"No, no, Bidiane, you must not," he said, turning restlessly on his

heel, and coming back to her.

"Yes, I am. I have become very unhappy here. Every one is against me,

and I am losing my health. When I came, I was intoxicated with life. I

could run for hours. I was never tired. It was a delight to live. Now I

feel weary, and like a consumptive. I think I shall die young. My

parents did, you know."

"Yes; they were both drowned. You will pardon me, if I say that I think

you have a constitution of iron."

"You are quite mistaken," she said, with dignity. "Time will show that I

am right. Unless I leave Sleeping Water at once, I feel that I shall go

into a decline."

"May I ask whether you think it a good plan to leave a place immediately

upon matters going wrong with one living in it?"

"It would be for me," she said, decidedly.

"Then, mademoiselle, you will never find rest for the sole of your

foot."

"I am tired of Sleeping Water," she said, excitedly quitting the

hammock, and looking as if she were about to leave him. "I wish to get

out in the world to do something. This life is unendurable."

"Bidiane,--dear Bidiane,--you will not leave us?"

"Yes, I will," she said, decidedly; "you are not willing for me to have

my own way in one single thing. You are not in the least like Mr.

Nimmo," and holding her head well in the air, she walked towards the

house.

"Not like Mr. Nimmo," said Agapit, with a darkening brow. "Dear little

fool, one would think you had never felt that iron hand in the velvet

glove. Because I am more rash and loud-spoken, you misjudge me. You are

so young, so foolish, so adorable, so surprised, so intoxicated with

what I have said, that you are beside yourself. I am not discouraged,

oh, no," and, with a sudden hopeful smile overspreading his face, he was

about to spring into his buggy and drive away, when Bidiane came

sauntering back to him.

"I am forgetting the duties of hospitality," she said, stiffly. "Will

you not come into the house and have something to eat or drink after

your long drive?"

"Bidiane," he said, in a low, eager voice, "I am not a harsh man."

"Yes, you are," she said, with a catching of her breath. "You are

against me, and the whole Bay will laugh at me,--and I thought you would

be pleased."

"Bidiane," he muttered, casting a desperate glance about him, "I am

frantic--oh, for permission to dry those tears! If I could only reveal

my heart to you, but you are such a child, you would not understand."

"Will you do as I wish you to?" she asked, obstinately.

"Yes, yes, anything, my darling one."

"Then you will take Mr. Greening's place?"

"Oh, the baby,--you do not comprehend this question. I have talked to no

one,--I know nothing,--I am not one to put myself forward."

"If you are requested or elected to-night,--or whatever they call

it,--will you go up to Halifax to 'make the laws,' as my aunt says?"

inquired Bidiane, smiling slightly, and revealing to him just the tips

of her glittering teeth.

"Yes, yes,--anything to please you."

She was again about to leave him, but he detained her. "I, also, have a

condition to make in this campaign of bribery. If I am nominated, and

run an election, what then,--where is my reward?"

She hesitated, and he hastened to dissipate the cloud overspreading her

face. "Never mind, I bind myself with chains, but I leave you free. Go,

little one, I will not detain you,--I exact nothing."

"Thank you," she said, soberly, and, instead of hurrying away, she stood

still and watched him leaving the yard.

Just before he reached Weymouth, he put his hand in his pocket to take

out his handkerchief. To his surprise there came fluttering out with it

a number of bills. He gathered them together, counted them, found that

he had just forty-five dollars, and smiling and muttering, "The little

sharp-eyes,--I did not think that she took in my transaction with Father

Duvair," he went contentedly on his way.

CHAPTER XI.

WHAT ELECTION DAY BROUGHT FORTH.

"Oh, my companions, now should we carouse, now we should strike

the ground with a free foot, now is the time to deck the temples

of the gods."

ODE 37. HORACE.

It was election time all through the province of Nova Scotia, and great

excitement prevailed, for the Bluenoses are nothing if not keen

politicians.

In the French part of the county of Digby there was an unusual amount of

interest taken in the election, and considerable amusement prevailed

with regard to it.

Mr. Greening had been spirited away. His unwise and untrue remark about

the inhabitants of the township Clare had so persistently followed him,

and his anger with the three women at the Sleeping Water Inn had at last

been so stubbornly and so deeply resented by the Acadiens, who are slow

to arouse but difficult to quiet when once aroused, that he had been

called upon to make a public apology.

This he had refused to do, and the discomfited Liberals had at once

relegated him to private life. His prospective political career was

ruined. Thenceforward he would lead the life of an unostentatious

citizen. He had been chased and whipped out of public affairs, as many

another man has been, by an unwise sentence that had risen up against

him in his day of judgment.

The surprised Liberals had not far to go to seek his successor. The

whole French population had been stirred by the cry of an Acadien for

the Acadiens; and Agapit LeNoir, _nolens volens_, but in truth quite

_volens_, had been called to become the Liberal nominee. There was

absolutely nothing to be said against him. He was a young man,--not too

young,--he was of good habits; he was well educated, well bred, and he

possessed the respect not only of the population along the Bay, but of

many of the English residents of the other parts of the county, who had

heard of the diligent young Acadien lawyer of Weymouth.

The wise heads of the Liberal party, in welcoming this new

representative to their ranks, had not the slightest doubt of his

success.

Without money, without powerful friends, without influence, except that

of a blameless career, and without asking for a single vote, he would be

swept into public life on a wave of public opinion. However, they did

not tell him this, but in secret anxiety they put forth all their

efforts towards making sure the calling and election of their other

Liberal candidate, who would, from the very fact of Agapit's assured

success, be more in danger from the machinations of the one Conservative

candidate that the county had returned for years.

One Liberal and one Conservative candidate had been elected almost from

time immemorial. This year, if the campaign were skilfully directed in

the perilously short time remaining to them, there might be returned, on

account of Agapit's sudden and extraordinary popularity, two Liberals

and no Conservative at all.

Agapit, in truth, knew very little about elections, although he had

always taken a quiet interest in them. He had been too much occupied

with his struggle for daily bread for mind and body, to be able to

afford much time for outside affairs, and he showed his inexperience

immediately after his informal nomination by the convention, and his

legal one by the sheriff, by laying strict commands upon Bidiane and her

confederates that they should do no more canvassing for him.

Apparently they subsided, but they had gone too far to be wholly

repressed, and Mirabelle Marie and Claudine calmly carried on their work

of baking enormous batches of pies and cakes, for a whole week before

the election took place, and of laying in a stock of confectionery,

fruit, and raisins, and of engaging sundry chickens and sides of beef,

and also the ovens of neighbors to roast them in.

"For men-folks," said Mirabelle Marie, "is like pigs; if you feed 'em

high, they don' squeal."

Agapit did not know what Bidiane was doing. She was shy and elusive, and

avoided meeting him, but he strongly suspected that she was the power

behind the throne in making these extensive preparations. He was not

able to visit the inn except very occasionally, for, according to

instructions from headquarters, he was kept travelling from one end of

the county to the other, cramming himself with information _en route_,

and delivering it, at first stumblingly, but always modestly and

honestly, to Acadien audiences, who wagged delighted heads, and vowed

that this young fellow should go up to sit in Parliament, where several

of his race had already honorably acquitted themselves. What had they

been thinking of, the last five years? Formerly they had always had an

Acadien representative, but lately they had dropped into an easy-going

habit of allowing some Englishman to represent them. The English race

were well enough, but why not have a man of your own race? They would

take up that old habit again, and this time they would stick to it.

At last the time of canvassing and lecturing was over, and the day of

the election came. The Sleeping Water Inn had been scrubbed from the

attic to the cellar, every article of furniture was resplendent, and two

long tables spread with every variety of dainties known to the Bay had

been put up in the two large front rooms of the house.

In these two rooms, the smoking-room and the parlor, men were expected

to come and go, eating and drinking at will,--Liberal men, be it

understood. The Conservatives were restricted to the laundry, and Claude

ruefully surveyed the cold stove, the empty table, and the hard benches

set apart for him and his fellow politicians.

He was exceedingly confused in his mind. Mirabelle Marie had explained

to him again and again the reason for the sudden change in her hazy

beliefs with regard to the conduct of state affairs, but Claude was one

Acadien who found it inconsistent to turn a man out of public life on

account of one unfortunate word, while so many people in private life

could grow, and thrive, and utter scores of unfortunate words without

rebuke.

However, his wife had stood over him until he had promised to vote for

Agapit, and in great dejection of spirit he smoked his pipe and tried

not to meet the eyes of his handful of associates, who did not know that

he was to withhold his small support from them.

From early morn till dewy eve the contest went on between the two

parties. All along the shore, and back in the settlements in the woods,

men left their work, and, driving to the different polling-places,

registered their votes, and then loitered about to watch others do

likewise.

It was a general holiday, and not an Acadien and not a Nova Scotian

would settle down to work again until the result of the election was

known.

Bidiane early retreated to one of the upper rooms of the house, and from

the windows looked down upon the crowd about the polling-booth at the

corner, or crept to the staircase to listen to jubilant sounds below,

for Mirabelle Marie and Claudine were darting about, filling the orders

of those who came to buy, but in general insisting on "treating" the

Liberal tongues and palates weary from much talking.

Bidiane did not see Agapit, although she had heard some one say that he

had gone down the Bay early in the morning. She saw the Conservative

candidate, Mr. Folsom, drive swiftly by, waving his hat and shouting a

hopeful response to the cheering that greeted him from some of the men

at the corner, and her heart died within her at the sound.

Shortly before noon she descended from her watch-tower, and betook

herself to the pantry, where she soberly spent the afternoon in washing

dishes, only turning her head occasionally as Mirabelle Marie or

Claudine darted in with an armful of soiled cups and saucers and hurried

ejaculations such as "They vow Agapit'll go in. There's an awful strong

party for him down the Bay. Every one's grinning over that story about

old Greening. They say we'll not know till some time in the

night--Bidiane, you look pale as a ghost. Go lie down,--we'll manage. I

never did see such a time,--and the way they drink! Such thirsty

throats! More lemonade glasses, Biddy. It's lucky Father Duvair got that

rum, or we'd have 'em all as drunk as goats." And the girl washed on,

and looked down the road from the little pantry window, and in a fierce,

silent excitement wished that the thing might soon be over, so that her

throbbing head would be still.

Soon after five o'clock, when the legal hour for closing the

polling-places arrived, they learned the majority for Agapit, for he it

was that obtained it in all the villages in the vicinity of Sleeping

Water.

