Afterward the young couple were escorted home.
Rose sat out in the moonlight thinking of the strangeness of it all. How could Marie like it? Mère Gaudrion had said, "Jules will make a good husband, if he is clumsy and not handsome. He will never beat Marie, and now he will settle to work again, and make a good living, since courting days are over."
The child wondered what courting days were. Several strange ideas came into her mind. It was as if it grew suddenly and there were things in the world she would like to know about. Perhaps M. Ralph could tell her. Miladi said she was tiresome when she asked questions, and there was always a headache. Would her head ache when she was grown up? And she stood in curious awe of Madame de Champlain, who would only talk of the saints and martyrs, and repeat prayers. She was very attractive to the children, and gathered them about her, letting them gaze in her little mirror she carried at her belt, as was the fashion in France. They liked the touch of her soft hand on their heads, they were sometimes allowed to press their tawny cheeks against it. Then she would try to instruct them in the Catechism. They learned the sentences by rote, in an eager sort of way, but she could see the real understanding was lacking.
"It seems an almost hopeless task," she said one day to Père Jamay. "And though the little girls in the convent seemed obtuse, they did understand what devotion was. These children would worship me. When I talk of the blessed Virgin they are fain to press their faces to the hem of my gown, taking it to mean that I am our dear Lady of Sorrows. Neither do they comprehend penance, they suppose they have offended me personally."
"'Tis a curious race that God has allowed to sink to the lowest ebb, that His laborers should work the harder in the vineyard. I do not despair. There will come a glorious day when every soul shall bow the knee to our blessed Lord. The men seem incapable of any true discernment of holy things. But we must not weary in well-doing. Think what a glorious thing it would be to convert this nation to the true faith."
The lady sighed. Many a day she went to her prie-dieu not seven times, but twice that, to pray for their conversion.
"We must win the children. They will grow up with some knowledge and cast aside their superstitions. We must be filled with holy zeal and never weary doing our Master's will."
She had tried to win Rose, as well as some of the more intelligent half-breeds. But prayers were wearisome to the child. And why should you ask the same thing over and over again? Even M. Destournier, she had noticed, did not like to be importuned, and why then the great God, who had all the world to care for, and sent to His creatures what He thought best.
The child looked out on the wide vault so full of stars, and her heart was thrilled with the great mystery. What was the beautiful world beyond that was called heaven? What did they know who had never seen it? The splendor of the great white moon—moving majestically through the blue—touched her with a sort of ecstasy. Was it another world? And how tenderly it seemed to touch the tree tops, silvering the branches and deepening the shadows until they were haunts of darkness. Did not other gods dwell there, as those old people in the islands on the other side of the world dreamed? Over the river hung trailing clouds of misty sheen, there was a musical lapping of the waves, the curious vibration of countless insects—now the shrill cry of some night bird, then such softness again that the world seemed asleep.
"Ma fille, ma fille," and the half-inquiring accent of Wanamee's voice fell on her ear.