? What is there to Bon'venture? Ha! you ask that? I know and
you know, M'sieu' Shangois. There is nosing like Bon'venture in all de
worl'.

"What is it you would have? Do you want nice warm house in winter,
plenty pork, molass', patat, leetla drop whiskey 'hind de door in de
morning? Ha! you come to Bon'venture. Where else you fin' it? You
want people say: 'How you do, Vanne Castine--how you are? Adieu, Vanne
Castine; to see you again ver' happy, Vanne Castine.' Ha, that is what
you get in Bon'venture. Who say 'God bless you' in New York! They say
'Damn you!'--yes, I know.

"Where have you a church so warm, so ver' nice, and everybody say him
mass and God-have-mercy? Where you fin' it like that leetla place on
de hill in Bon'venture? Yes. There is anoser place in Bon'venture, ver'
nice place--yes, ha! On de side of de hill. You have small-pox, scarlet
fev', difthere; you get smash your head, you get break your leg, you
fall down, you go to die. Ha, who is there in all de worl' like M'sieu'
Vallier, the Cure? Who will say to you like him: 'Vanne Castine, you
have break all de commandments: you have swear, you have steal, you have
kill, you have drink. Ver' well, now, you will be sorry for dat, and say
your prayer. Perhaps, after hunder fifty tousen' years of purgator', you
will be forgive and go to Heaven. But first, when you die, we will put
you way down in de leetla warm house in de ground, on de side of de
hill, in de Parish of Bon'venture, because it is de only place for a
gipsy like Vanne Castine.'

"You ask me-ah! I see you look at me, M'sieu' le Notaire, you look at me
like a leetla dev'. You t'ink I come for somet'ing else"--his black eyes
flashed under his brow, he shook his head, and his hands clinched--"You
ask me why I come back? I come back because there is one thing I care
for mos' in all de worl'. You t'ink I am happy to go about with a damn
brown bear and dance trough de village? Moi?--no, no, no! What a Jack I
look when I sing--ah, that fool's song all down de street! I come back
for one thing only, M'sieu' Shangois.

"You know that night--ah, four, five years ago? You remember, M'sieu'
Shangois? Ah! she was so beautiful, so sweet; her hair it fall down
about her face, her eyes all black, her cheeks like the snow, her lips,
her lips!--You rememb' her father curse me, tell me to go. Why? Because
I have kill a man! Eh bien, what if I kill a man! He would have kill me:
I do it to save myself. I say I am