red Antonia.

"Until D'Aulnay de Charnisay died out of my lord's way. What could my
lord do for us, indeed, with nothing but a ship and scarce a dozen men?
He left some to keep the stockade and took the rest to man his ship when
he started to Newfoundland to send her forlorn old highness back to
England. Her old highness hath had many a dower fee from us since that
day."

"Your lord hath mended his fortunes," remarked Antonia without approval.

"Yes, we are now the greatest people in Acadia; we live in grand state
at Port Royal. You would never know him for the careworn man he
was--except once, indeed, when he came from viewing the ruins of Fort
St. John. It is no longer maintained as a fortress. But I like not all
these things. I rove more now than when Madame Marie lived."

Silence was kept a moment after Madame La Tour's name, between Antonia
and her illusive visitor. The dwarf seemed clad in sumptuous garments. A
cap of rich velvet could be discerned on her flaring hair instead of the
gull-breast covering she once made for herself.

"Yet I roved much out of the peasants' way at the stockade," she
continued, sending the night sounds again into background. "Peasants who
have no master over them become like swine. We had two goats, and I
tended them, and sat ages upon ages on the bank of a tide-creek which
runs up among the marshes at the head of Fundy Bay. Madame Antonia, you
should see that tide-creek. It shone like wet sleek red carnelian when
the water was out of it. I loved its basin; and the goats would go down
to lick the salt. They had more sense than D'Aulnay de Charnisay, for
they knew where to venture. I thought D'Aulnay de Charnisay was one of
our goats by his bleat, until I looked down and saw him part sunk in a
quicksand at the bottom of the channel. The tide was already frothing in
like yeast upon him. How gloriously the tide shoots up that tide-creek!
It hisses. It comes like thousands of horses galloping one behind the
other and tumbling over each other,--fierce and snorting spray, and
climbing the banks, and still trampling down and flying over the ones
who have galloped in first."

"But what did D'Aulnay de Charnisay do?" inquired Antonia.

"He stuck in the quicksand," responded Le Rossignol.

"But did he not call for help?"

"He did nothing else, indeed, until the tide's horses trampled him
under."

"But what did you do?"

"I sat down and watched him," said the dwarf.

"How could you?