th its porches on each side shading the line
of windows there. Beside the church, a little at the back, was the
cure's modest house of stone, and at the other hand, under spreading
trees, the graveyard with its rough wooden crosses. And behind these
graves rose the wooded hill that stretched away towards the wilderness.

What a span of life had been theirs who rested here! Their youth,
perchance, had been spent amongst the crooked streets of some French
village, streets lined by red-tiled houses and crossing limpid streams by
quaint bridges. Death had overtaken them beside a monster tawny river of
which their imaginations had not conceived, a river which draws tribute
from the remote places of an unknown land,--a river, indeed, which,
mixing all the waters, seemed to symbolize a coming race which was to
conquer the land by its resistless flow, even as the Mississippi bore
relentlessly towards the sea.

These were my own thoughts as I listened to the tones of the priest as
they came, droningly, out of the door, while Nick was exchanging jokes in
doubtful French with some half-breeds leaning against the palings. Then
we heard benches scraping on the floor, and the congregation began to
file out.

Those who reached the steps gave back, respectfully, and there came an
elderly lady in a sober turban, a black mantilla wrapped tightly about
her shoulders, and I made no doubt that she was Monsieur Gratiot's
mother-in-law, Madame Chouteau, she whom he had jestingly called the
queen regent. I was sure of this when I saw Madame Gratiot behind her.
Madame Chouteau indeed had the face of authority, a high-bridged nose, a
determined chin, a mouth that shut tightly. Madame Gratiot presented us
to her mother, and as she passed on to the gate Madame Chouteau reminded
us that we were to dine with her at two.

After her the congregation, the well-to-do and the poor alike, poured out
of the church and spread in merry groups over the grass: keel boatmen in
tow shirts and party-colored worsted belts, the blacksmith, the
shoemaker, the farmer of a small plot in the common fields in large
cotton pantaloons and light-wove camlet coat, the more favored in
skull-caps, linen small-clothes, cotton stockings, and silver-buckled
shoes,--every man pausing, dipping into his tabatiere, for a word with
his neighbor. The women, too, made a picture strange to our eyes, the
matrons in jacket and petticoat, a Madras handkerchief flung about their
shoulde