of his low, musical voice and courteous manner was an
intangible suggestion of something different, some bigger and happier
past, to which, go where he would and clothe himself as he might, voice
and manner had remained true.

"I wonder," said Steering, almost sighing, "if you will mind a little of
my company. The road is terribly lonely, sir. The country is terribly
lonely in fact."

"Yes, sair, a tr-r-ue word that. It is lonely. But sair, what will you
of this particulaire portion? It is vair' yong in the Tigmores. It
cannot be populate' in a day, a year. You, sair, come from the East,
hein? Sair, relativement, effort against effort, they have not done as
much in the East in feefty years as we have done in the Southwest in
twenty,--believe that, sair." It was that same feeling for the State,
that quick, leaping passion of nativity that Steering had thus far found
in every Missourian with whom he had come in contact.

"You are a Missourian, I see," said Steering, to keep his companion
talking along the line of this enlivening enthusiasm.

"Indeed, sair, yes. From that Saint Louis--Francois Placide DeLassus
Bernique, at your service."

"Thank you. My name is Steering, from New York, if you please, but very
deeply interested in Missouri just now, sir."

From that on they made easy progress into acquaintance. Bernique proved
talkative, full of anecdotes about Missouri's past, and full of belief
in her future. In his rich loquacity he roamed the history of the State
painstakingly for the edification of Steering, as one who stood at
Missouri's gates, inquiring of her true inwardness. He told Missouri's
history back to Spain and France, forward to unspeakable splendour. He
was intelligent, naive, unusual. Steering, responsive to the attraction
that was by and by to hold them strongly together, listened delightedly.

"Yessair,"--through Bernique's speech ran a reminiscence of his native
tongue, faint, sweet, fleeting, like the thought of home,--"yessair, it
is I know the fashion in the eastern States to considaire all the West
as vair' yong countree, and it is tr-r-ue, sair, that you, par example,
have come upon the most yong part of thees gr-r-eat State of Missouri,
but it is to be remembaire that this Missouri is not all rocks and wood,
uncultivate', standing toward the future, but that her story date back
to a remoter period and a fuller and finer civilisation, in that day
when France and Spain held sway over the p