er. The Americans have not improved it
much. You see there is Rose and Angelique, before Baptiste, and he is
rather puny, and father is getting old. Then, I could go up north every
two or three years. Well, one finds out your worth when you go away."

He gave a loud, rather exultant laugh that jarred on Jeanne. Why were
these rough characteristics so repellant to her? She had lived with them
all her short life. From whence came the other side of her nature that
longed for refinement, cultivated speech, and manners? And people of
real education, not merely the business faculty, the figuring and
bargain making, were more to her taste. M. Fleury was a gentleman, like
M. St. Armand.

Pierre stretched out his long legs and crossed his feet, then slipped
his hands into his pockets. He seemed to take up half the room.

"What have you been doing all the time I was away?" he said, when the
awkwardness of the silence began to oppress him.

Jeanne made a little crease in her forehead, and a curl came to the rose
red lip.

"I went to school until Christmas, then there was no teacher for a
while. And when spring was coming I decided not to go back. I read at
home. I have some books, and I write to improve myself. I can do it
quite well in English. Then there is some one at the Fort, a sort of
minister, who has a class down in the town, St. Louis street, and I go
there."

"Is the minister a Catholic?"

"No," she answered, briefly.

"That is bad." He shook his head disapprovingly. "But you go to church?"

"There is a little chapel and I like the talk and the singing. I know
two girls who go there. Sometimes I go with Pani to St. Anne's."

"But you should go all the time, Jeanne. Religion is especially for
women. They have the children to bring up and to pray for their
husbands, when they are on voyages or in dangers."

Pierre delivered this with an unpleasant air of masculine authority
which Jeanne resented in her inmost soul. So she exclaimed rather
curtly:--

"We will not discuss religion, Monsieur Pierre."

The young man looked amazed. He gave the fringe on his deerskin legging
a sharp twitch.

"You are still briery, Mam'selle. And yet you are so beautiful that you
ought to be gentle as well."

"Why do people want to tell me that I am beautiful? Do they not suppose
I can see it?" Jeanne flung out, impatiently.

"Because it is a sweet thing to say what the speaker feels. And beauty
and goodness should go hand in