tique, as
he and Chamilly, with their guest, were off behind the Manoir, and
standing by the weather-worn Chapel in the hayfields, which served as
the tomb of the first Haviland, "the Protestant Seigneur."

The name "Picault" offered itself so readily to the pun of
"Picotte,"--Small-pox,--that the jest had become almost a usage.

Startled by Zotique's exclamation, Mr Chrysler looked from the
commemorative table on the Chapel's side (whose rivulet of eulogies he
was reading line by line), towards the pine-walk round the Manoir,
whence a distant figure was sauntering towards them along the path,
meditatively smoking a cigar.

"That's a fact," exclaimed Chamilly, straining his eyes towards the
figure; and the three looked at each other in astonishment. "Has he
actually the enterprise to try me again? Or what can he want?"

"I can answer you," the veracious Zotique undertook, "my eyes are
good.--He is smiling fully a second hundred thousand."

"That is courage after what I gave him for the first."

"It is doubtless, then, glory:--say Member of the Council."

"Did I ever tell you of the last time he came to me, and offered not
only that Membership, but finally advanced to the Presidency of it.
Imagine the recklessness of the Province's interests--A President of the
Council at twenty-four years! More than that, if I wished for active
glory, he would give either the local Premiership, or undertake to
combine the French parties at Ottawa, and put me at their head, with a
surety of being Premier of the whole country. And this again for a youth
of twenty-four years!--He tried to flatter me that I was a Pitt or a
Napoleon. And I answered, that no man guilty of such a compact could be
either."

"You will do it without him," replied Zotique, confidently.

Chrysler looked closely at the approaching figure, growing larger and
clearer.

"Where is he Member for?" he asked.

"Member for Hoang-ho _in partibus infidelium_," replied Zotique,
sarcastically.

Picault sauntered up with a smile of unfaltering genial sang-froid,
bowed, removed his cigar, and addressed them.

"Salut, my dear Haviland, salut Messieurs. Oh! my dear Genest, how goes
it?" offering his hand, which Zotique took with a caricature of
extravagant joy and imitation of the other's style:

"My dear Small-pox--pardon me--my dear friend, I am charmed to meet
again a man of so much sense and honor."

"Ah yes, we have fought on many a field, but we respect eac