he say it is better
than poor Therese could make," Honore added, handsomely, with large
unsuspicion.

Clethera shook a finger in his face.

"Honore McCarty, you got watch dat Jules! I got to watch Melinda. Simon
Leslie, he have come by and put it in Jules' head since de funer'l! I
hear it, me."

The young man's face changed through the dusk.

He braced his back against the fence and breathed the deep sigh of tried
patience.

"Honore, how many mothers is it you have already?"

"I have not count'," said the young man, testily.

"Count dem mothers," ordered Clethera.

"Maman," he began the enumeration, reverently. His companion allowed him
a minute's silence after the mention of that fine woman.

"One," she tallied.

"Nex'," proceeded Honore, "poor Jules is involve' with de Chippewa
woman."

"Two," clinched Clethera.

The Chippewa squaw was a sore theme. She had entered Jules's wigwam in
good faith; but during one of his merry carouses, while both Honore and
the priest were absent, he traded her off to a North Shore man for a
horse. Long after she tramped away across the frozen strait with her
new possessor, and all trace of her was lost, Jules had the grace to be
shamefaced about the scandal; but he got a good bargain in the horse.

"Then there is Lavelotte's widow," continued Honore.

"Three," marked Clethera.

Yes, there was Lavelotte's widow, the worst of all. She whipped little
Jules unmercifully, and if Honore had not taken his part and stood
before him, she might have ended by being Jules's widow. She stripped
him of his whole fortune, four hundred dollars, when he finally obtained
a separation from her. But instead of curing him, this experience only
whetted his zest for another wife.

"And there is Therese." Honore did not say, "Last, Therese." While Jules
lived and his wives died, or were traded off or divorced, there would be
no last.

"It is four," declared Clethera; and the count was true. Honore had
taken Jules in hand like a father, after the adventure with Lavelotte's
widow. He made his parent work hard at the boat, and in winter walked
him to and from mass literally with hand on collar. He encouraged the
little man, moreover, with a half interest in their house on the beach,
which long-accumulated earnings of the boat paid for. But all this care
was thrown away; though after Jules brought Therese home, and saw that
Honore was not appeased by a woman's cooking, he had qualms about the