n always marries a
woman."

"But your liking wouldn't help Marie."

"Oh, Marie is all right. She will like him fast enough. And it will be
gay to have a wedding. That is to be about Christmas."

Jeanne was looking down the little slant to the cottages and the
wigwams, and speculating upon the queerness of marriage.

"I wish I had made as much fortune as Tony Beeson. But then I'm only a
little past sixteen, and in five years I shall be twenty-one. Then I am
going to have a wife and house of my own."

"O Pierre!" Jeanne broke into a soft laugh.

"Yes, Jeanne--" turning very red.

The girl was looking at him in a mirthful fashion and it rather
disconcerted him.

"You won't mind waiting, Jeanne--"

"I shan't mind waiting, but if you mean--" her cheeks turned a deeper
scarlet and she made a little pause--"if you mean marrying I should mind
that a good deal;" in a decisive tone.

"But not to marry me? You have known me always."

"I should mind marrying anyone. I shouldn't want to sweep the house, and
cook the meals, and wash, and tend babies. I want to go and come as I
like. I hated school at first, but now I like learning and I must crack
the shell to get at the kernel, so you see that is why I make myself
agree with it."

"You cannot go to school always. And while you are there I shall be up
to the Mich making some money."

"Oh," with a vexed crease in her forehead, "I told you once before not
to talk of this--the day we were all out in the boat, you remember. And
if you go on I shall hate you; yes, I shall."

"I shall go on," said the persistent fellow. "Not very often, perhaps,
but I thought if you were one of the maids at Marie's wedding and I
could wait on you--"

"I shall not be one of the maids." She rose and stamped her foot on the
ground. "Your mother does not like me any more. She never asks me to
come in to tea. She thinks the school wicked. And you must marry to
please her, as Marie is doing. So it will not be me;" she declared with
emphasis.

"Oh, I know. That Louis Marsac will come back and you will marry him."

The boy's eyes flamed with jealousy and his whole face gloomed over with
cruelty. "And then I shall kill him. I couldn't stand it," he
continued.

"I hate Louis Marsac! I hate you, Pierre De Ber!" she cried vehemently.

The boy fell at her feet and kissed the hem of her frock, for she
snatched away her hands.

"No, don't hate me. I'm glad to have you hate him."

"Get up, or