oy of my life,
An' the child in the grave with its mother."

But King William, far from being harrowed by the woeful enumeration,
laid an imperious hand on the strings. "Tell her, mother; I want you
to tell her."

"Come then, and kiss mother, and I will."

He moved the intervening step and submitted a cheek reluctantly.
"Just one and you said you'd tell."

But Charlotte, imperious herself, waved him off; she'd none of him
now. "It's because he's a vain boy, little Mary Alexina Blair, and
filled with self-importance, that he wants you to know, and he only
wants me to tell you because he has not quite the assurance to do it
himself; that is why he wants me to tell about the great, white-prowed
Argo--"

"We call them bows, not prows," came up out of the dusk.

But she refused the correction. "--The white-prowed Argo that is
building across the river, to go in search of a golden fleece for
little Jason here, a boat large, oh larger even than those other boats
of little Jason's father, the Captain down there, which used to float
up and down the Mississippi, and which vanished one day into the maw
of the Confederacy--"

But Jason was lifting his voice. "Not that way; make her stop, father;
that ain't the way!"

But mother was not to be hurried out of her revenge. "And this big,
white ark is one day going to float off on the flood of Hope, bearing
Jason and his father and his mother, the last plank of fortune between
them and--"

Jason was beating with his hands on the steps. "Make her stop, father;
make her tell it right; she don't understand what mother means. Do
you?" with an appeal to the absorbed Alexina.

That small soul jumped and looked embarrassed to know what to say, for
direct admissions are not always polite. "I had an ark once," she
stated, "but I sucked the red off Noah, and Marie, my bonne, took it
away."

Leaning down, Charlotte Leroy swept the baby-voiced creature up into
her lap. There was a passion of maternity in the act. "You innocent,"
she said, and held her fast.

It was nice to be there; the ribbons and the lacy ruffles were soft
beneath her cheek, and the dark eyes of the lady were smiling down.

The child turned suddenly and clung to Charlotte with passionate
responsiveness.

"It's about the boat his father is building, Willy wants you to know,
little Mab," the lady was telling her, "and how, the other day, the
Captain down there and our friends and Willy and I went aboard he