Part 20 (1/2)

Tell her there are little girls in other cities and towns who are learning many wonderful things and will some day grow up into charming women such as men like for companions. It will be hard and tiresome, but she must persevere and learn to write so that she can send me a letter, which I shall prize very highly. Give her my blessing and say she must become a true American and honor the country of which we are all going to feel very proud in years to come. But with all this she must never outgrow her love for her foster mother, to whom I send respect, nor her faith in the good G.o.d who watches over and will keep her from all harm if she puts her trust in him.'”

Jeanne gave a long sigh. ”O Monsieur, it is wonderful that people can talk this way on paper. I have tried, but the master could not help laughing and I laughed, too. It was like a snail crawling about and the pen would go twenty ways as if there was an evil sprite in my fingers.

But I shall keep on although it is very tiresome and I have such a longing to be out in the fields and woods, chasing squirrels and singing to the birds, which sometimes light on my shoulder. And I know a good many English words, but the reading looks so funny, as if there were no sense to it!”

”But there is a great deal. You will be very glad some day. Then I may take a good account to him and tell him you are trying to obey his wishes?”

”Yes, Monsieur, I shall be very glad to. And he will write me the letter that he promised?”

”Indeed he will. He always keeps his promises. And I shall tell him you are happy and glad as a bird soaring through the air?”

”Not always glad. Sometimes a big shadow falls over me and my breath throbs in my throat. I cannot tell what makes the strange feeling. It does not come often, and perhaps when I have learned more it will vanish, for then I can read books and have something for my thoughts.

But I am glad a good deal of the time.”

”I don't wonder my father was interested in her,” Laurent St. Armand thought. He studied the beautiful eyes with their frank innocence, the dainty mouth and chin, the proud, uplifted expression that indicated n.o.bleness and no self-consciousness.

”And now I must bid thee good-by with my own and my father's blessing.

We shall return to America and find you again. You will hardly go away from Detroit?”

She was quite ready at that moment to give up M. Bellestre's plans for her future.

He took her hand. Then he pressed his lips upon it with the grave courtesy of a gentleman.

”Adieu,” he said softly. ”Pani, watch well over her.”

The woman bowed her head with a deeper feeling than mere a.s.sent.

Jeanne sat down on the doorstep, leaning her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand. Grave thoughts were stirring within her, the awakening of a new life on the side she had seen, but never known. The beautiful young women quite different from the gay, chattering demoiselles, their proudly held heads, their dignity, their soft voices, their air of elegance and refinement, all this Jeanne Angelot felt but could not have put into words, not even into thought. And this young man was over on that side. Oh, all Detroit must lie between, from the river out to the farms! Could she ever cross the great gulf? What was it made the difference--education? Then she would study more a.s.siduously than ever. Was this why Monsieur St. Armand was so earnest about her trying?

She glanced down at her little brown hand. Oh, how soft and warm his lips had been, what a gentle touch! She pressed her own lips to it, and a delicious sensation sped through her small body.

”What art thou dreaming about, Jeanne? Come to thy dinner.”

She glanced up with a smile. In a vague way she had known before there were many things Pani could not understand; now she felt the keen, far-reaching difference between them, between her and the De Bers, and Louis Marsac, and all the people she had ever known. But her mother, who could tell most about her, was dead.

It was not possible for a glad young thing to keep in a strained mood that would have no answering comprehension, and Jeanne's love of nature was so overwhelming. Then the autumn at the West was so glowing, so full of richness that it stirred her immeasurably. She could hardly endure the confinement on some days.

”What makes you so restless?” asked the master one noon when he was dismissing some scholars kept in until their slow wits had mastered their tasks. She, too, had been inattentive and willful.

”I am part of the woods to-day, a chipmunk running about, a cricket which dares not chirp,” and she glanced up into the stern eyes with a merry light, ”a gra.s.shopper who takes long strides, a bee who goes buzzing, a glad, gay bird who says to his mate, 'Come, let us go to the unknown land and spend a winter in idleness, with no nest to build, no hungry, crying babies to feed, nothing but just to swing in the trees and laugh with the suns.h.i.+ne.'”

”Thou art a queer child. Come, say thy lesson well and we will spend the whole afternoon in the woods. Thou shalt consort with thy brethren the birds, for thou art br.i.m.m.i.n.g over.”

The others were dismissed with some added punishment. The master took out his luncheon. He was not overpaid, he had no family and lived by himself, sleeping in the loft over the school.

”Oh, come home with me!” the child cried. ”Pani's cakes of maize are so good, and no one cooks fish with such a taste and smell. It would make one rise in the middle of the night.”

”Will the tall Indian woman give me a welcome?”