acknowledged that he had not. In truth, he was not hungry
when he rose; but now that he saw the table spread, he thought he might
eat something after all.

So they sat down again, and Louis went out to help Gabriel bring in more
coffee, potatoes, and eggs. There was a good deal of noise with the
plates, a good deal of passing to and fro the milk, cream, butter, and
salt; a good deal of talking on rather a high key; a great many
questions and answers whose irrelevancy nobody noticed. Dr. Gaston told
a long story, and forgot the point; but Miss Lois laughed as heartily as
though it had been acutely present. Pere Michaux then brought up the
venerable subject of the lost grave of Father Marquette; and the others
entered into it with the enthusiasm of resurrectionists, and as though
they had never heard of it before, Miss Lois and Dr. Gaston even seeming
to be pitted against each other in the amount of interest they showed
concerning the dead Jesuit. Anne said little; in truth, there was no
space left for her, the others keeping up so brisk a fire of phrases. It
was not until Tita, coming into the room, remarked, as she warmed her
hands, that breakfast was unusually early, that any stop was made, and
then all the talkers fell upon her directly, in lieu of Father
Marquette. Miss Lois could not imagine what she meant. It was sad,
indeed, to see such laziness in so young a child. Before long she would
be asking for breakfast in bed! Dr. Gaston scouted the idea that it was
early; he had often been down in the village an hour earlier. It was a
fine bracing morning for a walk.

All this time the high ceaseless whistle of the wind, the roar of the
water on the beach, the banging to and fro of the shutters here and
there on the wide rambling old mansion, the creaking of the near trees
that brushed its sides, and the hundred other noises of the gale, made
the room seem strange and uncomfortable; every now and then the solid
old frame-work vibrated as a new blast struck it, and through the floor
and patched carpet puffs of cold air came up into the room and swept
over their feet. All their voices were pitched high to overcome these
sounds.

Tita listened to the remarks addressed to her, noted the pretense of
bustle and hearty appetite, and then, turning to the window, she said,
during a momentary lull in the storm, "I do not wonder that you can not
eat, when poor Rast is somewhere on that black water."

Dr. Gaston pushed away his