Part 32 (2/2)

The Versailles _elegant_ could not but see in everything about him an inevitable contrast with his late life. He felt unable to re-accustom himself to the low-ceiled chambers, the rude appliances, the rough dress, the country manners, the accent and phrases of his family--things in respect of which he had at one time believed them quite superior. Whole-heartedly concealing his impressions and his dejection, however, he made himself as pleasant as possible. Madame had thrown open her parlour, a rare occurrence.

When the rain began to beat against the windows, the old man called in the Indian dwarf, and with his a.s.sistance made a fire of logs which crackled merrily in the fireplace and threw cheerful, light and warmth upon the circle.

Madame lit her precious sconces of wax tapers for the first time since her daughter's wedding, and all drew closer to listen to the accounts which came from the lips of the long-absent son. The father put his violin aside, seated himself in his tall-backed arm-chair and gazed alternately into the fire and at his son's face. The mother hung upon her favourite's words and movements as mothers ever will. The convent girl, his youngest sister, wors.h.i.+pped him with eyes and ears--to her he was the hero of her family, whom she could measure in the lists against the vaunted brothers of her proud Quebec school-mates, Lanaudieres, Bleurys, la Gorgendieres, Tonnancours and those others, who, familiar with the doings of the Castle, looked down upon the trader's daughter.

”What about this new name?” said the mother at length; ”they have given you a t.i.tle in France?”

”Not at all, mother,” he replied.

”But they call you 'Monsieur de Lincy,' you say.”

”It is not a new name; it is the real one of the family--you are ent.i.tled to it as well as I.”

”What does that mean, son Germain? Have we been ignorant of our own name?”

”It means that we are gentlepeople--and that in my father there, you behold the real or princ.i.p.al Chevalier de Lincy. I am but the younger Chevalier.”

The family, at this announcement, gave voice to a mutual cry. The father looked up and said soberly--

”You mistake, my son.”

”In no respect, dear father. I have learnt our descent in France, and am glad to inform you that you are what you deserve to be--a n.o.ble.”

”There, Francois Xavier!” exclaimed the wife. ”You are not going to deny it.”

”Many good stocks forget their origin in going out to the colonies,”

added Germain. ”You, sir, crossed the sea at a very early age.”

”At twelve years old,” a.s.serted the merchant.

”You were too young to make those inquiries which I have completed. You knew little of your parents.”

”My father was a butcher of Paris; I know that.”

”That is an error, sir. Those you regarded as your parents were but foster-parents, though they bore the same name.”

”Who, then, do you pretend was my father?” cried the merchant in amazement. ”There was no question of that matter before I left France.”

”Because your mother had died, and your father, who was a poor man, though a gentleman, had departed for service in the East Indies, and there was heard of no more.”

”In any event I do not care about these things. I shall always remain the Merchant Lecour,” the old man said, with steady-going pride.

”But Francois Xavier!” cried his wife. ”Have you no care about your children and me? Is it nothing to us if we are _n.o.blesse_? Will you be forever turning over skins and measuring groceries when you ought to have a grand house and a grand office, like the gentry of the North-West Company at Montreal, who dine with the Governor, and are yet no better off than you? I am sure _they_ are no Chevaliers de Lincy”.

”I cannot believe it, wife. I know where I came from, and that I was nothing but a boy sent out with the troops by the magistrates of Paris”--Germain started--”then a poor private, and by good conduct at length a _cantineer_ of the liquor. Chevaliers are not of those grades, as I well enough know, and I never heard of any good from a man getting out of his place.”

The convent girl looked up in suspense at her hero for reply.

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