"He's in hereabouts," shouted Mirabelle Marie, joyfully, as she came

plunging into the pantry, "an' they say he'll git in everywheres. The

ole Conservative ain't gut a show at all. Oh, ain't you glad, Biddy?"

"Of course she's glad," said Claudine, giving Mrs. Corbineau a push with

her elbow, "but let her alone, can't you? She's tired, so she's quiet

about it."

As it grew dark, the returns from the whole, or nearly the whole county

came pouring in. Men mounted on horseback, or driving in light carts,

came dashing up to the corner to receive the latest news from the crowd

about the telephone office, and receiving it, dashed on again to impart

the news to others. Soon they knew quite surely, although there were

some backwoods districts still to be heard from. In them the count could

be pretty accurately reckoned, for it did not vary much from year to

year. They could be relied on to remain Liberal or Conservative, as the

case might be.

Bidiane, who had again retreated up-stairs, for nothing would satisfy

her but being alone, heard, shortly after it grew quite dark, a sudden

uproar of joyous and incoherent noises below.

She ran to the top of the front staircase. The men, many of whom had

been joined by their wives, had left the dreary polling-place, which was

an unused shop, and had sought the more cheerful shelter of the inn.

Soft showers of rain were gently falling, but many of the excited

Acadiens stood heedlessly on the grass outside, or leaned from the

veranda to exchange exultant cries with those of their friends who went

driving by. Many others stalked about the hall and front rooms, shaking

hands, clapping shoulders, congratulating, laughing, joking, and

rejoicing, while Mirabelle Marie, her fat face radiant with glee,

plunged about among them like a huge, unwieldy duck, flourishing her

apron, and making more noise and clatter than all the rest of the women

combined.

Agapit was in,--in by an overwhelming majority. His name headed the

lists; the other Liberal candidate followed him at a respectful

distance, and the Conservative candidate was nowhere at all.

Bidiane trembled like a leaf; then, pressing her hands over her ears,

she ran to hide herself in a closet.

In the meantime, the back of the house was gloomy. One by one the

Conservatives were slipping away home; still, a few yet lingered, and

sat dispiritedly looking at each other and the empty wash-tubs in the

laundry, while they passed about a bottle of weak raspberry vinegar and

water, which was the only beverage Mirabelle and Claudine had allowed

them.

Claude, as in honor bound, sat with them until his wife, who gloried in

including every one within reach in what she called her

"jollifications," came bounding in, and ordered them all into the front

of the house, where the proceedings of the day were to be wound up with

a supper.

Good-humored raillery greeted Claude and his small flock of

Conservatives when Mirabelle Marie came driving them in before her.

"Ah, Joe à Jack, where is thy doubloon?" called out a Liberal. "Thou

hast lost it,--thy candidate is in the Bay. It is all up with him. And

thou, Guillaume,--away to the shore with thee. You remember, boys, he

promised to swallow a dog-fish, tail first, if Agapit LeNoir went in."

A roar of laughter greeted this announcement, and the unfortunate

Guillaume was pushed into a seat, and had a glass thrust into his hand.

"Drink, cousin, to fortify thee for thy task. A dog-fish,--_sakerjé!_

but it will be prickly swallowing."

"Biddy Ann, Biddy Ann," shrieked her aunt, up the staircase, "come and

hear the good news," but Bidiane, who was usually social in her

instincts, was now eccentric and solitary, and would not respond.

"Skedaddle up-stairs and hunt her out, Claudine," said Mrs. Corbineau;

but Bidiane, hearing the request, cunningly ran to the back of the

house, descended the kitchen stairway, and escaped out-of-doors. She

would go up to the horseshoe cottage and see Rose. There, at least, it

would be quiet; she hated this screaming.

Her small feet went pit-a-pat over the dark road. There were lights in

all the windows. Everybody was excited to-night. Everybody but herself.

She was left out of the general rejoicing, and a wave of injured feeling

and of desperate dissatisfaction and bodily fatigue swept over her. And

she had fancied that Agapit's election would plunge her into a tumult

of joy.

However, she kept on her way, and dodging a party of hilarious young

Acadiens, who were lustily informing the neighborhood that the immortal

Malbrouck had really gone to the wars at last, she took to the wet grass

and ran across the fields to the cottage.

There were two private bridges across Sleeping Water just here, the

Comeau bridge and Rose à Charlitte's. Bidiane trotted nimbly over the

former, jumped a low stone wall, and found herself under the windows of

Rose's parlor.

Why, there was the hero of the day talking to Rose! What was he doing

here? She had fancied him the centre of a crowd of men,--he,

speech-making, and the cynosure of all eyes,--and here he was, quietly

lolling in an easy chair by the fire that Rose always had on cool, rainy

evenings. However, he had evidently just arrived, for his boots were

muddy, and his white horse, instead of being tied to the post, was

standing patiently by the door,--a sure sign that his master was not to

stay long.

Well, she would go home. They looked comfortable in there, and they were

carrying on an animated conversation. They did not want her, and,

frowning impatiently, she uttered an irritable "Get away!" to the

friendly white horse, who, taking advantage of one of the few occasions

when he was not attached to the buggy, which was the bane of his

existence, had approached, and was extending a curious and

sympathetically quivering nose in her direction.

The horse drew back, and, moving his ears sensitively back and forth,

watched her going down the path to the river.

CHAPTER XII.

BIDIANE FALLS IN A RIVER.

"He laid a finger under her chin,

His arm for her girdle at waist was thrown;

Now, what will happen, and who will win,

With me in the fight and my lady-love?

"Sleek as a lizard at round of a stone,

The look of her heart slipped out and in.

Sweet on her lord her soft eyes shone,

As innocents clear of a shade of sin."

GEORGE MEREDITH.

Five minutes later, Agapit left Rose, and, coming out-of-doors, stared

about for his horse, Turenne, who was nowhere to be seen.

While he stood momentarily expecting to see the big, familiar white

shape loom up through the darkness, he fancied that he heard some one

calling his name.

He turned his head towards the river. There was a fine, soft wind

blowing, the sky was dull and moist, and, although the rain had ceased

for a time, it was evidently going to fall again. Surely he had been

mistaken about hearing his name, unless Turenne had suddenly been

gifted with the power of speech. No,--there it was again; and now he

discovered that it was uttered in the voice that, of all the voices in

the world, he loved best to hear, and it was at present ejaculating, in

peremptory and impatient tones, "Agapit! Agapit!"

He precipitated himself down the hill, peering through the darkness as

he went, and on the way running afoul of his white nag, who stood

staring with stolid interest at a small round head beside the bridge,

and two white hands that were clinging to its rustic foundations.

"Do help me out," said Bidiane; "my feet are quite wet."

Agapit uttered a confused, smothered exclamation, and, stooping over,

seized her firmly by the shoulders, and drew her out from the clinging

embrace of Sleeping Water.

"I never saw such a river," said Bidiane, shaking herself like a small

wet dog, and avoiding her lover's shocked glance. "It is just like

jelly."

"Come up to the house," he ejaculated.

"No, no; it would only frighten Rose. She is getting to dislike this

river, for people talk so much against it. I will go home."

"Then let me put you on Turenne's back," said Agapit, pointing to his

horse as he stood curiously regarding them.

"No, I might fall off--I have had enough frights for to-night," and she

shuddered. "I shall run home. I never take cold. _Ma foi!_ but it is

good to be out of that slippery mud."

Agapit hurried along beside her. "How did it happen?"

"I was just going to cross the bridge. The river looked so sleepy and

quiet, and so like a mirror, that I wondered if I could see my face, if

I bent close to it. I stepped on the bank, and it gave way under me, and

then I fell in; and to save myself from being sucked down I clung to the

bridge, and waited for you to come, for I didn't seem to have strength

to drag myself out."

Agapit could not speak for a time. He was struggling with an intense

emotion that would have been unintelligible to her if he had expressed

it. At last he said, "How did you know that I was here?"

"I saw you," said Bidiane, and she slightly slackened her pace, and

glanced at him from the corners of her eyes.

"Through the window?"

"Yes."

"Why did you not come in?"

"I did not wish to do so."

"You are jealous," he exclaimed, and he endeavored to take her hand.

"Let my hand alone,--you flatter yourself."

"You were frightened there in the river, little one," he murmured.

Bidiane paused for an instant, and gazed over her shoulder. "Your old

horse is nearly on my heels, and his eyes are like carriage lamps."

"Back!" exclaimed Agapit, to the curious and irrepressible Turenne.

"You say nothing of your election," remarked Bidiane. "Are you glad?"

He drew a rapid breath, and turned his red face towards her again. "My

mind is in a whirl, little cousin, and my pulses are going like hammers.

You do not know what it is to sway men by the tongue. When one stands

up, and speaks, and the human faces spreading out like a flower-bed

change and lighten, or grow gloomy, as one wishes, it is majestic,--it

makes a man feel like a deity."

"You will get on in the world," said Bidiane, impulsively. "You have it

in you."

"But must I go alone?" he said, passionately. "Bidiane, you, though so

much younger, you understand me. I have been happy to-day, yes, happy,

for amid all the excitement, the changing faces, the buzzing of talk in

my ears, there has been one little countenance before me--"

"Yes,--Rose's."

"You treat me as if I were a boy," he said, vehemently, "on this day

when I was so important. Why are you so flippant?"

"Don't be angry with me," she said, coaxingly.

"Angry," he muttered, in a shocked voice. "I am not angry. How could I

be with you, whom I love so much?"

"Easily," she murmured. "I scarcely wished to see you to-day. I almost

dreaded to hear you had been elected, for I thought you would be angry

because we--because Claudine, and my aunt, and I, talked against Mr.

Greening, and drove him out, and suggested you. I know men don't like to

be helped by women."

"Your efforts counted," he said, patiently, and yet with desperate

haste, for they were rapidly nearing the inn, "yet you know Sleeping

Water is a small district, and the county is large. There was in some

places great dissatisfaction with Mr. Greening, but don't talk of him.

My dear one, will you--"

"You don't know the worst thing about me," she interrupted, in a low

voice. "There was one dreadful thing I did."

He checked an oncoming flow of endearing words, and stared at her. "You

have been flirting," he said at last.

"Worse than that," she said, shamefacedly. "If you say first that you

will forgive me, I will tell you about it--no, I will not either. I

shall just tell you, and if you don't want to overlook it you need

not--why, what is the matter with you?"

