her head this morning,"
added Madame.

The Seigneur moved away. "Good-bye to you--I am obliged to you, Madame.
Good-bye, Lacasse. Come and fiddle to me some night, Cour."

He bowed to the obsequious three, and then bent his steps towards the
post-office. They seemed about to follow him, but he stopped them with a
look. The men raised their bonnets-rouges, the woman bowed low, and the
Seigneur entered the post-office door.

From the shadows of the office Rosalie had watched the little group
before the door of the tailor-shop. She saw the Seigneur coming across
the street. Suddenly she flushed deeply, for there came to her mind the
song the quack-doctor sang:

"Voila, the day has come
When Rosette leaves her home!
With fear she walks in the sun,
For Raoul is ninety year,
And she not twenty-one."

As M. Rossignol's figure darkened the doorway, she pretended to be busy
behind the wicket, and not to see him. He was not sure, but he
thought it quite possible that she had seen him coming, and he put her
embarrassment down to shyness. Naturally the poor child was not given
the chance every day to receive an offer of marriage from a seigneur.
He had made up his mind that she would be sure to accept him if he asked
her a second time.

"Ah, Ma'm'selle Rosalie," he said gaily, "what have you to say that you
should not come before a magistrate at once?"

"Nothing, if Monsieur Rossignol is to be the magistrate," she replied,
with forced lightness.

"Good!" He looked at her quizzically through his gold-handled glass. "I
can't frighten you, I see. Well, you must wait a little; you shall be
sworn in postmistress in three days." His voice lowered, became more
serious. "Tell me," he said, "do you know what is the matter with the
gentleman across the way?" Turning, he looked across to the tailor-shop,
as though he expected "the gentleman" to appear, and he did not see her
turn pale. When his look fell on her again, she was self-controlled.

"I do not know, Monsieur."

"You have been opposite him here these months past--did you ever see
anything not--not as it should be?"

"With him, Monsieur? Never."

"It is as though the infidel behaved like a good Catholic and a
Christian?"

"There are good Catholics in Chaudiere who do not behave like
Christians."

"What would you say, for instance, about his past?"

"What should I say about his past, Monsieur? What sh