arquis de Beauharnois when that
nobleman was Governor of Canada, and she had never ceased to look back
upon the recollections of high life stored away in those days in her
experience.

"There!" she exclaimed, as she flourished the letter at the end of
Germain's account of the reception--"Presented to the Court! Lecour,
when you said I was my boy's ruin, when you grumbled at his abandoning
the apothecary's shop to go to the Seminary and learn fine manners, did
I not tell you my son was baked of Sevres and not of clay? At the Court
of France! and presented to his Most Christian Majesty! Among Princes,
Counts, Duchesses and Cardinals! What do you say to _that_, Lecour?"

Her husband's eyes twinkled: "That for the moment you are General
Montcalm, victorious; though I remind you that General Montcalm
afterwards had his Quebec."

"Quebec or no, my son is at the Court of France."

"I do not dispute that."

He began assiduously making away with his smoking pea-soup.

"Let us proceed with the letter," said she, for she had indeed shown her
generalship in stopping where she did.

"Ah," she went on, pretending to scan the next words for the first time,
"Germain needs three thousand livres."

"What!"

"Only three thousand."

"But he kept three thousand out of the beaver-skins; the last draft was
for nine hundred; whither is this leading? Have we not to live and carry
on the business? and you grow more fanciful every day, as if we were
seigneurs and not peasants."

"Certainly we are not peasants--_citizens_, if you please: anybody will
tell you that a merchant is not a peasant. There are citizens who are
_noble_, Lecour. Why should _we_ not make ourselves seigneurs? Who is it
but the merchants who are buying up the seigniories and living in the
manor-houses to-day? That is my plan."

"Three or four jackasses. Let them be jackasses. I remain Francois
Xavier Lecour, the peasant."

"Well, Francois Xavier Lecour, the peasant, _my_ son, the noble, must
have these livres."

Her black eyes flashed. "Will you have the poor boy disgraced in the act
of doing you credit? Look at me, unnatural father, and reflect that your
child is to experience from you his earliest wrong."

Lecour quailed. His powers of spoken argument were not great. He said
nothing, but rose, threw off his coat suddenly, and sat down again.

"Yes," she exclaimed, angry tears rolling down her cheeks. "Your wife
will sell her wardrobe and her dowry--littl