"Nothing, nothing," he muttered, with an averted face. He had suddenly

become as rigid as marble, and Bidiane surveyed him in bewildered

surprise, until a sudden illumination broke over her, when she lapsed

into nervous amusement.

"You have always been very kind to me, very interested," she said, with

the utmost gentleness and sweetness; "surely you are not going to lose

patience now."

"Go on," said Agapit, stonily, "tell me about this--this escapade."

"How bad a thing would I have to do for you not to forgive me?" she

asked.

"Bidiane--_de grâce_, continue."

"But I want to know," she said, persistently. "Suppose I had just

murdered some one, and had not a friend in the world, would you stand by

me?"

He would not reply to her, and she went on, "I know you think a good

deal of your honor, but the world is full of bad people. Some one ought

to love them--if you were going to be hanged to-morrow I would visit you

in your cell. I would take you flowers and something to eat, and I might

even go to the scaffold with you."

Agapit in dumb anguish, and scarcely knowing what he did, snatched his

hat from his head and swung it to and fro.

"You had better put on your hat," she said, amiably, "you will take

cold."

Agapit, suddenly seized her by the shoulders and, holding her firmly,

but gently, stared into her eyes that were full of tears. "Ah! you amuse

yourself by torturing me," he said, with a groan of relief. "You are as

pure as a snowdrop, you have not been flirting."

"Oh, I am so angry with you for being hateful and suspicious," she said,

proudly, and with a heaving bosom, and she averted her face to brush the

tears from her eyes. "You know I don't care a rap for any man in the

world but Mr. Nimmo, except the tiniest atom of respect for you."

Agapit at once broke into abject apologies, and being graciously

forgiven, he humbly entreated her to continue the recital of her

misdeeds.

"It was when we began to make _bombance_" she said, in a lofty tone.

"Every one assured us that we must have rum, but Claudine would not let

us take her money for it, because her husband drank until he made his

head queer and had that dreadful fall. She said to buy anything with her

money but liquor. We didn't know what to do until one day a man came in

and told us that if we wanted money we should go to the rich members of

our party. He mentioned Mr. Smith, in Weymouth, and I said, 'Well, I

will go and ask him for money to buy something for these wicked men to

stop them from voting for a wretch who calls us names.' 'But you must

not say that,' replied the man, and he laughed. 'You must go to Mr.

Smith and say, "There is an election coming on, and there will be great

doings at the Sleeping Water Inn, and it ought to be painted."' 'But it

has just been painted,' I said. 'Never mind,' he told me, 'it must be

painted.' Then I understood, and Claudine and I went to Mr. Smith, and

asked him if it would not be a wise thing to paint the inn, and he

laughed and said, 'By all manner of means, yes,--give it a good thick

coat and make it stick on well,' and he gave us some bills."

"How many?" asked Agapit, for Bidiane's voice was sinking lower and

lower.

"One hundred dollars,--just what Claudine had."

"And you spent it, dearest child?"

"Yes, it just melted away. You know how money goes. But I shall pay it

back some day."

"How will you get the money?"

"I don't know," she said, with a sigh. "I shall try to earn it."

"You may earn it now, in the quarter of a minute," he said, fatuously.

"And you call yourself an honest man--you talk against bribery and

corruption, you doubt poor lonely orphans when they are going to

confess little peccadilloes, and fancy in your wicked heart that they

have committed some awful sin!" said Bidiane, in low, withering tones.

"I think you had better go home, sir."

They had arrived in front of the inn, and, although Agapit knew that she

ought to go at once and put off her wet shoes, he still lingered, and

said, delightedly, in low, cautious tones, "But, Bidiane, you have

surely a little affection for me--and one short kiss--very

short--certainly it would not be so wicked."

"If you do not love a man, it is a crime to embrace him," she said, with

cold severity.

"Then I look forward to more gracious times," he replied. "Good night,

little one, in twenty minutes I must be in Belliveau's Cove."

Bidiane, strangely subdued in appearance, stood watching him as, with

eyes riveted on her, he extended a grasping hand towards Turenne's

hanging bridle. When he caught it he leaped into the saddle, and

Bidiane, supposing herself to be rid of him, mischievously blew him a

kiss from the tips of her fingers.

In a trice he had thrown himself from Turenne's back and had caught her

as she started to run swiftly to the house.

"Do not squeal, dear slippery eel," he said, laughingly, "thou hast

called me back, and I shall kiss thee. Now go," and he released her, as

she struggled in his embrace, laughing for the first time since her

capture by the river. "Once I have held you in my arms--now you will

come again," and shaking his head and with many a backward glance, he

set off through the rain and the darkness towards his waiting friends

and supporters, a few miles farther on.

An hour later, Claudine left the vivacious, unwearied revellers below,

and went up-stairs to see whether Bidiane had returned home. She found

her in bed, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling.

"Claudine," she said, turning her brown eyes on her friend and admirer,

"how did you feel when Isidore asked you to marry him?"

"How did I feel--_miséricorde_, how can I tell? For one thing, I wished

that he would give up the drink."

"But how did you feel towards him?" asked Bidiane, curiously. "Was it

like being lost in a big river, and swimming about for ages, and having

noises in your head, and some one else was swimming about trying to find

you, and you couldn't touch his hand for a long time, and then he

dragged you out to the shore, which was the shore of matrimony?"

Claudine, who found nothing in the world more delectable than Bidiane's

fancies, giggled with delight. Then she asked her where she had spent

the evening.

Bidiane related her adventure, whereupon Claudine said, dryly, "I guess

the other person in your river must be Agapit LeNoir."

"Would you marry him if he asked you?" said Bidiane.

"Mercy, how do I know--has he said anything of me?"

"No, no," replied Bidiane, hastily. "He wants to marry me."

"That's what I thought," said Claudine, soberly. "I can't tell you what

love is. You can't talk it. I guess he'll teach you if you give him a

chance. He's a good man, Bidiane. You'd better take him--it's an opening

for you, too. He'll get on out in the world."

Bidiane laid her head back on her pillow, and slipped again into a hazy,

dreamy condition of mind, in which the ever recurring subject of

meditation was the one of the proper experience and manifestation of

love between men and the women they adore.

"I don't love him, yet what makes me so cross when he looks at another

woman, even my beloved Rose?" she murmured; and with this puzzling

question bravely to the fore she fell asleep.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHARLITTE COMES BACK.

"From dawn to gloaming, and from dark to dawn,

Dreams the unvoiced, declining Michaelmas.

O'er all the orchards where a summer was

The noon is full of peace, and loiters on.

The branches stir not as the light airs run

All day; their stretching shadows slowly pass

Through the curled surface of the faded grass,

Telling the hours of the cloudless sun."

J. F. H.

The last golden days of summer had come, and the Acadien farmers were

rejoicing in a bountiful harvest. Day by day huge wagons, heaped high

with grain, were driven to the threshing-mills, and day by day the

stores of vegetables and fruit laid in for the winter were increased in

barn and store-house.

Everything had done well this year, even the flower gardens, and some of

the more pious of the women attributed their abundance of blossoms to

the blessing of the seeds by the parish priests.

Agapit LeNoir, who now naturally took a broader and wider interest in

the affairs of his countrymen, sat on Rose à Charlitte's lawn,

discussing matters in general. Soon he would have to go to Halifax for

his first session of the local legislature. Since his election he had

come a little out of the shyness and reserve that had settled upon him

in his early manhood. He was now usually acknowledged to be a rising

young man, and one sure to become a credit to his nation and his

province. He would be a member of the Dominion Parliament some day, the

old people said, and in his more mature age he might even become a

Senator. He had obtained just what he had needed,--a start in life.

Everything was open to him now. With his racial zeal and love for his

countrymen, he could become a representative man,--an Acadien of the

Acadiens.

Then, too, he would marry an accomplished wife, who would be of great

assistance to him, for it was a well-known fact that he was engaged to

his lively distant relative, Bidiane LeNoir, the young girl who had been

educated abroad by the Englishman from Boston.

Just now he was talking to this same relative, who, instead of sitting

down quietly beside him, was pursuing an erratic course of wanderings

about the trees on the lawn. She professed to be looking for a robin's

deserted nest, but she was managing at the same time to give careful

attention to what her lover was saying, as he sat with eyes fixed now

upon her, now upon the Bay, and waved at intervals the long pipe that he

was smoking.

"Yes," he said, continuing his subject, "that is one of the first things

I shall lay before the House--the lack of proper schoolhouse

accommodation on the Bay."

"You are very much interested in the schoolhouses," said Bidiane,

sarcastically. "You have talked of them quite ten minutes."

His face lighted up swiftly. "Let us return, then, to our old, old

subject,--will you not reconsider your cruel decision not to marry me,

and go with me to Halifax this autumn?"

"No," said Bidiane, decidedly, yet with an evident liking for the topic

of conversation presented to her. "I have told you again and again that

I will not. I am surprised at your asking. Who would comfort our darling

Rose?"

"Possibly, I say, only possibly, she is not as dependent upon us as you

imagine."

"Dependent! of course she is dependent. Am I not with her nearly all the

time. See, there she comes,--the beauty! She grows more charming every

day. She is like those lovely Flemish women, who are so tall, and

graceful, and simple, and elegant, and whose heads are like burnished

gold. I wish you could see them, Agapit. Mr. Nimmo says they have

preserved intact the admirable _naïveté_ of the women of the Middle

Ages. Their husbands are often brutal, yet they never rebel."

"Is _naïveté_ justifiable under those circumstances, _mignonne_?"

"Hush,--she will hear you. Now what does that boy want, I wonder. Just

see him scampering up the road."

He wished to see her, and was soon stumbling through a verbal message.

Bidiane kindly but firmly followed him in it, and, stopping him whenever

he used a corrupted French word, made him substitute another for it.

"No, Raoul, not _j'étions_ but _j'étais_" (I was). "_Petit mieux_" (a

little better), "not _p'tit mieux_. _La rue_ not _la street_. _Ces

jeunes demoiselles_" (those young ladies), "not _ces jeunes ladies_."

"They are so careless, these Acadiens of ours," she said, turning to

Agapit, with a despairing gesture. "This boy knows good French, yet he

speaks the impure. Why do his people say _becker_ for _baiser_" (kiss)

"and _gueule_ for _bouche_" (mouth) "and _échine_ for _dos_" (back)? "It

is so vulgar!"

"Patience," muttered Agapit, "what does he wish?"

"His sister Lucie wants you and me to go up to Grosses Coques this

evening to supper. Some of the D'Entremonts are coming from Pubnico.

