ill do it," said the cure.

It required much ingenuity of argument to make the Gradnego pair see
the matter in the desired light; but when the cure promised Sosthene
that he would teach the lad to read and write, and then promised _la
vieille_ that Zosephine should share this educational privilege with
him, they let him go.

Zosephine was not merely willing, but eager, to see the arrangements
made. She beckoned the boy aside and spoke to him alone.

"You must go, Bonaventure. You will go, will you not--when I ask you?
Think how fine that will be--to be educated! For me, I cannot endure
an uneducated person. But--ah! _ca sre vaillant, pour savoir lire_.
[It will be bully to know how to read.] _Aie ya yaie!_"--she stretched
her eyes and bit her lip with delight--"_C'est t'y gai, pour savoir
ecrire!_ [That's fine to know how to write.] I will tell you a secret,
dear Bonaventure. Any girl of sense is _bound_ to think it much
greater and finer for a man to read books than to ride horses. She may
not want to, but she has to do it; she can't help herself!"

Still Bonaventure looked at her mournfully. She tried again.

"When I say any girl of sense I include myself--of course! I think
more of a boy--or man, either--who can write letters than of one who
can play the fiddle. There, now, I have told you! And when you have
learned those things, I will be proud of you! And besides, you know,
if you don't go, you make me lose my chance of learning the same
things; but if you go, we will learn them together."

He consented. She could not understand the expression of his face. She
had expected gleams of delight. There were none. He went with silent
docility, and without a tear; but also without a smile. When in his
new home the cure from time to time stole glances at his face fixed in
unconscious revery, it was full of a grim, unhappy satisfaction.

"Self is winning, or dying hard. I wish no ill to 'Thanase; but if
there is to be any bad news of him, I hope, for the sake of this boy's
soul, it will come quickly." So spoke the cure alone, to his cards.

CHAPTER VI.

MISSING.

The war was in its last throes even when 'Thanase enlisted. Weeks and
months passed. Then a soldier coming home to Carancro--home-comers
were growing plentiful--brought the first news of him. An officer
making up a force of picked men for an expedition to carry important
despatches eastward across the Mississippi and far away into Virginia
had c