r head.

"Yes, your Honor, I am Widow Bedard, at your service, and, I hope, keep
as good a hostelry as your Honor will find in the Colony. Will your
Honor alight and take a cup of wine, such as I keep for guests of
quality?"

"Thanks, Madame Bedard, I am in haste: I must find the way to
Beaumanoir. Can you not furnish me a guide, for I like not to lose time
by missing my way?"

"A guide, sir! The men are all in the city on the King's corvee; Zoe
could show you the way easily enough." Zoe twitched her mother's
arm nervously, as a hint not to say too much. She felt flattered and
fluttered too, at the thought of guiding the strange, handsome gentleman
through the forest, and already the question shot through her fancy,
"What might come of it? Such things have happened in stories!" Poor Zoe!
she was for a few seconds unfaithful to the memory of Antoine La Chance.
But Dame Bedard settled all surmises by turning to Master Pothier, who
stood stiff and upright as became a limb of the law. "Here is
Master Pothier, your Honor, who knows every highway and byway in ten
seigniories. He will guide your Honor to Beaumanoir."

"As easy as take a fee or enter a process, your Honor," remarked Master
Pothier, whose odd figure had several times drawn the criticizing eye of
Colonel Philibert.

"A fee! ah! you belong to the law, then, my good friend? I have known
many advocates--" but Philibert stopped; he was too good-natured to
finish his sentence.

"You never saw one like me, your Honor was going to say? True, you never
did. I am Master Pothier dit Robin, the poor travelling notary, at your
Honor's service, ready to draw you a bond, frame an acte of convention
matrimoniale, or write your last will and testament, with any notary in
New France. I can, moreover, guide your Honor to Beaumanoir as easy as
drink your health in a cup of Cognac."

Philibert could not but smile at the travelling notary, and thinking to
himself, "too much Cognac at the end of that nose of yours, my friend!"
which, indeed, looked fiery as Bardolph's, with hardly a spot for a fly
to rest his foot upon without burning.

"But how will you go, friend?" asked Philibert, looking down at Master
Pothier's gamaches; "you don't look like a fast walker."

"Oh, your Honor," interrupted Dame Bedard, impatiently, for Zoe had
been twitching her hard to let her go. "Master Pothier can ride the old
sorrel nag that stands in the stable eating his head off for want of
hire