There will be a big wagon filled with straw, and all the young people

from here are going, Raoul says. It will be fun; will you go?"

"Yes, if it will please you."

"It will," and she turned to the boy. "Run home, Raoul, and tell Lucie

that we accept her invitation. Thou art not vexed with me for correcting

thee?"

"_Nenni_" (no), said the child, displaying a dimple in his cheek.

Bidiane caught him and kissed him. "In the spring we will have great

fun, thou and I. We will go back to the woods, and with a sharp knife

tear the bark from young spruces, and eat the juicy _bobillon_ inside.

Then we will also find candy. Canst thou dig up the fern roots and peel

them until thou findest the tender morsel at the bottom?"

"_Oui_," laughed the child, and Bidiane, after pushing him towards Rose,

for an embrace from her, conducted him to the gate.

"Is there any use in asking Rose to go with us this evening?" she said,

coming back to Agapit, and speaking in an undertone.

"No, I think not."

"Why is it that she avoids all junketing, and sits only with sick

people?"

He murmured an uneasy, unintelligible response, and Bidiane again

directed her attention to Rose. "What are you staring at so intently,

_ma chère_?"

"That beautiful stranger," said Rose, nodding towards the Bay. "It is a

new sail."

"Every woman on the Bay knows the ships but me," said Bidiane,

discontentedly. "I have got out of it from being so long away."

"And why do the girls know the ships?" asked Agapit.

Bidiane discreetly refused to answer him.

"Because they have lovers on board. Your lover stays on shore, little

one."

"And poor Rose looks over the sea," said Bidiane, dreamily. "I should

think that you might trust me now with the story of her trouble,

whatever it is, but you are so reserved, so fearful of making wild

statements. You don't treat me as well even as you do a business

person,--a client is it you call one?"

Agapit smiled happily. "Marry me, then, and in becoming your advocate I

will deal plainly with you as a client, and state fully to you all the

facts of this case."

"I daresay we shall have frightful quarrels when we are married," said

Bidiane, cheerfully.

"I daresay."

"Just see how Rose stares at that ship."

"She is a beauty," said Agapit, critically, "and foreign rigged."

There was "a free wind" blowing, and the beautiful stranger moved like a

graceful bird before it. Rose--the favorite occupation in whose quiet

life was to watch the white sails that passed up and down the Bay--still

kept her eyes fixed on it, and presently said, "The stranger is pointing

towards Sleeping Water."

"I will get the marine glass," said Bidiane, running to the house.

"She is putting out a boat," said Rose, when she came back. "She is

coming in to the wharf."

"Allow me to see for one minute, Rose," said Agapit, and he extended his

hand for the glass; then silently watched the sailors running about and

looking no larger than ants on the distant deck.

"They are not going to the wharf," said Bidiane. "They are making for

that rock by the inn bathing-house. Perhaps they will engage in

swimming."

A slight color appeared in Rose's cheeks, and she glanced longingly at

the glass that Agapit still held. The mystery of the sea and the magic

of ships and of seafaring lives was interwoven with her whole being. She

felt an intense gentle interest in the strange sail and the foreign

sailors, and nothing would have given her greater pleasure than to have

shown them some kindness.

"I wish," she murmured, "that I were now at the inn. They should have a

jug of cream, and some fresh fruit."

The horseshoe cottage being situated on rising ground, a little beyond

the river, afforded the three people on the lawn an uninterrupted view

of the movements of the boat. While Bidiane prattled on, and severely

rebuked Agapit for his selfishness in keeping the glass to himself, Rose

watched the boat touching the big rocks, where one man sprang from it,

and walked towards the inn.

She could see his figure in the distance, looking at first scarcely

larger than a black lead pencil, but soon taking on the dimensions of a

rather short, thick-set man. He remained stationary on the inn veranda

for a few minutes, then, leaving it, he passed down the village street.

"It is some stranger from abroad, asking his way about," said Bidiane;

"one of the numerous Comeau tribe, no doubt. Oh, I hope he will go on

the drive to-night."

"Why, I believe he is coming here," she exclaimed, after another period

of observation of the stranger's movements; "he is passing by all the

houses. Yes, he is turning in by the cutting through the hill. Who can

he be?"

Rose and Agapit, grown strangely silent, did not answer her, and,

without thinking of examining their faces, she kept her eyes fixed on

the man rapidly approaching them.

"He is neither old nor young," she said, vivaciously. "Yes, he is,

too,--he is old. His hair is quite gray. He swaggers a little bit. I

think he must be the captain of the beautiful stranger. There is an

indefinable something about him that doesn't belong to a common sailor;

don't you think so, Agapit?"

Her red head tilted itself sideways, yet she still kept a watchful eye

on the newcomer. She could now see that he was quietly dressed in dark

brown clothes, that his complexion was also brown, his eyes small and

twinkling, his lips thick, and partly covered by a short, grizzled

mustache. He wore on his head a white straw hat, that he took off when

he neared the group.

His face was now fully visible, and there was a wild cry from Rose. "Ah,

Charlitte, Charlitte,--you have come back!"

CHAPTER XIV.

BIDIANE RECEIVES A SHOCK.

"Whate'er thy lot, whoe'er thou be,--

Confess thy folly, kiss the rod,

And in thy chastening sorrow, see

The hand of God."

MONTGOMERY.

Bidiane flashed around upon her companions. Rose--pale, trembling,

almost unearthly in a beauty from which everything earthly and material

seemed to have been purged away--stood extending her hands to the

wanderer, her only expression one of profound thanksgiving for his

return.

Agapit, on the contrary, sat stock-still, his face convulsed with

profound and bitter contempt, almost with hatred; and Bidiane, in

speechless astonishment, stared from him to the others.

Charlitte was not dead,--he had returned; and Rose was not

surprised,--she was even glad to see him! What did it mean, and where

was Mr. Nimmo's share in this reunion? She clenched her hands, her eyes

filled with despairing tears, and, in subdued anger, she surveyed the

very ordinary-looking man, who had surrendered one of his brown hands to

Rose, in pleased satisfaction.

"You are more stunning than ever, Rose," he said, coolly kissing her;

"and who is this young lady?" and he pointed a sturdy forefinger at

Bidiane, who stood in the background, trembling in every limb.

"It is Bidiane LeNoir, Charlitte, from up the Bay. Bidiane, come shake

hands with my husband."

"I forbid," said Agapit, calmly. He had recovered himself, and, with a

face as imperturbable as that of the sphinx, he now sat staring up into

the air.

"Agapit," said Rose, pleadingly, "will you not greet my husband after

all these years?"

"No," he said, "I will not," and coolly taking up his pipe he lighted

it, turned away from them, and began to smoke.

Rose, with her blue eyes dimmed with tears, looked at her husband. "Do

not be displeased. He will forgive in time; he has been a brother to me

all the years that you have been away."

Charlitte understood Agapit better than she did, and, shrugging his

shoulders as if to beg her not to distress herself, he busied himself

with staring at Bidiane, whose curiosity and bewilderment had culminated

in a kind of stupefaction, in which she stood surreptitiously pinching

her arm in order to convince herself that this wonderful reappearance

was real,--that the man sitting so quietly before her was actually the

husband of her beloved Rose.

Charlitte's eyes twinkled mischievously, as he surveyed her. "Were you

ever shipwrecked, young lady?" he asked.

Bidiane shuddered, and then, with difficulty, ejaculated, "No, never."

"I was," said Charlitte, unblushingly, "on a cannibal island. All the

rest of the crew were eaten. I was the only one spared, and I was left

shut up in a hut in a palm grove until six months ago, when a passing

ship took me off and brought me to New York."

Bidiane, by means of a vigorous effort, was able to partly restore her

mind to working order. Should she believe this man or not? She felt

dimly that she did not like him, yet she could not resist Rose's

touching, mute entreaty that she should bestow some recognition on the

returned one. Therefore she said, confusedly, "Those cannibals, where

did they live?"

"In the South Sea Islands, 'way yonder," and Charlitte's eyes seemed to

twinkle into immense distance.

Rose was hanging her head. This recital pained her, and before Bidiane

could again speak, she said, hurriedly, "Do not mention it. Our Lord and

the blessed Virgin have brought you home. Ah! how glad Father Duvair

will be, and the village."

"Good heavens!" said Charlitte. "Do you think I care for the village. I

have come to see you."

For the first time Rose shrank from him, and Agapit brought down his

eyes from the sky to glance keenly at him.

"Charlitte," faltered Rose, "there have been great changes since you

went away. I--I--" and she hesitated, and looked at Bidiane.

Bidiane shrank behind a spruce-tree near which she was standing, and

from its shelter looked out like a small red squirrel of an inquiring

turn of mind. She felt that she was about to be banished, and in the

present dazed state of her brain she dreaded to be alone.

Agapit's inexorable gaze sought her out, and, taking his pipe from his

mouth, he sauntered over to her. "Wilt thou run away, little one? We may

have something to talk of not fit for thy tender ears."

"Yes, I will," she murmured, shocked into unexpected submission by the

suppressed misery of his voice. "I will be in the garden," and she

darted away.

The coast was now clear for any action the new arrival might choose to

take. His first proceeding was to stare hard at Agapit, as if he wished

that he, too, would take himself away; but this Agapit had no intention

of doing, and he smoked on imperturbably, pretending not to see

Charlitte's irritated glances, and keeping his own fixed on the azure

depths of the sky.

"You mention changes," said Charlitte, at last, turning to his wife.

"What changes?"

"You have just arrived, you have heard nothing,--and yet there would be

little to hear about me, and Sleeping Water does not change

much,--yet--"

Charlitte's cool glance wandered contemptuously over that part of the

village nearest them. "It is dull here,--as dull as the cannibal

islands. I think moss would grow on me if I stayed."

"But it would break my heart to leave it," said Rose, desperately.

"I would take good care of you," he said, jocularly. "We would go to New

Orleans. You would amuse yourself well. There are young men

there,--plenty of them,--far smarter than the boys on the Bay."

Rose was in an agony. With frantic eyes she devoured the cool, cynical

face of her husband, then, with a low cry, she fell on her knees before

him. "Charlitte, Charlitte, I must confess."

Charlitte at once became intensely interested, and forgot to watch

Agapit, who, however, got up, and, savagely biting his pipe, strolled

to a little distance.

"I have done wrong, my husband," sobbed Rose.

Charlitte's eyes twinkled. Was he going to hear a confession of guilt

that would make his own seem lighter?

