homestead, and secretly carried the deed back to the original owner.

"I want you keep my part of de deed," he explained. "I not let some more
women rob Honore. My wife, if she get de deed in her han', she might
sell de whole t'ing!"

"Why, no, Jules, she couldn't sell your real estate!" the former owner
declared. "She would only have a life interest in your share."

"You say she couldn't sell it?"

"No. She would have nothing but a life interest."

"She have only life interest? By gar! I t'ink I pay somebody twenty
dollar to kill her!"

But lacking both twenty dollars and determination, he lived peaceably
with Therese until she died a natural death, on that occasion proudly
doing his whole duty as a man and a mourner.

Remembering these affairs, which had not been kept secret from anybody
on the island, Clethera spoke out under conviction.

"Honore, it a scandal' t'ing, to get marry."

"Me, I t'ink so too," assented Honore.

"Jules McCarty have disgrace' his son!"

"Melinda Cree," retorted Honore, obliged to defend his own, "she take a
little 'usban' honly nineteen."

"She 'ave no chance like Jules; she is oblige' to wait and take what
invite her."

The voices of children from other quarter-breed cottages, playing along
the beach, added cheer to the sweet darkness. Clethera and Honore
sat silently enjoying each other's company, unconscious that their
aboriginal forefathers had courted in that manner, sitting under arbors
of branches.

"Why do peop' want to get marry?" propound ed Clethera.

"I don't know," said Honore.

"Me, if some man hask me, I box his ear! I have know you all my
life--but don' you never hask me to get marry!"

"I not such a fool," heartily responded Honore. "You and me, we have
seen de folly. I not form de habit, like Jules."

"But what we do, Honore, to keep dat Jules and dat Melinda apart?"

Though they discussed many plans, the sequel showed that nothing
effectual could be done. All their traditions and instincts were
against making themselves disagreeable or showing discourtesy to their
elders. The young man's French and Irish and Chippewa blood, and
the young girl's French and Cree blood exhausted all their inherited
diplomacy. But as steadily as the waters set like a strong tide through
the strait, in spite of wind which combed them to ridging foam, the
rapid courtship of age went on.

In carrying laundered clothing through the village street, Melinda Cree
was care