low down among the
brambles and dense high cane, that one must needs wonder at the
smallness of Empire, as expressed in her personality and funny cap,
taking its westward way. "_Quelle barbarie!_" too, when the cat's
culture in elegant manners required of maternal solicitude a smart box
on the ear. And if the cat did not say "_Quelle barbarie!_" with an
approved French accent, we all know that she thought it.

"So much better for the soul's health than swearing," Hamish was wont to
say, when Odalie showed signs of considering the phrase a bit of
ridicule of her and her Frenchy forbears.

Her grandfather had been a Huguenot refugee, driven out of his country
by the religious persecution about the time of the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes, seventy odd years previously. Her father had prospered
but indifferently in the more civilized section of the New World, and
had died early. There his daughter had met her young Scotchman, who was
piqued by her dainty disdain of his French accent, which MacLeod had
recklessly placed on exhibition, and was always seeking to redeem the
impression, finally feeling that he must needs improve it by having a
perfect Mentor at hand. He had brought from the land of his birth, which
he had quitted in early years, but few distinctive local expressions,
yet a certain burr clung to his speech, and combined as incongruously as
might be with his French accent. She evidently considered the latter
incurable, intolerable, and always eyed him, when he spoke in that
language, with ostentatious wonder that such verbal atrocities could be,
and murmured gently in lieu of reply--"_Quelle barbarie!_" He found his
revenge in repeating a similar slogan, one that had often been as a
supplement to this more usual phrase,--"_Partons pour la France
aujourd'hui, pour l'amour de Dieu!_" It had been urged by her
grandmother in moments of depression, and Odalie, born and reared in the
royal province of South Carolina, had always the logic and grace to
wince at this ungrateful aspiration to return to France,--the dear
France that had been so much too hot to hold them. For the family had
rejoiced to escape thence with their lives, even at the forfeiture of
all that they possessed.

This jesting warfare of words had become established in the MacLeod
household, and often recurred, sometimes with a trifle of acrimony.
Little they thought how significant it was to be and how it should serve
them in their future lives.