all no longer be satisfied with negative
peace. Rouse, and live!" Then flitting, exquisite, purple flaws struck
across milk-opal water in the bay. Fishing boats lifted themselves in
mirage, sailing lightly above the water; and islands sat high, with a
cushion of air under them.

The girls manifested increasing interest in what they called the Pigeon
Roost settlement affair. Madame Ursule had no doubt told them what I
said. They pitied my Cloud-Mother and me with the condescending pity of
the very young, and unguardedly talked where they could be heard.

"Oh, she'll come to her senses some time, and he'll marry her of
course," was the conclusion they invariably reached; for the thing must
turn out well to meet their approval. How could they foresee what was to
happen to people whose lives held such contrasts?

"Father Pierre says he's nearly twenty-eight; I call him an old
bachelor," declared Katarina; "and she was a married woman. They are
really very old to be in love."

"You don't know what you'll do when you are old," said Marie.

"Ah, I dread it," groaned Katarina.

"So do I."

"But there is grandmother. She doesn't mind it. And beaux never trouble
her now."

"No," sighed the other. "Beaux never trouble her now."

Those spring days I was wild with restlessness. Life revived to dare
things. We heard afterwards that about that time the meteor rushed once
more across France. Napoleon landed at a Mediterranean port, gathering
force as he marched, swept Louis XVIII away like a cobweb in his path,
and moved on to Waterloo. The greatest Frenchman that ever lived fell
ultimately as low as St. Helena, and the Bourbons sat again upon the
throne. But the changes of which I knew nothing affected me in the
Illinois Territory.

Sometimes I waked at night and sat up in bed, hot with indignation at
the injustice done me, which I could never prove, which I did not care
to combat, yet which unreasonably waked the fighting spirit in me. Our
natures toss and change, expand or contract, influenced by invisible
powers we know not why.

One April night I sat up in the veiled light made by a clouded moon.
Rain points multiplied themselves on the window glass; I heard their
sting. The impulse to go out and ride the wind, or pick the river up and
empty it all at once into the bay, or tear Eagle out of the cloud, or go
to France and proclaim myself with myself for follower; and other feats
of like nature, being particularly stro