show Miss Lansing on my
pew for Mass." He took the bridle from Ruth's hand and led the horse
away to the shed in the rear of the store.

The fear and uneasiness of the early morning leaped back to Ruth. The
little man had certainly run away from her question. Why should he not
answer?

She would have liked to linger a while among the people standing about
the church door. She knew some of them. She might have asked questions
of them. But her escort led her straight into the church and up to a
front pew.

At the end of the Mass the people filed out quietly, but at the church
door they broke into volleys of rapid-fire French chatter of which
Ruth could only catch a little here and there.

"You will come by the _fete_, M'm'selle. You will not dance _non_, I
s'pose. But you will eat, and you will see the fun they make, one
_jolie_ time! Till I ring the Vesper bell they will dance." Arsene led
Ruth and the other girl, whom she now learned was Hyacinthe Cardinal,
across the road to a little wood that stood opposite the church. There
were tables, on which the women had already begun to spread the food
that they had brought from home, and a dancing platform. On a great
stump which had been carved rudely into a chair sat Soriel Brouchard,
the fiddler of the hills, twiddling critically at his strings.

It seemed strange to Ruth that these people who had a moment before
been so devout and concentrated in church should in an instant switch
their whole thought to a day of eating and merrymaking. But she soon
found their light-hearted gaiety very infectious. Before she knew it,
she was sputtering away in the best French she had and entering into
the fun with all her heart.

"Which is Rafe Gadbeau?" she suddenly asked Cynthe Cardinal. "I want
to know him."

"Why for you want to know him?" the girl asked sharply in English.

"Oh, nothing," said Ruth carelessly, "only I've heard of him."

The other girl reached out into the crowd and plucked at the sleeve of
a tall, beak-nosed man. The man was evidently flattered by Ruth's
request, and wanted her to dance with him immediately.

"No," said Ruth, "I do not know how to dance your dances, and we'd
only break up the sets if I tried to learn now. We've heard a lot
about you, Mr. Gadbeau, so, of course, I wanted to know you. And we've
heard some things about Jeffrey Whiting. I'm sure you could tell me if
they are true."

"You don' dance? Well, we sit then. I tell you. One rascal,