rcely paid any attention to the discussion of affairs at the
council-table for the rest of the sitting. He rose hastily at last,
despairing to find any outlet of escape from the difficulties which
surrounded him in this unlucky affair.

With His Excellency's consent, he said, they would do no more business
that day. He was tired, and would rise. Dinner was ready at the Palace,
where he had some wine of the golden plant of Ay-Ay, which he would
match against the best in the Castle of St. Louis, if His Excellency and
the other gentlemen would honor him with their company.

The Council, out of respect to the Intendant, rose at once. The
despatches were shoved back to the secretaries, and for the present
forgotten in a buzz of lively conversation, in which no man shone to
greater advantage than Bigot.

"It is but a fast-day, your Reverence," said he, accosting the Abbe
Piquot, "but if you will come and say grace over my graceless table, I
will take it kindly of you. You owe me a visit, you know, and I owe you
thanks for the way in which you looked reproof, without speaking it,
upon my dispute with the Chevalier La Corne. It was better than words,
and showed that you know the world we live in as well as the world you
teach us to live for hereafter."

The Abbe was charmed with the affability of Bigot, and nourishing some
hope of enlisting him heartily in behalf of his favorite scheme of
Indian policy, left the Castle in his company. The Intendant also
invited the Procureur du Roi and the other gentlemen of the law, who
found it both politic, profitable, and pleasant to dine at the bountiful
and splendid table of the Palace.

The Governor, with three or four most intimate friends, the Bishop, La
Corne St. Luc, Rigaud de Vaudreuil, and the Chevalier de Beauharnais,
remained in the room, conversing earnestly together on the affair of
Caroline de St. Castin, which awoke in all of them a feeling of deepest
pity for the young lady, and of sympathy for the distress of her father.
They were lost in conjectures as to the quarter in which a search for
her might be successful.

"There is not a fort, camp, house, or wigwam, there is not a hole or
hollow tree in New France where that poor broken-hearted girl may have
taken refuge, or been hid by her seducer, but I will find her out,"
exclaimed La Corne St. Luc. "Poor girl! poor hapless girl! How can I
blame her? Like Magdalene, if she sinned much, it was because she loved
much, and