He knew well how to
interpret it."

"Ha! you did not tell me that before, Deborah!" The Bourgeois rose,
excitedly. "Bigot read it all, did he? I hope every letter of it was
branded on his soul as with red-hot iron!"

"Dear master, that is an unchristian saying, and nothing good can come
of it. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!' Our worst enemies are best
left in His hands."

The dame was proceeding in a still more moralizing strain, when a noise
arose in the street from a crowd of persons, habitans for the most part,
congregated round the house. The noise increased to such a degree that
they stopped their conversation, and both the dame and the Bourgeois
looked out of the window at the increasing multitude that had gathered
in the street.

The crowd had come to the Rue Buade to see the famous tablet of the
Golden Dog, which was talked of in every seigniory in New France;
still more, perhaps, to see the Bourgeois Philibert himself--the great
merchant who contended for the rights of the habitans, and who would not
yield an inch to the Friponne.

The Bourgeois looked down at the ever-increasing throng,--country people
for the most part, with their wives, with not a few citizens, whom he
could easily distinguish by their dress and manner. The Bourgeois stood
rather withdrawn from the front, so as not to be recognized, for he
hated intensely anything like a demonstration, still less an ovation.
He could hear many loud voices, however, in the crowd, and caught up the
chief topics they discussed with each other.

His eyes rested several times on a wiry, jerking little fellow, whom he
recognized as Jean La Marche, the fiddler, a censitaire of the manor of
Tilly. He was a well-known character, and had drawn a large circle of
the crowd around himself.

"I want to see the Bourgeois Philibert!" exclaimed Jean La Marche. "He
is the bravest merchant in New France--the people's friend. Bless the
Golden Dog, and curse the Friponne!"

"Hurrah for the Golden Dog, and curse the Friponne!" exclaimed a score
of voices; "won't you sing, Jean?"

"Not now; I have a new ballad ready on the Golden Dog, which I shall
sing to-night--that is, if you will care to listen to me." Jean said
this with a very demure air of mock modesty, knowing well that the
reception of a new ballad from him would equal the furor for a new aria
from the prima donna of the opera at Paris.

"We will all come to hear it, Jean!" cried they: "but take care of