e answered, "He let me walk outside the house, at
least. You allow me no amusement at all. I cannot even talk over the
fence to Jean Bati' McClure's wife."

"Mama, you do not understand the danger of all these things, and I do.
Jean Bati' McClure's wife will be certain to get you into trouble.
She is not a proper woman for you to associate with. Her mind runs on
nothing but match-making."

"Speak to her, then, for yourself. I wish you would get married."

"I never shall," declared Jenieve. "I have seen the folly of it."

"You never have been young," complained Mama Lalotte. "You don't know
how a young person feels.

"I let you go to the dances," argued Jenieve. "You have as good a
time as any woman on the island. But old Michel Pensonneau," she added
sternly, "is not settling down to smoke his pipe for the remainder of
his life on this doorstep."

"Monsieur Pensonneau is not old."

"Do you take up for him, Mama Lalotte, in spite of me?" In the girl's
rich brunette face the scarlet of the cheeks deepened. "Am I not more
to you than Michel Pensonneau or any other engage? He is old; he is
past forty. Would I call him old if he were no more than twenty?"

"Every one cannot be only twenty and a young agent," retorted her
elder; and Jenieve's ears and throat reddened, also.

"Have I not done my best for you and the boys? Do you think it does
not hurt me to be severe with you?"

Mama Lalotte flounced around on her stool, but made no reply. She saw
peeping and smiling at the edge of the door a neighbor's face, that
encouraged her insubordinations. Its broad, good-natured upper
lip thinly veiled with hairs, its fleshy eyelids and thick brows,
expressed a strength which she had not, yet would gladly imitate.

"Jenieve Lalotte," spoke the neighbor, "before you finish whipping
your mother you had better run and whip the boys. They are throwing
their shoes in the lake."

"Their shoes!" Jenieve cried, and she scarcely looked at Jean Bati'
McClure's wife, but darted outdoors along the beach.

"Oh, children, have you lost your shoes?"

"No," answered Toussaint, looking up with a countenance full of
enjoyment.

"Where are they?"

"In the lake."

"You didn't throw your new shoes in the lake?"

"We took them for boats," said Gabriel freely. "But they are not even
fit for boats."

"I threw mine as far as I could," observed Francois. "You can't make
anything float in them."

She could see one of them stranded on t