The children were playing about. Wenonah looked up from her work and smiled.
"No, children," said Jeanne with a wave of the hand, "I cannot have you now. You may come to-morrow. This afternoon is all mine."
It was a pleasant, grave, fatherly letter. M. St. Armand had found much to do, and presently he would go to England. Laurent was at a school where he should leave him for a year.
"Listen," said Jeanne when they were both seated on the short turf that was half moss, "a grown man at school—is it not funny?" and she laughed gayly.
"But there are young men sent to Quebec and Montreal, and to that southern town, New York. And young women, too. But I hope thou wilt know enough, Jeanne, without all this journeying."
Pani studied her with great perplexity.
"But he wants me to know many things—as if I were a rich girl! I know my English quite well and can read in it. And, Pani, how wonderful that a letter can talk as if one were beside you!"
She read it over and over. Some words she wondered at. The great city with its handsome churches and gardens and walks and palaces, how beautiful it must be! It was remarkable that she had no longing, envious feeling. She was so full of delight there was no room.
They sat still a long while. She patted the thin, brown hand, then laid her soft cheek on it or made a cradle of it for her chin.
"Pani," she said at length, "how splendid it would be to have M. St. Armand for one's father! I have never cared for any girl's father, but M. St. Armand would be gentle and kind. I think, too, he could smooth away all the sort of cobweb things that haunt one's brain and the thoughts you cannot make take any shape but go floating like drifts in the sky, until you are lost in the clouds."