Part 32 (2/2)

Jeanne took up the baby and bore it out into the small garden, where she walked up and down and crooned to it so sweetly it soon fell asleep. The next younger child stole thither and caught her gown, keeping pace with tiny steps. How long the moments seemed! The hot sun beat down, but it was cool here under the tree. How many times in the stifling afternoons Philippe had brought his work out here! He had grown paler and thinner, but no one had seemed to think much of it. What a strange thing death was! What was the other world like--and purgatory? The mother of little Marie Faus was starving herself to pay for the salvation of her darling's soul.

”Oh, I should not like to die!” and Jeanne shuddered.

The priest came, but it was not Father Gilbert. The last rites were performed over the man who might be dead already. The baby and the little girl were brought in and the priest blessed them. There were several neighbors ready to perform the last offices, and now Jeanne took all the children out under the tree.

Louis Marsac returned, presently, and offered his help in any matter, crowding some money into the poor, widowed hand. Jeanne he could see nowhere. Pani was busy.

The next day he paid M. Loisel a visit, and stated his wishes.

”You see, Monsieur, Jeanne Angelot is in some sort a foundling, and many families would not care to take her in. That I love her will be sufficient for my father, and her beauty and sweetness will do the rest.

She will live like a queen and have servants to wait on her. There are many rich people up North, and, though the winters are long, no one suffers except the improvident. And I think I have loved Mam'selle from a little child. Then, too,” with an easy smile, ”there is a suspicion that some Indian blood runs in Mam'selle's veins. On that ground we are even.”

Yes, M. Loisel had heard that. Mixed marriages were not approved of by the better cla.s.s French, but a small share of Indian blood was not contemned. When it came to that, Louis Marsac was not a person to be lightly treated. His father had much influence with the Indian tribes and was a rich man.

So the notary laid the matter before Pani and his ward, when the funeral was over, though he would rather have pleaded for his nephew. It was a most excellent proffer.

But he was not long in learning that Jeanne Angelot had not only dislike but a sort of fear and hatred for the young man; and that nothing was farther from her thoughts. Yet he wondered a little that the fortune and adoration did not tempt her.

”Well, well, my child, we shall not be sorry to have you left in old Detroit. Some of our pretty girls have been in haste to get away to Quebec or to the more eastern cities. Boston, they say, is a fine place.

And at New York they have gay doings. But we like our own town and have all the pleasure that is good for one. So I am glad to have thee stay.”

”If I loved him it would be different. But I think this kind of love has been left out of me,” and she colored daintily. ”All other loves and grat.i.tude have been put in, and oh, M'sieu, such an adoration for the beautiful world G.o.d has made. Sometimes I go down on my knees in the forest, everything speaks to me so,--the birds and the wind among the trees, the mosses with dainty blooms like a pin's head, the velvet lichens with rings of gray and brown and pink. And the little lizards that run about will come to my hand, and the deer never spring away, while the squirrels chatter and laugh and I talk back to them. Then I have grown so fond of books. Some of them have strange melodies in them that I sing to myself. Oh, no, I do not want to be a wife and have a house to keep, neither do I want to go away.”

”Thou art a strange child.”

M. Loisel leaned over and kissed her on the crown of her head where the parting shone white as the moon at its full. Lips and rosy mouths were left for lovers in those days.

”And you will make him understand?”

”I will do my best. No one can force a damsel into marriage nowadays.”

Opposition heightened Louis Marsac's desires. Then he generally had his way with women. He did not need to work hard to win their hearts. Even here in spite of Indian blood, maids smiled on the handsome, jaunty fellow who went arrayed in the latest fas.h.i.+on, and carried it off with the air of a prince. There was another sort of secret dimly guessed at that would be of immense advantage to him, but he had the wariness of the mother's side as well as the astuteness of the father.

A fortnight went by with no advantage. Pani never left her charge alone.

The rambles in the woods were given up, and the girl's heart almost died within her for longing. She helped poor Margot nurse her children, and if Marsac came on a generous errand they surrounded her and swarmed over her. He could have killed them with a good will. She would not go out on the river nor join the girls in swimming matches nor take part in dances. Sometimes with Pani she spent mornings in the minister's study, and read aloud or listened to him while his wife sat sewing.

”You are not easily tempted,” said the good wife one day. ”It is no secret that this young trader, M. Marsac, is wild for love of you.”

”But I do not like him, how then could I give him love?” and she glanced out of proud, sincere eyes, while a soft color fluttered in her face.

”No, that could not be,” a.s.sentingly.

The demon within him that Louis Marsac called love raged and rose to white heat. If he could even carry her off! But that would be a foolish thing. She might be rescued, and he would lose the good opinion of many who gave him a flattering sympathy now.

So the weeks went on. The boats were loaded with provision, some of them started on their journey. He came one evening and found Jeanne and her protector sitting in their doorway. Jeanne was light-hearted. She had heard he was to sail to-morrow.

”I have come to bid my old playmate and friend good-by,” and there was a sweet pathos in his voice that woke a sort of tenderness in the girl's heart, for it brought back a touch of the old pleasant days before he had really grown to manhood, when they sat under her oak and listened to Pani's legendary stories.

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