give to any suitor of Angelique's. The intentions of the
others were discovered only through slaves used as spies; but he came
into her state apartment and showed her consideration. She sat up on her
broad throne, against the background of pillows, and received his salute
upon her hand. Afterwards he bowed over Angelique's fingers.

"I hope the seven children of monsieur the colonel are well," said
tante-gra'mere in her tiny scream.

"Four, madame," corrected the visitor. "Thanks, they are very well."

They spoke in French, for although she understood English she never
condescended to use it. Their conference begun each time by her inquiry
after his seven children.

"And madame, I hope she is comfortable to-day?"

"I neither sleep nor eat," declared tante-gra'mere. "And with the
streets full of a shouting rabble, there is no comfort to be had in
Kaskaskia."

"We are rather noisy to-day. But we are very earnest in this matter. We
want to be separated from the Indiana Territory and be made an
independent State."

Tante-gra'mere caught up her whip, and cracked it so suddenly on the
back of her little page, who was prying into a wall closet, that he
leaped like a frog, and fell on all fours at the opposite corner of the
hearth. His grandmother, the black woman, put him behind her, and
looked steadily at their tyrant. She sat on the floor like an Indian;
and she was by no means a soft, full-blooded African. High cheek-bones
and lank coarse hair betrayed the half-breed. Untamed and reticent,
without the drollery of the black race, she had even a Pottawatomie
name, Watch-e-kee, which French usage shortened to Wachique.

Tante-gra'mere put this sullen slave in motion and made her bring a
glass of wine for Colonel Menard. The colonel was too politic to talk to
Angelique before her elder, though she had not yet answered his
proposal. He had offered himself through her father, and granted her all
the time she could require for making up her mind. The colonel knew of
her sudden decisions against so many Kaskaskians that he particularly
asked her to take time. Two dimpling grooves were cut in his cheeks by
the smile which hovered there, as he rose to drink the godmother's
health, and she said,--

"Angelique, you may leave the room."

Angelique left the room, and he drew his chair toward the autocrat for
the conference she expected.

"It is very kind of you, madame," said Colonel Menard, "to give me this
chance of spea