r was of a great
tribe--I would say a great house--in the country called France," he
explained, with dignity. "Oh, he was of a very great name indeed! His
blood was--what do you call it?--_blue_. I am the son of my father: I am a
Frenchman. _Bien_! My father dies, having always kept me with him at
Monacan-Town; and when they have laid him full length in the ground,
Monsieur le Marquis calls me to him. 'Jean,' says he, and his voice is
like the ice in the stream, 'Jean, you have ten years, and your
father--may _le bon Dieu_ pardon his sins!--has left his wishes regarding
you and money for your maintenance. To-morrow Messieurs de Sailly and de
Breuil go down the river to talk of affairs with the English Governor. You
will go with them, and they will leave you at the Indian school which the
English have built near to the great college in their town of
Williamsburgh. There you will stay, learning all that Englishmen can teach
you, until you have eighteen years. Come back to me then, and with the
money left by your father you shall be fitted out as a trader. Go!' ...
Yes, I went to school here; but I learned fast, and did not forget the
things I learned, and I played with the English boys--there being no
scholars from France--on the other side of the pasture."

He waved his hand toward an irruption of laughing, shouting figures from
the north wing of the college. The white man under the tree had been
quietly observant of the two wayfarers, and he now rose to his feet, and
came over to the rail fence against which they leaned.

"Ha, Jean Hugon!" he said pleasantly, touching with his thin white hand
the brown one of the trader. "I thought it had been my old scholar! Canst
say the belief and the Commandments yet, Jean? Yonder great fellow with
the ball is Meshawa,--Meshawa that was a little, little fellow when you
went away. All your other playmates are gone,--though you did not play
much, Jean, but gloomed and gloomed because you must stay this side of the
meadow with your own color. Will you not cross the fence and sit awhile
with your old master?"

As he spoke he regarded with a humorous smile the dusty glories of his
sometime pupil, and when he had come to an end he turned and made as if to
beckon to the Indian with the ball. But Hugon drew his hand away,
straightened himself, and set his face like a flint toward the town. "I am
sorry, I have no time to-day," he said stiffly. "My friend and I have
business in town with me