"Forgive me, forgive me," she moaned. "My heart is glad that you have

come back, yet, oh, my husband, I must tell you that it also cries out

for another."

"For Agapit?" he said, kindly, stroking her clenched hands.

"No,--no, no, for a stranger. You know I never loved you as a woman

should love her husband. I was so young when I married. I thought only

of attending to my house. Then you went away; I was sorry, so sorry,

when news came of your death, but my heart was not broken. Five years

ago this stranger came, and I felt--oh, I cannot tell you--but I found

what this love was. Then I had to send him away, but, although he was

gone, he seemed to be still with me. I thought of him all the time,--the

wind seemed to whisper his words in my ear as I walked. I saw his

handsome face, his smiling eyes. I went daily over the paths his feet

used to take. After a long, long time, I was able to tear him from my

mind. Now I know that I shall never see him again, that I shall only

meet him after I die, yet I feel that I belong to him, that he belongs

to me. Oh, my husband, this is love, and is it right that, feeling so, I

should go with you?"

"Who is this man?" asked Charlitte. "What is he called?"

Rose winced. "Vesper is his name; Vesper Nimmo,--but do not let us talk

of him. I have put him from my mind."

"Did he make love to you?"

"Oh, yes; but let us pass that over,--it is wicked to talk of it now."

Charlitte, who was not troubled with any delicacy of feeling, was about

to put some searching and crucial questions to her, but forbore, moved,

despite himself, by the anguish and innocence of the gaze bent upon him.

"Where is he now?"

"In Paris. I have done wrong, wrong," and she again buried her face in

her hands, and her whole frame shook with emotion. "Having had one

husband, it would have been better to have thought only of him. I do not

think one should marry again, unless--"

"Nonsense," said Charlitte, abruptly. "The fellow should have married

you. He got tired, I guess. By this time he's had half a dozen other

fancies."

Rose shrank from him in speechless horror, and, seeing it, Charlitte

made haste to change the subject of conversation. "Where is the boy?"

"He is with him," she said, hurriedly.

"That was pretty cute in you," said Charlitte, with a good-natured

vulgar laugh. "You were afraid I'd come home and take him from you,--you

always were a little fool, Rose. Get up off the grass, and sit down, and

don't distress yourself so. This isn't a hanging matter, and I'm not

going to bully you; I never did."

"No, never," she said, with a fresh outburst of tears. "You were always

kind, my husband."

"I think our marriage was all a mistake," he said, good-humoredly, "but

we can't undo it. I knew you never liked me,--if you had, I might

never--that is, things might have been different. Tell me now when that

fool, Agapit, first began to set you against me?"

"He has not set me against you, my husband; he rarely speaks of you."

"When did you first find out that I wasn't dead?" said Charlitte,

persistently; and Rose, who was as wax in his hands, was soon saying,

hesitatingly, "I first knew that he did not care for you when Mr. Nimmo

went away."

"How did you know?"

"He broke your picture, my husband,--oh, do not make me tell what I do

not wish to."

"How did he break it?" asked Charlitte, and his face darkened.

"He struck it with his hand,--but I had it mended."

"He was mad because I was keeping you from the other fellow. Then he

told you that you had better give him the mitten?"

"Yes," said Rose, sighing heavily, and sitting mute, like a prisoner

awaiting sentence.

"You have not done quite right, Rose," said her husband, mildly, "not

quite right. It would have been better for you to have given that

stranger the go by. He was only amusing himself. Still, I can't blame

you. You're young, and mighty fine looking, and you've kept on the

straight through your widowhood. I heard once from some sailors how you

kept the young fellows off, and you always said you'd had a good

husband. I shall never forget that you called me good, Rose, for there

are some folks that think I am pretty bad."

"Then they are evil folks," she said, tremulously; "are we not all

sinners? Does not our Lord command us to forgive those who repent?"

A curious light came into Charlitte's eyes, and he put his tongue in his

cheek. Then he went on, calmly. "I'm on my way from Turk's Island to

Saint John, New Brunswick,--I've got a cargo of salt to unload there,

and, 'pon my word, I hadn't a thought of calling here until I got up in

the Bay, working towards Petit Passage. I guess it was old habit that

made me run for this place, and I thought I'd give you a call, and see

if you were moping to death, and wanted to go away with me. If you do,

I'll be glad to have you. If not, I'll not bother you."

A deadly faintness came over Rose. "Charlitte, are you not sorry for

your sin? Ah! tell me that you repent. And will you not talk to Father

Duvair? So many quiet nights I think of you and pray that you may

understand that you are being led into this wickedness. That other

woman,--she is still living?"

"What other woman? Oh, Lord, yes,--I thought that fool Agapit had had

spies on me."

Rose was so near fainting that she only half comprehended what he said.

"I wish you'd come with me," he went on, jocosely. "If you happened to

worry I'd send you back to this dull little hole. You're not going to

swoon, are you? Here, put your head on this," and he drew up to her a

small table on which Bidiane had been playing solitaire. "You used not

to be delicate."

"I am not now," she whispered, dropping her head on her folded arms,

"but I cannot hold myself up. When I saw you come, I thought it was to

say you were sorry. Now--"

"Come, brace up, Rose," he said, uneasily. "I'll sit down beside you for

awhile. There's lots of time for me to repent yet," and he chuckled

shortly and struck his broad chest with his fist. "I'm as strong as a

horse; there's nothing wrong with me, except a little rheumatism, and

I'll outgrow that. I'm only fifty-two, and my father died at ninety.

Come on, girl,--don't cry. I wish I hadn't started this talk of taking

you away. You'd be glad of it, though, if you'd go. Listen till I tell

you what a fine place New Orleans is--"

Rose did not listen to him. She still sat with her flaxen head bowed on

her arms, that rested on the little table. She was a perfect picture of

silent, yet agitated distress.

"You are not praying, are you?" asked her husband, in a disturbed

manner. "I believe you are. Come, I'll go away."

For some time there was no movement in the half prostrated figure, then

the head moved slightly, and Charlitte caught a faint sentence, "Repent,

my husband."

"Yes, I repent," he said, hastily. "Good Lord, I'll do anything. Only

cheer up and let me out of this."

The grief-stricken Rose pushed back the hair from her tear-stained face

and slowly raised her head from her arms.

It was only necessary for her to show that face to her husband. So

impressed was it with the stamp of intense anguish of mind, of grief for

his past delinquencies of conduct, of a sorrow nobly, quietly borne

through long years, that even he--callous, careless, and

thoughtless--was profoundly moved.

For a long time he was silent. Then his lip trembled and he turned his

head aside. "'Pon my word, Rose,--I didn't think you'd fret like this.

I'll do better; let me go now."

One of her hands stole with velvety clasp to his brown wrists, and while

the gentle touch lasted he sat still, listening with an averted face to

the words whispered in his ear.

Agapit, in the meantime, was walking in the garden with Bidiane. He had

told her all that she wished to know with regard to the recreant

husband, and in a passionate, resentful state of mind she was storming

to and fro, scarcely knowing what she said.

"It is abominable, treacherous!--and we stand idly here. Go and drive

him away, Agapit. He should not be allowed to speak to our spotless

Rose. I should think that the skies would fall--and I spoke to him, the

traitor! Go, Agapit,--I wish you would knock him down."

Agapit, with an indulgent glance, stood at a little distance from her,

softly murmuring, from time to time, "You are very young, Bidiane."

"Young! I am glad that I am young, so that I can feel angry. You are

stolid, unfeeling. You care nothing for Rose. I shall go myself and

tell that wretch to his face what I think of him."

She was actually starting, but Agapit caught her gently by the arm.

"Bidiane, restrain yourself," and drawing her under the friendly shade

of a solitary pine-tree that had been left when the garden was made, he

smoothed her angry cheeks and kissed her hot forehead.

"You condone his offence,--you, also, some day, will leave me for some

woman," she gasped.

"This from you to me," he said, quietly and proudly, "when you know that

we Acadiens are proud of our virtue,--of the virtue of our women

particularly; and if the women are pure, it is because the men are so."

"Rose cannot love that demon," exclaimed Bidiane.

"No, she does not love him, but she understands what you will understand

when you are older,--the awful sacredness of the marriage tie. Think of

one of the sentences that she read to us last Sunday from Thomas à

Kempis: 'A pure heart penetrates heaven and hell.' She has been in a

hell of suffering herself. I think when in it she wished her husband

were dead. Her charity is therefore infinite towards him. Her sins of

thought are equal in her chastened mind to his sins of body."

"But you will not let her go away with him?"

"She will not wish to go, my treasure. She talks to him, and repent,

repent, is, I am sure, the burden of her cry. You do not understand that

under her gentleness is a stern resolve. She will be soft and kind, yet

she would die rather than live with Charlitte or surrender her child to

him."

"But he may wish to stay here," faltered Bidiane.

"He will not stay with her, _chérie_. She is no longer a girl, but a

woman. She is not resentful, yet Charlitte has sinned deeply against

her, and she remembers,--and now I must return to her. Charlitte has

little delicacy of feeling, and may stay too long."

"Wait a minute, Agapit,--is it her money that he is after?"

"No, little one, he is not mercenary. He would not take money from a

woman. He also would not give her any unless she begged him to do so. I

think that his visit is a mere caprice that, however, if humored, would

degenerate into a carrying away of Rose,--and now _au revoir_."

Bidiane, in her excited, overstrained condition of mind, bestowed one of

her infrequent caresses on him, and Agapit, in mingled surprise and

gratification, found a pair of loving arms flung around his neck, and

heard a frantic whisper: "If you ever do anything bad, I shall kill you;

but you will not, for you are good."

"Thank you. If I am faithless you may kill me," and, reluctantly leaving

her, he strode along the summit of the slight hill on which the house

stood, until he caught sight of the tableau on the lawn.

Charlitte was just leaving his wife. His head was hanging on his breast;

he looked ashamed of himself, and in haste to be gone, yet he paused and

cast an occasional stealthy and regretful glance at Rose, who, with a

face aglow with angelic forgiveness, seemed to be bestowing a parting

benediction on him.

The next time that he lifted his head, his small, sharp eyes caught

sight of Agapit, whereupon he immediately snatched his hand from Rose,

and hastily began to descend the hill towards the river.

Rose remained standing, and silently watched him. She did not look at

Agapit,--her eyes were riveted on her husband. Something within her

seemed to cry out as his feet carried him down the hill to the brink of

the inexorable stream, where the bones of so many of his countrymen lay.

