Shangois sat back in his chair, the fingers of both hands drumming on
the table before him, his head twisted a little to one side. His little
reflective eyes sparkled with malicious interest, and his little voice
said, as though he were speaking to himself:

"Excuse, but the land belongs to the young Vanne Castine--eh?"

"That's it," exclaimed Farcinelle.

"Well, why not give the poor vaurien a chance to take up the mortgage?"

"Why, he hasn't paid the interest in five years!" said Lavilette.

"But--ah--you have had the use of the land, I think, monsieur. That
should meet the interest." Lavilette scowled a little; Farcinelle
grunted and laughed.

"How can I give him a chance to pay the mortgage?" said Lavilette. "He
never had a penny. Besides, he hasn't been seen for five years."

A faint smile passed over Shangois's face. "Yesterday," he said, "he had
not been seen for five years, but to-day he is in Bonaventure."

"The devil!" said Lavilette, dropping a fist on the table, and staring
at the notary; for he was not present in the afternoon when Castine
passed by.

"What difference does that make?" snarled Farcinelle. "I'll bet he's got
nothing more than what he went away with, and that wasn't a sou markee!"

A provoking smile flickered at the corners of Shangois's mouth, and he
said, with a dry inflection, as he dipped and redipped his quill pen in
the inkhorn:

"He has a bear, my friends, which dances very well." Farcinelle
guffawed. "St. Mary!" said he, slapping his leg, "we'll have the bear
at the wedding, and I'll have that farm of Vanne Castine's. What does he
want of a farm? He's got a bear. Come, is it a bargain? Am I to have the
mortgage? If you don't stick it in, I'll not let my boy marry your girl,
Lavilette. There, now, that's my last word."

"'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, nor his wife, nor his
maid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is his,"' said the
notary, abstractedly, drawing the picture of a fat Jew on the paper
before him.

The irony was lost upon his hearers. Madame Lavilette had been thinking,
however, and she saw further than her husband.

"It amounts to the same thing," she said. "You see it doesn't go away
from Sophie; so let him have it, Louis."

"All right," responded monsieur at last, "Sophie gets the acres and the
house in her dot."

"You won't give young Vanne Castine a chance?" asked the notary. "The
mortgage is for four hundred dollars and the pla