey; but he would not hear to it. “Not a bit of it,” he would say, “if I made my appearance in a new suit, they would think I had been making money; and when they would find out that I had not enough to buy cabbage for the soup there would be a disappointment.” She could not get him to write that he was coming. “No, no,” he would say, “if I do that they will expect me.” “Well, and why not,—why not?” “Well, they would think about it,—in ten days Paul comes home, then in five days Paul comes home, and then when I came they would set the dogs on me. No, I will just walk in,—so,—and when they are staring at my old coat I will just sit down in a corner, and my old mother will commence to cry. Oh, I have it all arranged.”

So Marie let him have his own way; but she was fixed on having her way in some things. To save Monsieur Farlotte the heavier work, and allow him to keep his strength for the journey, she would make her brother Guy do the spading in the garden, much to his disgust, and that of Monsieur Farlotte, who would stand by and interfere, taking the spade into his own hands with infinite satisfaction. “See,” he would say, “go deeper and turn it over so.” And when Guy would dig in his own clumsy way, he would go off in despair, with the words, “God help us, nothing will grow there.”

When Monsieur Farlotte insisted on taking his clothes in an old box covered with rawhide, with his initials in brass tacks on the cover, Marie would not consent to it, and made Guy carry off the box without his knowledge and hide it. She had a good tin trunk which had belonged to her mother, which she knew where to find in the attic, and which would contain everything Monsieur Farlotte had to carry. Poor Marie never went into this attic without a shudder, for occupying most of the space was her father’s work bench, and that complicated wheel, the model of his invention, which he had tried so hard to perfect, and which stood there like a monument of his failure. She had made Guy promise never to move it, fearing lest he might be tempted to finish what his father had begun,—a fear that was almost an apprehension, so like him was he growing. He was tall and large-boned, with a dark restless eye, set under an overhanging forehead. He had long arms, out of proportion to his height, and he hung his head when he walked. His likeness to his father made him seem a man before his time. He felt himself a man; for he had a good position in the match factory, and was like a father to his little brothers and sisters.

Although the model had always had a strange fascination for him, the lad had kept his promise to his sister, and had never touched the mechanism which had literally taken his father’s life. Often when he went into the attic he would stand and gaze at the model and wonder why it had not succeeded, and recall his father bending over his work, with his compass and pencil. But he had a dread of it too, and sometimes would hurry away, afraid lest its fascination would conquer him.

Monsieur Farlotte was to leave as soon as his school closed, but weeks before that he had everything ready, and could enjoy his roses in peace. After school hours he would walk in his garden, to and fro, to and fro, with his hands behind his back, and his eyes upon the ground, meditating; and once in a while he would pause and smile, or look over his shoulder when the haunting voice would call his name. His scholars had commenced to view him with additional interest, now that he was going to take such a prodigious journey; and two or three of them could always be seen peering through the palings, watching him as he walked up and down the path; and Marie would watch him too, and wonder what he would say when he found that his trunk had disappeared. He missed it fully a month before he could expect to start; but he had resolved to pack that very evening.

“But there is plenty of time,” remonstrated Marie.

“That’s always the way,” he answered. “Would you expect me to leave everything until the last moment?”

“But, Monsieur Farlotte, in ten minutes everything goes into the trunk.”

“So, and in the same ten minutes something is left out of the trunk, and I am in France, and my shoes are in Viger, that will be the end of it.”

So, to pacify him, she had to ask Guy to bring down the trunk from the attic. It was not yet dark there; the sunset threw a great color into the room, touching all the familiar objects with transfiguring light, and giving the shadows a rich depth. Guy saw the model glowing like some magic golden wheel, the metal points upon it gleaming like jewels in the light. As he passed he touched it, and with a musical click something dropped from it. He picked it up: it was one of the little paper match-boxes, but the defect that he remembered to have heard talked of was there. He held it in his hand and examined it; then he pulled it apart and spread it out. “Ah,” he said to himself, “the fault was in the cutting.” Then he turned the wheel, and one by one the imperfect boxes dropped out, until the strip of paper was exhausted. “But why,”—the question rose in his mind,—“why could not that little difficulty be overcome?”

He took the trunk down to Marie, who at last persuaded Monsieur Farlotte to let her pack his clothes in it. He did so with a protestation, “Well, I know how it will be with a fine box like that, some fellow will whip it off when I am looking the other way, and that will be the end of it.”

As soon as he could do so without attracting Marie’s attention Guy returned to the attic with a lamp. When Marie had finished packing Monsieur Farlotte’s wardrobe, she went home to put her children to bed; but when she saw that light in the attic window she nearly fainted from apprehension. When she pushed open the door of that room which she had entered so often with the scant meals she used to bring her father, she saw Guy bending over the model, examining every part of it. “Guy,” she said, trying to command her voice, “you have broken your promise.” He looked up quickly. “Marie, I am going to find it out—I can understand it—there is just one thing, if I can get that we will make a fortune out of it.”