"_Adieu_, my husband," she called, suddenly and pleadingly, "thou wilt

not forget."

Charlitte paused just before he reached the bridge, and, little dreaming

that his feet were never to cross its planks, he swept a glance over the

peaceful Bay, the waiting boat, and the beautiful ship. Then he turned

and waved his hand to his wife, and for one instant, they remembered

afterwards, he put a finger on his breast, where lay a crucifix that

she had just given him.

"_Adjheu_, Rose," he called, loudly, "I will remember." At the same

minute, however, that the smile of farewell lighted up his face, an oath

slipped to his lips, and he stepped back from the bridge.

CHAPTER XV.

THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGER GOES AWAY WITHOUT HER CAPTAIN.

"Repentance is the relinquishment of any practice from the

conviction that it has offended God. Sorrow, fear, and anxiety

are properly not parts but adjuncts of repentance, yet they are

too closely connected with it to be easily separated."

--_Rambler._

Charlitte did not plan to show himself at all in Sleeping Water. He

possessed a toughened conscience and moral fibre calculated to stand a

considerably heavy strain, yet some blind instinct warned him that he

had better seek no conversation with his friends of former days.

For this reason he had avoided the corner on his way to Rose's house,

but he had not been able to keep secret the news of his arrival. Some

women at the windows had recognized him, and a few loungers at the

corner had strolled down to his boat, and had conversed with the

sailors, who, although Norwegians, yet knew enough English to tell their

captain's name, which, according to a custom prevailing among Acadiens,

was simply the French name turned into English. Charlitte de Forêt had

become Charlitte Forrest.

Emmanuel de la Rive was terribly excited. He had just come from the

station with the afternoon mail, and, on hearing that Charlitte was

alive, and had actually arrived, he had immediately put himself at the

head of a contingent of men, who proposed to go up to the cottage and

ascertain the truth of the case. If it were so,--and it must be

so,--what a wonderful, what an extraordinary occurrence! Sleeping Water

had never known anything like this, and he jabbered steadily all the way

up to the cottage.

Charlitte saw them coming,--this crowd of old friends, headed by the

mail-driver in the red jacket, and he looked helplessly up at Rose.

"Come back," she called; "come and receive your friends with me."

Charlitte, however, glanced at Agapit, and preferred to stay where he

was, and in a trice Emmanuel and the other men and boys were beside him,

grasping his hands, vociferating congratulations on his escape from

death, and plying him with inquiries as to the precise quarter of the

globe in which the last few years of his existence had been passed.

Charlitte, unable to stave off the questions showered upon him, was

tortured by a desire to yield to his rough and sailorlike sense of

humor, and entertain himself for a few minutes at the expense of his

friends by regaling them with his monstrous yarns of shipwreck and

escape from the cannibal islands.

Something restrained him. He glanced up at Rose, and saw that she had

lost hope of his returning to her. She was gliding down the hill towards

him,--a loving, anxious, guardian angel.

He could not tell lies in her presence. "Come, boys," he said, with

coarse good nature. "Come on to my ship, I'll take you all aboard."

Emmanuel, in a perfect intoxication of delight and eager curiosity,

crowded close to Charlitte, as the throng of men and boys turned and

began to surge over the bridge, and the hero of the moment, his

attention caught by the bright jacket, singled Emmanuel out for special

attention, and even linked his arm in his as they went.

Bidiane, weary of her long stay in the garden, at that minute came

around the corner of the house on a reconnoitring expedition. Her brown

eyes took in the whole scene,--Rose hurrying down the hill, Agapit

standing silently on it, and the swarm of men surrounding the newcomer

like happy buzzing bees, while they joyfully escorted him away from the

cottage.

This was the picture for an instant before her, then simultaneously with

a warning cry from Agapit,--"The bridge, _mon Dieu_! Do not linger on

it; you are a strong pressure!"--there was a sudden crash, a brief and

profound silence, then a great splashing, accompanied by shouts and

cries of astonishment.

The slight rustic structure had given way under the unusually heavy

weight imposed upon it, and a score or two of the men of Sleeping Water

were being subjected to a thorough ducking.

However, they were all used to the water, their lives were partly passed

on the sea, and they were all accomplished swimmers. As one head after

another came bobbing up from the treacherous river, it was greeted with

cries and jeers from dripping figures seated on the grass, or crawling

over the muddy banks.

Célina ran from the house, and Jovite from the stable, both shrieking

with laughter. Only Agapit looked grave, and, snatching a hammock from a

tree, he ran down the hill to the place where Rose stood with clasped

hands.

"Where is Charlitte?" she cried, "and Emmanuel?--they were close

together; I do not see them."

A sudden hush followed her words. Every man sprang to his feet.

Emmanuel's red jacket was nowhere to be seen,--in the first excitement

they had not missed him,--neither was Charlitte visible.

They must be still at the bottom of the river, locked in a friendly

embrace. Rose's wild cry pierced the hearts of her fellow countrymen,

and in an instant some of the dripping figures were again in the river.

Agapit was one of the most expert divers present, and he at once took

off his coat and his boots. Bidiane threw herself upon him, but he

pushed her aside and, putting his hands before him, plunged down towards

the exact spot where he had last seen Charlitte.

The girl, in wild terror, turned to Rose, who stood motionless, her lips

moving, her eyes fixed on the black river. "Ah, God! there is no bottom

to it,--Rose, Rose, call him back!"

Rose did not respond, and Bidiane ran frantically to and fro on the

bank. The muddy water was splashed up in her face, there was a constant

appearance of heads, and disappearance of feet. Her lover would be

suffocated there below, he stayed so long,--and in her despair she was

in danger of slipping in herself, until Rose came to her rescue and held

her firmly by her dress.

After a space of time, that seemed interminably long, but that in

reality lasted only a few minutes, there was a confused disturbance of

the surface of the water about the remains of the wrecked bridge. Then

two or three arms appeared,--a muddy form encased in a besmeared bright

jacket was drawn out, and willing hands on the bank received it, and in

desperate haste made attempts at resuscitation.

"Go, Célina, to the house,--heat water and blankets," said Rose, turning

her deathly pale face towards her maid; "and do you, Lionel and Sylvain,

kindly help her. Run, Jovite, and telephone for a doctor--oh, be quick!

Ah, Charlitte, Charlitte!" and with a distracted cry she fell on her

knees beside the inanimate drenched form laid at her feet. Tears rained

down her cheeks, yet she rapidly and skilfully superintended the efforts

made for restoration. Her hands assisted in raising the inert back. She

feverishly lifted the silent tongue, and endeavored to force air to the

choked lungs, and her friends, with covert pitying glances, zealously

assisted her.

"There is no hope, Rose," said Agapit, at last. "You are wasting your

strength, and keeping these brave fellows in their wet clothes."

Her face grew stony, yet she managed to articulate, "But I have heard

even if after the lapse of hours,--if one works hard--"

"There is no hope," he said, again. "We found him by the bank. There was

timber above him, he was suffocated in mud."

She looked up at him piteously, then she again burst into tears, and

threw herself across the body. "Go, dear friends,--leave me alone with

him. Oh, Charlitte, Charlitte!--that I should have lived to see this

day."

"Emmanuel is also dead," said Agapit, in a low voice.

"Emmanuel,--good, kind Emmanuel,--the beloved of all the village; not

so--" and she painfully lifted her head and stared at the second

prostrate figure.

The men were all standing around him weeping. They were not ashamed of

their tears,--these kind-hearted, gentle Acadiens. Such a calamity had

seldom befallen their village. It was equal to the sad wrecks of winter.

Rose's overwrought brain gave way as she gazed, and she fell senseless

by Charlitte's dead body.

Agapit carried her to the house, and laid her in her bed in the room

that she was not to leave for many days.

"This is an awful time," said Célina, sobbing bitterly, and addressing

the mute and terrified Bidiane. "Let us pray for the souls of those poor

men who died without the last sacraments."

"Let us pray rather for the soul of one who repented on his death-bed,"

muttered Agapit, staring with white lips at the men who were carrying

the body of Charlitte into one of the lower rooms of the house.

CHAPTER XVI.

AN ACADIEN FESTIVAL.

"Vive Jésus!

Vive Jésus!

Avec la croix, son cher partage.

Vive Jésus!

Dans les coeurs de tous les élus!

Portons la croix.

* * * * *

Sans choix, sans ennui, sans murmure,

Portons la croix!

Quoique très amère et très dure,

Malgré les sens et la nature,

Portons la croix!"

--_Acadien Song._

Charlitte had been in his grave for nearly two years. He slept

peacefully in the little green cemetery hard by the white church where a

slender, sorrowful woman came twice every week to hear a priest repeat

masses for the repose of his soul.

He slept on and gave no sign, and his countrymen came and went above

him, reflecting occasionally on their own end, but mostly, after the

manner of all men, allowing their thoughts to linger rather on matters

pertaining to time than on those of eternity.

One fifteenth of August--the day consecrated by Acadiens all over Canada

to the memory of their forefathers--had come and gone, and another had

arrived.

This day was one of heavenly peace and calm. The sky was faintly,

exquisitely blue, and so placid was the Bay that the occupants of the

boats crossing from Digby Neck to some of the churches in Frenchtown

were forced to take in their sails, and apply themselves to their oars.

Since early morning the roads of the parish in which Sleeping Water is

situated had been black with people, and now at ten o'clock some two

thousand Acadiens were assembled about the doors of the old church at

Pointe à l'Eglise.

There was no talking, no laughing. In unbroken silence they waited for

the sound of the bell, and when it came they flocked into the church,

packing it full, and overflowing out to the broad flight of steps, where

they knelt in rows and tried to obtain glimpses over each other's

shoulders of the blue and white decorations inside, and of the altar

ablaze with lights.

The priests from the college and glebe-house, robed in handsome

vestments, filed out from the vestry, and, quietly approaching the

silken banners standing against the low gallery, handed them to

representatives of different societies connected with the church.

The children of the Guardian Angel received the picture of their patron

saint, and, gathering around it, fluttered soberly out to the open air

through the narrow lane left among the kneeling worshippers.

The children of the Society of Mary followed them, their white-clad and

veiled figures clustering about the pale, pitying Virgin carried by two

of their number. A banner waving beside her bore the prayer, "_Marie,

Priez Pour Nous_" (Mary, pray for us), and, as if responding to the

petition, her two hands were extended in blessing over them.

