Old Kaskaskia | Page 6

his thumb,
and if nobody else could manage them he could. My father says they
will give their furs to him for nothing rather than sell them to other
people. You must see that Colonel Menard is very fascinating, but I
don't think he charms Angélique as he does the Indians."
Mademoiselle Saucier's smile excused anything Peggy might say.
Maria thought this French girl the most beautiful woman she had ever
seen. The waist of her clinging white gown ended under the curve of
her girlish breasts, and face, neck, and arms blossomed out with the
polish of flower-petals. Around her throat she wore gold beads
suspending a cross. Her dark hair, which had an elusive bluish mist,
like grapes, was pinned high with a gold comb. Her oval face was full
of a mature sympathy unusual in girls. Maria had thought at first she
would rather be alone on the gallery, but this reposeful and tender
French girl at once became a necessity to her.
"Peggy," said Angélique, "I hear Jules Vigo inquiring for you in the
hall."
"Then I shall take to the roof," responded Peggy.
"Have some regard for Jules."
"You may have, but I shan't. I will not dance with a kangaroo."
"Do you not promise dances ahead?" inquired Maria.

"No, our mothers do not permit that," answered Angélique. "It is
sometimes best to sit still and look on."
"That means, Miss Jones," explained Peggy, "that she has set a fashion
to give the rest of the girls a chance. I wouldn't be so mealy-mouthed
about cutting them out. But Angélique has been ruined by waiting so
much on her tante-gra'mère. When you bear an old woman's temper
from dawn till dusk, you soon forget you're a girl in your teens."
"Don't abuse the little tante-gra'mère."
"She gets praise enough at our house. Mother says she's a discipline
that keeps Angélique from growing vain. Thank Heaven, we don't need
such discipline in our family."
"It is my father's grand-aunt," explained Angélique to Maria, "and
when you see her, mademoiselle, you will be surprised to find how well
she bears her hundred years, though she has not been out of her bed
since I can remember. Mademoiselle, I hope I never shall be very old."
Maria gave Angélique the piercing stare which unconsciously belongs
to large black eyes set in a hectic, nervous face.
"Would you die now?"
"I feel always," said the French girl, "that we stand facing the mystery
every minute, and sometimes I should like to know it."
"Now hear that," said Peggy. "I'm no Catholic, but I will say for the
mother superior that she never put that in your head at the convent. It is
wicked to say you want to die."
"But I did not say it. The mystery of being without any body,--that is
what I want to know. It is good to meditate on death."
"It isn't comfortable," said Peggy. "It makes me have chills down my
back."
She glanced behind her through the many-paned open window into the

dining-room. Three little girls and a boy were standing there, so close
to the sill that their breath had touched Peggy's neck. They were
Colonel Menard's motherless children. A black maid was with them,
holding the youngest by the hand. They were whispering in French
under cover of the music. French was the second mother tongue of
every Kaskaskia girl, and Peggy heard what they said by merely taking
her attention from her companions.
"I will get Jean Lozier to beat Monsieur Reece Zhone. Jean Lozier is
such an obliging creature he will do anything I ask him."
"But, Odile," argued the boy, with some sense of equity, "she is not yet
engaged to our family."
"And how shall we get her engaged to us if Monsieur Reece Zhone
must hang around her? Papa says he is the most promising young man
in the Territory. If I were a boy, Pierre Menard, I would do something
with him."
"What would you do?"
"I would shoot him. He has duels."
"But my father might punish me for that."
"Very well, chicken-heart. Let Mademoiselle Saucier go, then. But I
will tell you this: there is no one else in Kaskaskia that I will have for a
second mother."
"Yes, we have all chosen her," owned Pierre, "but it seems to me papa
ought to make the marriage."
"But she would not know we children were willing to have her. If you
did something to stop Monsieur Zhone's courtship, she would then
know."
"Why do you not go out on the gallery now and tell her we want her?"
exclaimed Pierre. "The colonel says it is best to be straightforward in

any matter of business."
"Pierre, it is plain to be seen that you do not