“Guy, don’t delude yourself; those were father’s words, and day after day I brought him his meals here, when he was too busy even to come downstairs; but nothing came of it, and while he was trying to make a machine for the boxes, we were making them with our fingers. O Guy,” she cried, with her voice rising into a sob, “remember those days, remember what Monsieur Farlotte did for us, and what he would have to do again if you lost your place!”

“That’s all nonsense, Marie. Two weeks will do it, and after that I could send Monsieur Farlotte home with a pocket full of gold.”

“Guy, you are making a terrible mistake. That wheel was our curse, and it will follow us if you don’t leave it alone. And think of Monsieur Farlotte; if he finds out what you are working at he will not go to France—I know him; he will believe it his duty to stay here and help us, as he did when father was alive. Guy, Guy, listen to me!”

But Guy was bending over the model, absorbed in its labyrinths. In vain did Marie argue with him, try to persuade him, and threaten him; she attempted to lock the attic door and keep him out, but he twisted the lock off, and after that the door was always open. Then she resolved to break the wheel into a thousand pieces; but when she went upstairs, when Guy was away, she could not strike it with the axe she held. It seemed like a human thing that cried out with a hundred tongues against the murder she would do; and she could only sink down sobbing, and pray. Then failing everything else she simulated an interest in the thing, and tried to lead Guy to work at it moderately, and not to give up his whole time to it.

But he seemed to take up his father’s passion where he had laid it down. Marie could do nothing with him; and the younger children, at first hanging around the attic door, as if he were their father come back again, gradually ventured into the room, and whispered together as they watched their rapt and unobservant brother working at his task. Marie’s one thought was to devise a means of keeping the fact from Monsieur Farlotte; and she told him blankly that Guy had been sent away on business, and would not be back for six weeks. She hoped that by that time Monsieur Farlotte would be safely started on his journey. But night after night he saw a light in the attic window. In the past years it had been constant there, and he could only connect it with one cause. But he could get no answer from Marie when he asked her the reason; and the next night the distracted girl draped the window so that no ray of light could find its way out into the night. But Monsieur Farlotte was not satisfied; and a few evenings afterwards, as it was growing dusk, he went quietly into the house, and upstairs into the attic. There he saw Guy stretched along the work bench, his head in his hands, using the last light to ponder over a sketch he was making, and beside him, figured very clearly in the thick gold air of the sunset, the form of his father, bending over him, with the old eager, haggard look in his eyes. Monsieur Farlotte watched the two figures for a moment as they glowed in their rich atmosphere; then the apparition turned his head slowly, and warned him away with a motion of his hand.

All night long Monsieur Farlotte walked in his garden, patient and undisturbed, fixing his duty so that nothing could root it out. He found the comfort that comes to those who give up some exceeding deep desire of the heart, and when next morning the market-gardener from St. Valérie, driving by as the matin bell was clanging from St. Joseph’s, and seeing the old teacher as if he were taking an early look at his growing roses, asked him, “Well, Monsieur Farlotte, when do you go to France?” he was able to answer cheerfully, “Next year—next year.”

Marie could not unfix his determination. “No,” he said, “they do not expect me. No one will be disappointed. I am too old to travel. I might be lost in the sea. Until Guy makes his invention we must not be apart.”

At first the villagers thought that he was only joking, and that they would some morning wake up and find him gone; but when the holidays came, and when enough time had elapsed for him to make his journey twice over they began to think he was in earnest. When they knew that Guy St. Denis was chained to his father’s invention, and when they saw that Marie and the children had commenced to make match-boxes again, they shook their heads. Some of them at least seemed to understand why Monsieur Farlotte had not gone to France.

But he never repined. He took up his garden again, was as contented as ever, and comforted himself with the wisdom of Montaigne. The people dropped the old question, “When are you going to France?” Only his companion voice called him more loudly, and more often he saw figures in the air that no one else could see.

Early one morning, as he was working in his garden around a growing pear-tree, he fell into a sort of stupor, and sinking down quietly on his knees he leaned against the slender stem for support. He saw a garden much like his own, flooded with the clear sunlight, in the shade of an arbor an old woman in a white cap was leaning back in a wheeled chair, her eyes were closed, she seemed asleep. A young woman was seated beside her holding her hand. Suddenly the old woman smiled, a childish smile, as if she were well pleased. “Paul,” she murmured, “Paul, Paul.” A moment later her companion started up with a cry; but she did not move, she was silent and tranquil. Then the young woman fell on her knees and wept, hiding her face. But the aged face was inexpressibly calm in the shadow, with the smile lingering upon it, fixed by the deeper sleep into which she had fallen.

Gradually the vision faded away, and Paul Farlotte found himself leaning against his pear-tree, which was almost too young as yet to support his weight. The bell was ringing from St. Joseph’s, and had shaken the swallows from their nests in the steeple into the clear air. He heard their cries as they flew into his garden, and he heard the voices of his neighbor children as they played around the house.

Later in the day he told Marie that his mother had died that morning, and she wondered how he knew.

THE END.