After the troop of snowy girls walked the black sisters in big bonnets

and drooping shawls, and the brown sisters, assistants to the Eudists,

who wore black veils with white flaps against their pale faces. Then

came the priests, altar boys, and all the congregation. Until they left

the church the organ played an accompaniment to their chanting. On the

steps a young deacon put a cornet to his lips, and, taking up the last

note of the organ, prolonged it into a vigorous leadership of the

singing:

Ave maris Stella,

Dei mater alma,

Atque semper virgo

Felix coeli porta.

As the congregation sang, they crossed the road to the gates of the

college grounds, and divided into two parts, the men, with heads

uncovered, going one side, and the women on the other.

Above the gate-posts waved two flags, the union jack and the Acadien

national flag,--a French tricolor, crossed by a blue stripe, and pierced

with a yellow star.

Slowly and solemnly the long array of men and women passed by the

glebe-house and the white marble tomb of the good Abbé, whose life was

given to the Acadiens of the Bay Saint-Mary. The hymns sung by the

priests at the head of the procession floated back to the congregation

in the rear, and at the moment when the singing was beginning to die

away in the distance and the procession was winding out of sight behind

the big college, two strangers suddenly appeared on the scene.

They were a slender, elegant man and a beautiful lad of a clear, healthy

pallor of skin. The man, with a look of grave, quiet happiness on his

handsome face, stepped from the carriage in which they were driving,

fastened his horse to a near fence, and threw a longing glance after the

disappearing procession.

"If we hurry, Narcisse," he said, "we shall be able to overtake them."

The lad at once placed himself beside him, and together they went on

their way towards the gates.

"Do you remember it?" asked the man, softly, as the boy lifted his hat

when they passed by the door of the silent, decorated church.

"Yes, perfectly," he said, with a sweet, delicate intonation of voice.

"It seems as if my mother must be kneeling there."

Vesper's brow and cheeks immediately became suffused with crimson. "She

is probably on ahead. We will find out. If she is not, we shall drive at

once to Sleeping Water."

They hurried on silently. The procession was now moving through another

gate, this one opening on the point of land where are the ruins of the

first church that the good Abbé built on the Bay.

Beside its crumbling ruins and the prostrate altarstones a new, fresh

altar had been put up,--this one for temporary use. It was a veritable

bower of green amid which bloomed many flowers, the fragile nurslings of

the sisters in the adjacent convent.

Before this altar the priests and deacons knelt for an instant on

colored rugs, then, while the people gathered closely around them, an

Acadien Abbé from the neighboring province of New Brunswick ascended the

steps of the altar, and, standing beside the embowered Virgin mother,

special patron and protectress of his race, he delivered a fervent

panegyric on the ancestors of the men and women before him.

While he recounted the struggles and trials of the early Acadiens, many

of his hearers wept silently, but when this second good Abbé eloquently

exhorted them not to linger too long on a sad past, but to gird

themselves for a glorious future, to be constant to their race and to

their religion, their faces cleared,--they were no longer a prey to

mournful recollections.

Vesper, holding his hat in his hand, and closely accompanied by

Narcisse, moved slowly nearer and nearer to a man who stood with his

face half hidden by his black hat.

It was Agapit, and at Vesper's touch he started slightly, then, for he

would not speak on this solemn occasion, he extended a hand that was

grasped in the firm and enduring clasp of a friendship that would not

again be broken.

Vesper would never forget that, amid all the bustle and confusion

succeeding Charlitte's death, Agapit had found time to send him a cable

message,--"Charlitte is dead."

After communicating with Agapit, Vesper drew the boy nearer to him, and

fell back a little. He was inexpressibly moved. A few years ago he would

have called this "perverted Christianity--Mariolatry." Now, now--"O

God!" he muttered, "my pure saint, she has genuine piety," and under wet

lashes he stole a glance at one form, preëminently beautiful among the

group of straight and slim young Acadien women beyond him. She was

there,--his heart's delight, his treasure. She was his. The holy, rapt

expression would give place to one more earthly, more self-conscious. He

would not surrender her to heaven just yet,--but still, would it not be

heaven on earth to be united to her?

She did not know that he was near. In complete oblivion of her

surroundings she followed the singing of the Tantum Ergo. When the

benediction was over, she lifted her bowed head, her eyes turned once

towards the cemetery. She was thinking of Charlitte.

The sensitive Narcisse trembled. The excess of melancholy and

sentimental feeling about him penetrated to his soul, and Vesper

withdrew with him to the edge of the crowd. Then before the procession

re-formed to march back to the church, they took up their station by the

college gates.

All the Acadiens saw him there as they approached,--all but Rose.

She only raised her eyes from her prayer-book to fix them on the sky.

She alone of the women seemed to be so wholly absorbed in a religious

fervor that she did not know where she was going nor what she was doing.

Some of the Acadiens looked doubtfully at Vesper. Since the death of her

husband, whose treachery towards her had in some way been discovered,

she had been regarded more than ever as a saint,--as one set apart

for prayer and meditation almost as much as if she had been consecrated

to them. Would she give up her saintly life for marriage with the

Englishman?

Would she do it? Surely this holy hour was the wrong time to ask her,

and they waited breathlessly until they reached the gates where the

procession was to break up. There she discovered Vesper. In the face of

all the congregation he had stepped up and was holding out his hand to

her.

She did not hesitate an instant. She did not even seem to be surprised.

An expression of joyful surrender sprang to her face; in silent, solemn

ecstasy she took her lover's hand, and, throwing her arm around the neck

of her recovered child, she started with them on the long road down the

Bay.

[Illustration: "THROWING HER ARM AROUND THE NECK OF HER RECOVERED

CHILD."]

* * * * *

All this happened a few years ago, but the story is yet going on. If you

come from Boston to-day, and take your wheel or carriage at

Yarmouth,--for the strong winds blow one up and not down the Bay,--you

will, after passing through Salmon River, Chéticamp, Meteghan,

Saulnierville, and other places, come to the swinging sign of the

Sleeping Water Inn.

There, if you stop, you will be taken good care of by Claudine and

Mirabelle Marie,--who is really a vastly improved woman.

Perhaps among all the two hundred thousand Acadiens scattered throughout

the Maritime Provinces of Canada there is not a more interesting inn

than that of Sleeping Water. They will give you good meals and keep your

room tidy, and they will also show you--if you are really interested in

the Acadien French--a pretty cottage in the form of a horseshoe that was

moved bodily away from the wicked Sleeping Water River and placed in a

flat green field by the shore. To it, you will be informed, comes every

year a family from Boston, consisting of an Englishman and his wife, his

mother and two children. They will describe the family to you, or

perhaps, if it is summer-time, you may see the Englishman himself,

riding a tall bay horse and looking affectionately at a beautiful lad

who accompanies him on a glossy black steed rejoicing in the name of

Toochune.

The Englishman is a man of wealth and many schemes. He has organized a

company for the planting and cultivation of trees along the shore of the

charming, but certainly wind-swept Bay. He also is busy now surveying

the coast for the carrying out of his long-cherished plan of an electric

railway running along the shore.

He will yet have it, the Acadiens say, but in the meantime he amuses

himself by viewing the land and interviewing the people, and when he is

weary he rides home to the cottage where his pale, fragile mother is

looking eagerly for her adopted, idolized grandchild Narcisse, and where

his wife sits by the window and waits for him.

As she waits she often smiles and gazes down at her lap where lies a

tiny creature,--a little girl whose eyes and mouth are her own, but

whose hair is the hair of Vesper.

Perhaps you will go to Sleeping Water by the train. If so, do not look

out for the red coat which always used to be the distinguishing mark of

this place, and do not mention Emmanuel's name to the woman who keeps

the station, nor to her husband, for they were very fond of him, and if

you speak of the red-jacketed mail-man they will turn aside to hide

their tears.

Nannichette and her husband have come out of the woods and live by the

shore. Mirabelle Marie has persuaded the former to go to mass with her.

The Indian in secret delight says nothing, but occasionally he utters a

happy grunt.

Bidiane and her husband live in Weymouth. Their _ménage_ is small and

unambitious as yet, in order that they may do great things in the

future, Bidiane says. She is absolutely charming when she ties a

handkerchief on her head and sweeps out her rooms; and sometimes she

cooks.

Often at such times she scampers across a yard that separates her from

her husband's office, and, after looking in his window to make sure that

he is alone, she flies in, startles and half suffocates him by throwing

her arms around his neck and stuffing in his mouth or his pocket some

new and delectable dainty known only to herself and the cook-book.

She is very happy, and turns with delight from her winter visits to

Halifax, where, however, she manages to enjoy herself hugely, to her

summer on the Bay, when she can enjoy the most congenial society in the

world to her and to her husband,--that of Vesper Nimmo and his wife

Rose.

THE END.

_SELECTIONS FROM L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY'S LIST OF NEW FICTION._

[Illustration]

Selections from

L. C. Page and Company's

List of New Fiction.

An Enemy to the King.

From the Recently Discovered Memoirs of the

Sieur de la Tournoire. By ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS.

Illustrated by H. De M. Young.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=

An historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing the

adventures of a young French nobleman at the Court of Henry IV.,

and on the field with Henry of Navarre.

The Continental Dragoon.

A Romance of Philipse Manor House, in 1778.

By ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS, author of "An Enemy

to the King." Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=

A stirring romance of the Revolution, the scene being laid in and

around the old Philipse Manor House, near Yonkers, which at the

time of the story was the central point of the so-called "neutral

territory" between the two armies.

Muriella; or, Le Selve.

By OUIDA. Illustrated by M. B. Prendergast.

1 vol., library 12 mo, cloth =$1.25=

This is the latest work from the pen of the brilliant author of

"Under Two Flags," "Moths," etc., etc. It is the story of the love

and sacrifice of a young peasant girl, told in the absorbing style

peculiar to the author.

The Road to Paris.

By ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS, author of "An

Enemy to the King," "The Continental Dragoon,"

etc. Illustrated by H. C. Edwards. (In press.)

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=

An historical romance, being an account of the life of an American

gentleman adventurer of Jacobite ancestry, whose family early

settled in the colony of Pennsylvania. The scene shifts from the

unsettled forests of the then West to Philadelphia, New York,

London, Paris, and, in fact, wherever a love of adventure and a

roving fancy can lead a soldier of fortune. The story is written in

Mr. Stephens's best style, and is of absorbing interest.

Rose à Charlitte.

An Acadien Romance. By MARSHALL SAUNDERS,

author of "Beautiful Joe," etc. Illustrated by H.

