Gaspard – M’sieu Denys! You are such a stranger and we have missed you much, much,” with an emphasis. “We were not sure but some Quebec belle would capture you and keep you there. You will have warm welcomes. Whose is the child?”
The other children had stopped their play and were edging nearer Renée, who in turn shrank against Denys.
“I have come to talk about the child. May I not come in? Are you busy?”
“With bread and cakes. We are not so poorly off if we have a bad name,” smiling with amusement. “Here is a chair, and a stool for the little one. She looks pale. Is she not well?”
“She has had a long journey. First across the ocean, then from Quebec in not the pleasantest of weather for such a tramp. But she has not been ill a day.”
Denys placed his arm over the child’s shoulder, and she leaned her arms on his knee.
Madame Renaud raised her eyebrows a trifle.
“You remember the daughter of Antoine Freneau?”
“Yes – a little. He took her to Canada and married her to some great person and she died in France. Poor thing! I wonder if she was happy?”
She, too, knew of the gossip that Denys had been very much in love with this girl, and she stole a little furtive glance; but the man’s face was not so ready with confessions. Much hard experience had settled the lines.
“Then the Count married again. He is in the King’s service at the palace. They sent the child over to her grandfather. I went to Canada for her.”
“And this is Renée Freneau’s child. Poor thing!”
She glanced intently at the little girl, who flushed and cast down her eyes. Why was she always a poor thing?
“And that is no home for her.”
“I should think not! Home, indeed, in that old cabin, where men meet to carouse, and strange stories are told,” said madame decisively.
“I am to be her guardian and look after her. I think I shall settle down. I have tramped about enough to satisfy myself for one while. I shall go into trading, and have some one keep a house for me and take care of the child. Meanwhile I must persuade some one to give her shelter and oversight.”
“Yes, yes, m’sieu,” encouragingly.
“And so I have come to you,” looking up, with a bright laugh.
Gaspard Denys very often obtained just what he wanted without much argument. Perhaps it was not so much his way as his good judgment of others.
“And so I have come to you,” he repeated. “If you will take her in a little while, I think she will enjoy being with children. She has had a lonely life thus far.”
“Poor thing! Poor little girl, to lose her mother so soon! And you think old Antoine will make no trouble?”
“Oh, no, no! He would not know what to do with her.”
Madame Renaud laughed derisively, and gave a nod, throwing her head back, which displayed her pretty throat.
“So I shall look after her. He will never interfere. It will not be for long. And how shall I appear putting on fatherly airs?” in a tone of amusement.
“Louis is but two and thirty, and you – ”
“Have just turned thirty,” subjoined Gaspard.
“And little Louis is twelve, stout and sturdy and learning to figure as well as read under the good père. Then there are three others, and papa is as proud of them as was ever any hen with her chicks. I never heard that Chanticleer was a pattern of fatherly devotion.”
They both laughed at that.
“And, Gaspard, you should have settled upon some nice girl at the balls. You have been chosen king times enough.”
He flushed a trifle. “I have been quite a roamer in strange places, and at first had a fancy for a life of adventure. But, as I said, I think of settling down now. And if you will keep the little girl for me until I get a home – ”
“And you want a good housemaid. Gaspard, Mère Lunde has lost her son. True, he was a great burden and care, and she has spent most of her little fortune upon him. I think she would be glad – ”
“The very person. Thank you a thousand times, Madame Renaud. I should want some one settled in her ways, content to stay at home, and with a tender heart. Yes, Mère Lunde will be the very one.
“She was going to the père’s; then his niece came from Michilimackinac. They had bad work at the Mission with the Indians, and she just escaped with her life and her little boy.”
“Yes; I will see her. It is advised that you get the cage before you find the bird; but the bird may be captured elsewhere if you wait too long. The child’s box comes in from St. Charles; they would not stir a step farther last night. I must go and look after it. Then I can send it here? And Louis will not kick it out of doors when he comes?” smiling humorously.
“He will be liker to keep the little one for good and all and let you whistle,” she retorted merrily.
“Thank you a hundred times until you are better paid. And now I must be going. I expect the town will almost look strange.”
“And plain after gay Quebec; and Detroit, they say, has some grand people in it. But, bah, they are English!” with a curl of the lip.
He rose now. Madame Renaud had not been idle, but had rolled out dough fairly brown with spices and cut it in little cakes of various shapes, filling up some baking sheets of tin.
“You will leave the child? Renée – what is her name? It has slipped my mind.”
“Renée de Longueville.”
The child clung to his hand. “I want to go with you,” she said in a tone of entreaty.
“Yes, and see St. Louis? He is her king or was until she touched this Spanish soil.”
“The Spaniards have been very good to us. But we all hope to go back again some day. Renée, will you not stay and play with the children? There is Sophie, about your age or a little older, and Elise – ”
“No,” she returned with a long breath; “I want Uncle Gaspard.”
“Adopted already? Well, you will bring her in to dinner?” with a cordial intonation.
“If not, to supper.”
“You will tire her to death dragging her around.”
“Oh, heaven forefend,” in mock fear.
He paused a moment or two and glanced at Renée, half questioningly, but she still clung to him.
They took their way along the street, but from every corner they had a glimpse of the river, now flowing lazily along. The French seemed to have a fancy for building their towns on the margin of a river. Partly, perhaps, from fear of the Indians, but quite as much from innate sociability, as they preferred compactness, and did not branch out into farms
