en't you had your share, Jules?" inquired his friend, relaxing
gladly to banter.

"I have one fine wife, maman to Honore," enumerated Jules, "and de
squaw, and Lavelotte's widow, and Therese. It is not much."

"I've often wondered why you didn't take Me-linda Cree. You've no
objection to Indians. She's next door to you, and she knows how to nurse
in sickness, besides being a good washer and ironer. The summer folks
say she makes the best fish pies on the island."

"It is de trut'!" exclaimed Jules, a new light shining in his dim blue
eye as he turned it towards the house of Melinda Cree. The weather-worn,
low domicile was bowered in trees. There was a convenient stile
two steps high in the separating fence, and it had long been made a
thoroughfare by the families. On the top step sat Clethera, Melinda
Cree's granddaughter. Clethera had been Honore's playmate since infancy.
She was a lithe, dark girl, with more of her French father in her than
of her half-breed mother. Some needle-work busied her hands, but her
ear caught every accent of the conference at the gate. She flattened her
lips, and determined to tell Honore as soon as he came in with the boat.
Honore was the favorite skipper of the summer visitors. He went out
immediately after the funeral to earn money to apply on his last
mother's burial expenses.

When the old men parted, Clethera examined her grandmother with stealthy
eyes in a kind of aboriginal reconnoitring. Melinda Cree's black hair
and dark masses of wrinkles showed through a sashless shed window where
she stood at her ironing-board. Her stoical eyelids were lowered, and
she moved with the rhythmical motion of the smoothing-iron. Whether
she had overheard the talk, or was meditating on her own matrimonial
troubles, was impossible to gather from facial muscles rigid as carved
wood. Melinda Cree was one of the few pure-blooded Indians on the
island. If she was fond of anything in the world, her preference had not
declared itself, though previous to receiving her orphaned granddaughter
into her house she had consented to become the bride of a drunken youth
in his teens. This incipient husband--before he got drowned in a squall
off Detour, thereby saving his aged wife some outlay--visited her only
when he needed funds, and she silently paid the levy if her toil had
provided the means. He also inclined to offer delicate attentions
to Clethera, who spat at him like a cat, and at sight of him ever
afterw