De M. Young.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=

In this novel, the scene of which is laid principally in the land

of Evangeline, Marshall Saunders has made a departure from the

style of her earlier successes. The historical and descriptive

setting of the novel is accurate, the plot is well conceived and

executed, the characters are drawn with a firm and delightful

touch, and the fortunes of the heroine, Rose à Charlitte, a

descendant of an old Acadien family, will be followed with

eagerness by the author's host of admirers.

Bobbie McDuff.

By CLINTON ROSS, author of "The Scarlet Coat,"

"Zuleika," etc. Illustrated by B. West Clinedinst.

1 vol., large 16mo, cloth =$1.00=

Clinton Ross is well known as one of the most promising of recent

American writers of fiction, and in the description of the

adventures of his latest hero, Bobbie McDuff, he has repeated his

earlier successes. Mr. Ross has made good use of the wealth of

material at his command. New York furnishes him the hero, sunny

Italy a heroine, grim Russia the villain of the story, while the

requirements of the exciting plot shift the scene from Paris to New

York, and back again to a remote, almost feudal villa on the

southern coast of Italy.

In Kings' Houses.

A Romance of the Reign of Queen Anne. By

JULIA C. R. DORR, author of "A Cathedral Pilgrimage,"

etc. Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=

Mrs. Dorr's poems and travel sketches have earned for her a

distinct place in American literature, and her romance, "In Kings'

Houses," is written with all the charm of her earlier works. The

story deals with one of the most romantic episodes in English

history. Queen Anne, the last of the reigning Stuarts, is described

with a strong, yet sympathetic touch, and the young Duke of

Gloster, the "little lady," and the hero of the tale, Robin Sandys,

are delightful characterizations.

Sons of Adversity.

A Romance of Queen Elizabeth's Time. By L.

COPE CONFORD, author of "Captain Jacobus," etc.

Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=

A tale of adventure on land and sea at the time when Protestant

England and Catholic Spain were struggling for naval supremacy.

Spanish conspiracies against the peace of good Queen Bess, a vivid

description of the raise of the Spanish siege of Leyden by the

combined Dutch and English forces, sea fights, the recovery of

stolen treasure, are all skilfully woven elements in a plot of

unusual strength.

The Count of Nideck.

From the French of Erckman-Chatrian, translated

and adapted by RALPH BROWNING FISKE. Illustrated

by Victor A. Searles.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=

A romance of the Black Forest, woven around the mysterious legend

of the Wehr Wolf. The plot has to do with the later German feudal

times, is brisk in action, and moves spiritedly from start to

finish. Mr. Fiske deserves a great deal of credit for the

excellence of his work. No more interesting romance has appeared

recently.

The Making of a Saint.

By W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM. Illustrated by Gilbert

James.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=

"The Making of a Saint" is a romance of Mediæval Italy, the scene

being laid in the 15th century. It relates the life of a young

leader of Free Companions who, at the close of one of the many

petty Italian wars, returns to his native city. There he becomes

involved in its politics, intrigues, and feuds, and finally joins

an uprising of the townspeople against their lord. None can resent

the frankness and apparent brutality of the scenes through which

the hero and his companions of both sexes are made to pass, and

many will yield ungrudging praise to the author's vital handling of

the truth. In the characters are mirrored the life of the Italy of

their day. The book will confirm Mr. Maugham's reputation as a

strong and original writer.

Omar the Tentmaker.

A Romance of Old Persia. By NATHAN HASKELL

DOLE. Illustrated. (In press.)

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=

Mr. Dole's study of Persian literature and history admirably equips

him to enter into the life and spirit of the time of the romance,

and the hosts of admirers of the inimitable quatrains of Omar

Khayyam, made famous by Fitzgerald, will be deeply interested in a

tale based on authentic facts in the career of the famous Persian

poet. The three chief characters are Omar Khayyam, Nizam-ul-Mulk,

the generous and high-minded Vizier of the Tartar Sultan Malik Shah

of Mero, and Hassan ibu Sabbah, the ambitious and revengeful

founder of the sect of the Assassins. The scene is laid partly at

Naishapur, in the Province of Khorasan, which about the period of

the First Crusade was at its acme of civilization and refinement,

and partly in the mountain fortress of Alamut, south of the Caspian

Sea, where the Ismailians under Hassan established themselves

towards the close of the 11th century. Human nature is always the

same, and the passions of love and ambition, of religion and

fanaticism, of friendship and jealousy, are admirably contrasted in

the fortunes of these three able and remarkable characters as well

as in those of the minor personages of the story.

Captain Fracasse.

A new translation from the French of Gotier. Illustrated

by Victor A. Searles.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=

This famous romance has been out of print for some time, and a new

translation is sure to appeal to its many admirers, who have never

yet had any edition worthy of the story.

The Rejuvenation of Miss Semaphore.

A farcical novel. By HAL GODFREY. Illustrated

by Etheldred B. Barry. (In press.)

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=

A fanciful, laughable tale of two maiden sisters of uncertain age

who are induced, by their natural longing for a return to youth and

its blessings, to pay a large sum for a mystical water which

possesses the value of setting backwards the hands of time. No more

delightfully fresh and original book has appeared since "Vice

Versa" charmed an amused world. It is well written, drawn to the

life, and full of the most enjoyable humor.

Midst the Wild Carpathians.

By MAURUS JOKAI, author of "Black Diamonds,"

"The Lion of Janina," etc. Authorized translation

by R. Nisbet Bain. Illustrated. (In press.)

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=

A thrilling, historical, Hungarian novel, in which the

extraordinary dramatic and descriptive powers of the great Magyar

writer have full play. As a picture of feudal life in Hungary it

has never been surpassed for fidelity and vividness. The

translation is exceedingly well done.

The Golden Dog.

A Romance of Quebec. By WILLIAM KIRBY. New

authorized edition. Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=

A powerful romance of love, intrigue, and adventure in the time of

Louis XV. and Mme. de Pompadour, when the French colonies were

making their great struggle to retain for an ungrateful court the

fairest jewels in the colonial diadem of France.

Bijli the Dancer.

By JAMES BLYTHE PATTON. Illustrated by Horace

Van Rinth. (In press.)

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=

A novel of Modern India. The fortunes of the heroine, an Indian

Naucht girl, are told with a vigor, pathos, and a wealth of poetic

sympathy that makes the book admirable from first to last.

"To Arms!"

Being Some Passages from the Early Life of Allan

Oliphant, Chirurgeon, Written by Himself, and now

Set Forth for the First Time. By ANDREW BALFOUR.

Illustrated. (In press.)

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=

A romance dealing with an interesting phase of Scottish and English

history, the Jacobite Insurrection of 1715, which will appeal

strongly to the great number of admirers of historical fiction. The

story is splendidly told, the magic circle which the author draws

about the reader compelling a complete forgetfulness of prosaic

nineteenth century life.

Mere Folly.

A novel. By MARIA LOUISE POOLE, author of "In a

Dike Shanty," etc. Illustrated. (In press.)

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25=

An extremely well-written story of modern life. The interest

centres in the development of the character of the heroine, a New

England girl, whose high-strung temperament is in constant revolt

against the confining limitations of nineteenth century

surroundings. The reader's interest is held to the end, and the

book will take high rank among American psychological novels.

A Hypocritical Romance and other stories.

By CAROLINE TICKNOR. Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy.

1 vol., large 16mo, cloth =$1.00=

Miss Ticknor, well known as one of the most promising of the

younger school of American writers, has never done better work than

in the majority of these clever stories, written in a delightful

comedy vein.

Cross Trails.

By VICTOR WAITE. Illustrated. (In press.)

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50=

A Spanish-American novel of unusual interest, a brilliant, dashing,

and stirring story, teeming with humanity and life. Mr. Waite is to

be congratulated upon the strength with which he has drawn his

characters.

A Mad Madonna and other stories.

By L. CLARKSON WHITELOCK, with eight half-tone

illustrations. 1 vol., large 16mo, cloth =$1.00=

A half dozen remarkable psychological stories, delicate in color

and conception. Each of the six has a touch of the supernatural, a

quick suggestion, a vivid intensity, and a dreamy realism that is

matchless in its forceful execution.

On the Point.

A Summer Idyl. By NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, author

of "Not Angels Quite," with dainty half-tone

illustrations as chapter headings.

1 vol., large 16mo, cloth =$1.00=

A bright and clever story of a summer on the coast of Maine, fresh,

breezy, and readable from the first to the last page. The narrative

describes the summer outing of a Mr. Merrithew and his family. The

characters are all honest, pleasant people, whom we are glad to

know. We part from them with the same regret with which we leave a

congenial party of friends.

Cavalleria Rusticana; or, Under the Shadow of Etna.

Translated from the Italian of Giovanni Verga, by

NATHAN HASKELL DOLE. Illustrated by Etheldred

B. Barry. 1 vol., 16mo, cloth =$0.50=

Giovanni Verga stands at present as unquestionably the most

prominent of the Italian novelists. His supremacy in the domain of

the short story and in the wider range of the romance is recognized

both at home and abroad. The present volume contains a selection

from the most dramatic and characteristic of his Sicilian tales.

Verga is himself a native of Sicily, and his knowledge of that

wonderful country, with its poetic and yet superstitious peasantry,

is absolute. Such pathos, humor, variety, and dramatic quality are

rarely met in a single volume.

Transcriber's Note

Apparent printer's errors have been retained, unless stated below.

Punctuation, capitalization, accents and formatting markup have been

made consistent.

"-" surrounding text represents italics.

"=" surrounding text represents bold.

"+" surrounding text represents the use of a Gothic font in the original.

Page 64, 100, 176 and 202, changed "ecstacy" to "ecstasy" for

continuity.

Page 120, "forthfathers" changed to "forefathers" for consistency. (Our

forefathers were not of Grand Pré.)

Page 163, added the missing word, "to" ("I should like to see your

sister, Perside.")

Page 220, "pantomine" changed to "pantomime". (The unfortunate watcher,

in great perplexity of mind, was going through every gesture in the

pantomime of distress.)

Page 294, "Agapit" changed to "Vesper". ("The doctors in Boston also say

it," responded Vesper.)

Page 394, "how" changed to "now". (The earth was soft here by the lake,

yet it was heavy to lift out, for the hole had now become quite deep.)

Page 506, "Malgre" changed to "Malgré". (Quoique très amère et très

dure, Malgré les sens et la nature, Portons la croix!)