--and get a good sound sleep. Got a
cigar? And a light? That's all right. Now, you sleep--yes, don't
bother about the smoke now--just go to sleep and when you wake up, have
your smoke, clear your head, shake yourself and show up at tea-time,
straight and sober as I am! You'd better! Father Rielle's over for
tea. You wouldn't like him to see you like this!"

Poussette collapsed on the improvised balsam couch, but managed to
remark that he would not get up on account of Father Rielle, nor give
him anything good to eat.

"Why, I thought you liked him! Liked his good opinion, anyway!"

"Beeg liar! Beeg rascal! I like you, Mr. Ringfield, when you don'
take away my girl. You leave my bes' girl alone and I like you--first
rate. Bigosh--excuses, I'll just go to sleep--for--while."

Ringfield rose from the ground and sighed. He earned his livelihood
pretty hard when such scenes came into his life. Pastoral slumming,
one might term it, for he had only just laid Poussette respectably to
rest when he encountered Crabbe, lurching dully along the road, and at
the sight of him Poussette's extraordinary remark about his "best girl"
came back. What possible connexion could have suggested itself to
Poussette between the faded sickly creature he called his wife and the
visitor from Ontario? Ringfield thought it not unlikely that Poussette
was confusing him with Crabbe, for to-day was not the first time he had
seen the woman wandering in the proximity of the shack. However,
Crabbe gave him no opportunity for ministerial argument or reasoning,
for as soon as he perceived the other he turned, and straightening in
his walk very considerably, soon disappeared in the forest.

Ringfield was thus thrown on his own resources after all, and in
thinking over the question of the Sunday music, not unnaturally was led
to associate Miss Clairville with it. He did not know her to be
exactly musical, but he gathered that she could sing; at all events,
she was the only person he had met in St. Ignace capable of making
arrangements for a decorous and attractive service, and he resolved to
see her and ask for her co-operation. Thus again he was drawn by
inclination and by a steady march of events along the road that led to
Lac Calvaire. Arrived at the _metairie_ he was told of Pauline's
departure for Montreal, and also that Henry Clairville was confined to
his bed by a severe cold. Some new awkwardness led Ringfield over the
thresho