Part 54 (1/2)

She waked up one or two, ran her fingers through their showy plumage, and, after receiving remonstrating glances from reproachful and recognizing eyes, softly laid them down again, and turned her attention to a resplendent red and gold c.o.c.k, who alone had not succ.u.mbed to the mysterious malady, and was staggering to and fro, eyeing her with a doubtful, yet knowing look.

”Come, Fiddeding,” she said, gently, ”tell me what has happened to these poor hens?”

Fiddeding, instead of enlightening her, swaggered towards the fence, and, after many failures, succeeded in climbing to it and in propping his tail against a post.

Then he flapped his gorgeous wings, and opened his beak to crow, but in the endeavor lost his balance, and with a dismal squawk fell to the ground. Sheepishly resigning himself to his fate, he tried to gain the ranks of the somniferous hens, but, not succeeding, fell down where he was, and hid his head under his wing.

A slight noise caught Rose's attention, and looking up, she found Jovite leaning against the fence, and grinning from ear to ear.

”Do you know what is the matter with the hens?” she asked.

”Yes, madame; if you come to the stable, I will show you what they have been taking.”

Rose, with a grave face, visited the stable, and then instructed him to harness her pony to the cart and bring him around to the front of the house.

Half an hour later she was driving towards Weymouth. As it happened to be Sat.u.r.day, it was market-day, and the general shopping-time for the farmers and the fishermen all along the Bay, and even from back in the woods. Many of them, with wives and daughters in their big wagons, were on their way to sell b.u.t.ter, eggs, and farm produce, and obtain, in exchange, groceries and dry goods, that they would find in larger quant.i.ties and in greater varieties in Weymouth than in the smaller villages along the sh.o.r.e.

Upon reaching Weymouth, she stopped on the princ.i.p.al street, that runs across a bridge over the lovely Sissiboo River, and leaving the staid and sober pony to brush the flies from himself without the a.s.sistance of her whip, she knocked at the door of her cousin's office.

”Come in,” said a voice, and she was speedily confronted by Agapit, who sat at a table facing the door.

He dropped his book and sprang up, when he saw her. ”Oh! _ma chere_, I am glad to see you. I was just feeling dull.”

She gently received and retained both his hands in hers. ”One often does feel dull after a journey. Ah! but I have missed you.”

”It has only been two weeks--”

”And you have come back with that same weary look on your face,” she said, anxiously. ”Agapit, I try to put that look in the back of my mind, but it will not stay.”

He lightly kissed her fingers, and drew a chair beside his own for her.

”It amuses you to worry.”

”My cousin!”

”I apologize,--you are the soul of angelic concern for the minds and bodies of your fellow mortals. And how goes everything in Sleeping Water? I have been quite homesick for the good old place.”

Rose, in spite of the distressed expression that still lingered about her face, began to smile, and said, impulsively, ”Once or twice I have almost recalled you, but I did not like to interrupt. Yours was a case at the supreme court, was it not, if that is the way to word it?”

”Yes, Rose; but has anything gone wrong? You mentioned nothing in your letters,” and, as he spoke, he took off his gla.s.ses and began to polish them with his handkerchief.

”Not wrong, exactly, yet--” and she laughed. ”It is Bidiane.”

The hand with which Agapit was manipulating his gla.s.ses trembled slightly, and hurriedly putting them on, he pushed back the papers on the table before him, and gave her an acute and undivided attention.

”Some one wants to marry her, I suppose,” he said, hastily. ”She is quite a flirt.”

”No, no, not yet,--Pius Poirier may, by and by, but do not be too severe with her, Agapit. She has no time to think of lovers now. She is--but have you not heard? Surely you must have--every one is laughing about it.”

”I have heard nothing. I returned late last night. I came directly here this morning. I intended to go to see you to-morrow.”

”I thought you would, but I could not wait. Little Bidiane should be stopped at once, or she will become notorious and get into the papers,--I was afraid it might already be known in Halifax.”