step or sit
for a book in one's way. I did hear that he has now with him another of
his own order, and that the two are riding all over the country,
marking out the lines anew of all the farms, and writing new bonds which
are so much harder on men than the old ones were. Bah! but he has the
soul of a miser in him, for all his handsome face!"

"Is he then so very handsome, Aunt Jeanne?" said Victorine, eagerly.

"Ay, ay, child. I'll give him his due for that, evilly as he has treated
me. He is a handsomer man than his father was; and when his father and I
were married there was not a woman in the provinces that did not say I
had carried off the handsomest man that ever strode a horse. I'd like to
have had thee see me, too, in that day, child. I was counted as handsome
as he, though thou'dst never think it now."

"But I would think it!" cried Victorine, hotly and loyally. "What ails
thee, Aunt Jeanne? Did I not hear Father Hennepin himself saying to thee
only yesterday that thou wert comelier to-day than ever? and he saw thee
married, he told me."

"Tut, tut, child!" replied Jeanne, looking pleased. "None know better
than the priests how to speak idle words to women. But what was he
telling thee? How came it that he spoke of the time when I was married?"
added Jeanne, again suspicious.

"It was I that asked him," replied Victorine. "I wish always so much
that I had been with thee instead of in the convent, dear aunt. Does
this son of thy husband, this handsome young man who is so like unto a
magpie,--does he never in his journeyings come this way?"

"Ay, often," replied Jeanne. "I know that he must, because a large part
of his estate lies beyond the border and joins on to this parish. It was
that which brought his father here, in the beginning, and there is no
other inn save this for miles up and down the border where he can tarry;
but it is likely that he will sooner lie out in the fields than sleep
under this roof, because I am here. I had looked to say my mind to him
as often as he came; and that it would be a sore thing to him to see his
father's wife in the bar, I know beyond a doubt. I have often said to
myself what a comfortable spleen I should experience when I might
courtesy to him and say, 'What would you be pleased to take, sir?' But
I think he is minded to rob me of that pleasure, for it is certain he
must have ridden this way before now."

"I have a mind to burn a candle to the Virgin," said Victorine,