Marie | Page 4

with a sharp point. And that although merely so scratched, they had never been effaced, but were even more easily read than the carven script.
Among those who held it for foolishness was the present Jacques De Arthenay. He was perhaps the fifth in descent from the old Huguenot, but he might have been his own son or brother. The Huguenot doctrines had only grown a little colder, a little harder, turned into New England Orthodoxy as it was understood fifty years ago. He thought little of his French descent or his noble blood. He pronounced his name Jakes, as all his neighbors did; he lived on his farm, as they lived on theirs. If it was a better farm, the land in better condition, the buildings and fences trimmer and better cared for, that was in the man, not in his circumstances. He was easily leader among the few men whose scattered dwellings made up the village of Sea Meadows (commonly pronounced Semedders.) His house did not lie on the little "street," as that part of the road was called where some half-dozen houses were clustered together, with their farms spreading out behind them, and the post-office for the king-pin; yet no important step would be taken by the villagers without the advice and approval of Jacques De Arthenay. Briefly, he was a born leader; a masterful man, with a habit of thinking before he spoke; and when he said a thing must be done, people were apt to do it. He was now thirty years old, without kith or kin that any one knew of; living by himself in a good house, and keeping it clean and decent, almost as a woman might; not likely ever to change his condition, it was supposed.
This was the man who happened to come into the street on some errand, that soft summer evening, at the very moment when Marie was feeling lifted up by the light of joy in the children's faces, and was telling herself how good it was that she had come this way. Hearing the sound of the fiddle, De Arthenay stopped for a moment, and his face grew dark as night. He was a religious man, as sternly so as his Huguenot ancestor, but wearing his religion with a difference. He knew all music, except psalm-tunes, to be directly from the devil. Even as to the psalm-tunes themselves, it seemed to him a dreadful thing that worship could not be conducted without this compromise with evil, this snare to catch the ear; and he harboured in the depth of his soul thoughts about the probable frivolity of David, which he hardly voiced even to himself. The fiddle, in particular, he held to be positively devilish, both in its origin and influence; those who played this unholy instrument were bound to no good place, and were sure to gain their port, in his opinion. Being thus minded, it was with a shock of horror that he heard the sound of a fiddle in the street of his own village, not fifty yards from the meeting-house itself. After a moment's pause, he came wrathfully down the street; his height raised him a head and shoulders above the people who were ringed around the little musician, and he looked over their heads, with his arm raised to command, and his lips opened to forbid the shameful thing. Then--he saw Marie's face; and straightway his arm dropped to his side, and he stood without speaking. The children looked up at him, and moved away, for they were always afraid of him, and at this moment his face was dreadful to see.
Yet it was nothing dreadful that he looked upon. Marie was standing with her head bent down over her violin, in a pretty way she had. A light, slight figure, not short, yet with a look that spoke all of youth and morning grace. She wore a little blue gown, patched and faded, and dusty enough after her day's walk; her feet were dusty too, but slender and delicately shaped. Her face was like nothing that had been seen in those parts before, and the beauty of it seemed to strike cold to the man's heart, as he stood and gazed with unwilling eyes, hating the feeling that constrained him, yet unable for the moment to restrain it or to turn his eyes away. She had that clear, bright whiteness of skin that is seen only in Frenchwomen, and only here and there among these; whiteness as of fire behind alabaster. Her hair was black and soft, and the lashes lay like jet on her cheek, as she stood looking down, smiling a little, feeling so happy, so pleased that she was pleasing others. And now, when she raised her eyes, they