Rose à Charlitte

"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.

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.